Guest i think often times the conventional wisdom is wrong, and the conventional wisdom in money and politics you essentially have good intentioned government officials who who are being influenced or attempts to influence them by corporations or public unions and if we can only figure out a way to seal off essentially these Public Officials from this outside influences, everything would be great and so i call this the Jimmy Stewart mr. Smith goes to washington scenario. And certainly that does happen. You have wellintentioned politicians being tempted by outside forces. But my experience over the last 20 years or so in washington politics researching and writing, more often than not the opposite is true. You have a lot of corporations, other lot of entities that essentially want to be left alone by the federal government, and you have politicians or people in the executive branch who are looking for ways in which to enhance their services or the needs to get corporations involved. The hightech industry is a classic example. If you looked back 15, 20 Years Companies like google or microsoft had very small lobbying presence in the United States. It as essential they were dog what they were doing. You had a series of actions taken by congress, people from both Political Parties that forced the Tech Companies to set up lobby operations. So my view is that often times what happens in washington dc has less to do with bribery and more to do with extortion. Host does the money follow political figures who have a certain core set of beliefs . And not being viewed as bribery or even extortions action you put it. Guest sometimes it does. You can find instances where a politician that ai lined with a particular cause or policy view is getting large sums of money from a certain industry, but people would be surprised if you look at a lot of major u. S. Corporations, they tend to give to people right down the middle politically so you will fine that the oil and gas industry, for example they will give to democrats who perhaps are not predisposed to support their position. The money often times acts as a means of access or a gateway and i had examples that i cite in the book from executives from shell eye and others that literally talk about being at a meeting where members of congress were lambasting them for high gasoline prices and one called for the potential nationalization of the u. S. Oil companies. But after that meeting that very same elected official asked this executive if they might consider organizing a fundraiser for them. If youre an executive and you just heard this sort of veiled threat that maybe we should try to national isize you guys and then theres an attempt to say could you raise money for me, its hard not to see that as some sort of extortive practice. Host you say quote we want to believe that Committee Assignments are based on knowledge, expertise and backgrounds, but a member of congress will end up on a powerful committee, i can ways and means only if he or she can raise the money the more powerful the air signment, the moreman expected to distract from the Industries Industries they oversite of regulation. Guest this is a shocking thing that make i was naive about. I assumed a member of come is elected, maybe their a distinguished attorney so they end up on the Judiciary Committee, or served in the military so theyre on armeds services. The shocking reality is they have a system that they loosely call party dues, and party dues basely functions as price list. If you want to be on a socalled a committee and a committee is deemed to be powerful committee from which you can raise a lot of money house ways and means House Financial Services committee, which has oversight of wall street and the banks. Those are a. Committees. You have to raise somewhere on the order of half a Million Dollars in election cycle not for your own reelection but to actually go the Party Committee of your party whether its the republican or Democratic Congressional committee. And if you dont raise that money, there will be threats and if you continue to not raise the money you could be booted from the committee and put on a c. Committee one that you really cant raise a lot of money from, and so people dont tend to want to be on them. For example the veterans committee, which we would all deem as important work in making sure the veterans are taken care of and their needs. Thats considered a c. Committee because apparently the able too extract money from veterans is not deemed great. The sad reality is that Committee Assignments in washington, dc are determined by this price list, and your ability to raise money and if you dont raise sufficient fund for your committee you will be removed and put on a lower or considered lesser committee. Host among the many books you have written several on Ronald Reagan. Did you ever meet him . Guest i did. I met him after the left the white house in 1994. At his office in los angeles. I think sort of looking back, certainly saw a little bit of the forgetfulness that came with age or alzheimers but we had a 30minute meeting. Actually came as a result of a book id written on reagan and the cold war called victory. Host what was your impression of them . Even though he had stages alzheimers. Guest he certainly had presence. I have met other current president s and corresponded with former president s. He certainly had presence. He was very engaging. He certainly still had a understanding of, i think the core issues. Reagans always struck me as somebody who had a sense or an understanding of a few very, very important things. I cite in one book i wrote on reagan where he talks about foxes and hedgehawks and he talks about the way people think, that you have foxes who know a lot about a lot of things. You could look at somebody like, say, Richard Nixon or bill clinton, and say they are foxes. They understand the minutia of a lot of issues. So you have fox on the one hand, the hem hoggs on the other. Hedge hoggs are people who know about a few very, very important things profoundly important things. So i would put, for example Ronald Reagan as a hedge hog. He was not a technocrat, not a detailed guy but he understood human freedom he understood human schooling when it came to freedom and that made all the difference for the world and the type of leader he was. Host one significant moment in his second term was his meeting with Mick Kell Gorbachev in like vic. Guest the meeting was to come to an arms controlled agreement. Possibly seeking the elimination of Nuclear Weapons which had been a concern of Ronald Reagans for a while. A lot of people fail to recognize he had profound moral concerns about Nuclear Weapons so he was prepared to potentially come to some sort of agreement on the eventual limits limits and elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The problem is that gorbachevs real going was to end the u. S. Strategic defense initiative, sometimes called star wars and that became very apparent when you look at even though russian transcripts of the meetings that was really gorbachevs objective, and reagan was not prepared to give that up because he couldnt understand why if the concern was about Nuclear Weapons capability, why gorbachev would wont to get rid of a weapons system that would prevent ostensibly Nuclear Weapons from being used against civilian populations. Host at the very beginning of your book, reagans war you say the following reagan is impossible to understand outside his 40 year battle with communism, struggle that consumed more of his attention annie other endeavor and touch the very center of his life. It cost him his first marriage, brought him his second wife, damaged his relationship with his children, brought on death threats, sitting up and night guarding with hissed kids and a 32 caliber pistol, three assassination attempts, one fourth deranged assassin took him an inch from death, Ronald Reagan came to believe his life had been spared by god for a define purpose defeating communism. Guest this is a really interesting turning point in reagans a. Reagan in the 1940s is a labor lead are the Screen Actors Guild was a harry truman democrat. Voted for fdr four times. Guest exactly. The real turning point or Tipping Point for reagan when it came to political philosophy had less to do with tax rates and other issues, although they did influence him. It had to do more with this violent strike that occurred where there were elements within the Screen Actors Guild who were supportive of the communist party, members of the communest party, and these individual had a very, very violent strike, and reagan wanted to reason with them and was shocked to the extent that they were willing to use violence to expand their agenda. And i think that had a profound effect that shook him to his core and led him to become the profound anticommunist he was. The profound anticommunist that really did transform the cold war in a fundamental way. Host this book grinning with the gipper is a fun book. I want to ask you about his upbringing. He grew up in a very troubled household but had a sense of humor. Guest he did grow up a in troubled household. Loved his mar very much. Hays father hat a dripping problem, had times when he was not employed. The way that Ronald Reagan debt with that by becoming a man of strong conviction and with sort of a light touch and by that i mean he used humor in a way to lighten the moment but in a sense to convey setter truths. We talked about the relationship between reagan and gorbachev. Reagan would tell gorbachev jokes about communism and the ludicrousy of the problems you had in the soviet system. And gorbachev would laugh and it was a moment of lightheartedness but those jokes had certain truths i think were designed to convey reagans views about communism. Host in the very beginning stages of the 2016 campaign but certainly jeb bush is front and center and your book pie the bushes portrait of a dynasty. I want to share part of what you said. You say for the bushes, blood runs thicker than politics or pattronnage. John adams called it family spirit desire to promote the essence of our families. For the bush its the idea deeply ingrained from our youth longtime Family Friends know they possess a strong tribal sense, dynastic instink that drives them. I you talk to other candidate martin omalley, seeing the presidency is not a crown to be passed from one family to another, clear lay reference to the bush family and the clintons. Guest ive said that as well. Anybody that reads the bushes book will see i have admiration for the family. They have other strong sense of civic duty but it is trouble to me we have a circumstance where you have in a sense i would say, bland names now that have taken over american politics. The bushes and the Republican Party, and the clintons and the Democratic Party where there is this sense of this brand representing the future of government. I have a concern about that and a problem with that. I have come to the conclusion that even in the case of Ronald Reagan who somebody i have enormous respect for nobody in american politics irs replaceable. The notion that people would have in the democratic part right now that Hillary Clinton is the only democrat that can govern us, the only one that can win, and likewise republicans saying that about the bushes. I dont think American History bears that out. History bears out the unexpected the potential for people that look like perhaps ordinary leaders to be great leaders during times of crisis, so i think the reliance that we have of, we have to go back to another to a family, yet again, for another leader, just strikes me as something that is not particularly american. Im not saying theyre antiamerican but im saying the american etoethought is about new blood and new leader. Host we remember in 2000, the campaign and the historyic bush v. Gore litigation and if you read between the lines on the picture you have the mother that is looking over looking on carefully and then george w. Bush almost reading his mind saying what is happening tonight . Yes, yes. Its an amazing drama and what is interesting about the family, one of the things i respect about the family, is that sense of loyalty that transcends politics. They have an amazing ability to convey loyalty but also to have an innate competitiveness within the family, has made them so successful as a political dynasty thats very different. I draw contrast in the book between the kennedy dynasty which i think was more topdown, you had joe kennedy calling the shots, as long as he was able to and directing the careers steering the careers of jfk and ted and bobby with the bushes its more bottomup. The sense and expectation youre a bush, and you are expected to in a essence contribute to American Public life in one way or another and theres a competitiveness between them. So while the brothers love each other very much, theres also a fierce competitiveness to be the one that extend the Family Dynasty or extends the family brand as it were, more than the others and its a unique and i think very effective model as far as dynasties go. Host in fact jeb was the one that was supposed to win in 1994. Guest very, very interesting how that got worked out. Going back now these decades ago, jeb was running for governor in 1994 and everybody in the familiar hill knew he was going to run they expected him to run and they thought he was going to win because he really is a policy guy. A guy that eats and breathes policy and understands it very well. He is the one that, when george h. W. Bush was running for president , was running for congress was involved and engaged in the campaigns in a way that george w. Never was and yet that same year in 1994, george w. Is running for governor in texas against ann richards who was a very, very charismatic campaigner, governor of texas. So when i interview family members and ask them in 94 what did you think was going to happen to a person they all said jebs going to win george w. Is not going to win. A little more of a hot head, not as polished at jeb. The opposite happened so it totally changed the dynamics within the family. It led jeb to a lot of soul searching because the think everybody expected him to win and the didnt, and i think it led to george w. Being recognized within the family in a way as a having political smarts that maybe had not been appreciated before. Host the selection of George Herbert walker bush as Ronald Reagans running mate, decision made let in the process by todays standers. Had gone through the whole ford presidency, walk usually to the decisionmaking process and how significant that was and then the relationship over the years between Ronald Reagan and George Herbert walker bush. Guest thats a great question. A lot of times now in recent political elections the tendency is to pick somebody on the outside for your Vice President ial running mate who maybe wasnt running against you but is going to add something in terms of the state theyre from or the demographics where theyre from in 1980 it was unusual because reagan won the nomination, george h. W. Bush was the runner up, and george h. W. Bucks was the selection and became the selection after this internal debate within the reagan camp and essentially rested on really two things. Number one that george h. W. Bush had a lot of knowledge. He had served as cia director, u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. , he had served as envoy in beijing china. So he had the expertise. More importantly than that they recognized that george h. W. Bush had the temperment of being a team player. He would not try to grab glory you for himself so those were the two qualities that led him to be the choice. That choice was not without dissension. But i think it ended up being an excellent choice and i think they had a very good relationship. They were not close. They were not pals. These were very, very different people. People forget that culturally they came from very, very different backgrounds. Politically, they had differences. Reagan in a way was the antiestablishment republican, potentially looked at running in 68 against nixon ran against ford in 76 and nearly lost. He was the antiestablishment republican. George h. W. Bush was the consummate republican, having served as chairman of the Republican Party itself itch wouldnt say they were close but i think they worked well together and there was a Mutual Respect on both parts which is a key ingredient, and they had different strengths. George h. W. Bush is not the orator not the visionary that reagan was. On the other hand, george h. W. Bush in other words the maybe cappics of government and how things worked. Host you get a sense of how different the Republican Party is today versus 1976, when gerald ford selected bob dole, when reagan, many people forget, selected as republican a pennsylvania senator to be his running made mate, was his hhs secretary but that has changed the party itself. Guest its been very interesting to see both Political Parties undergo this transformation in the case of the Republican Party its has become more activest, lets establishment, and i think there are number of currents that run through that. Part of that is geographical. Used to be the main stay of the republican part was a state like pennsylvania, which republicans dominated for generations. Not so much anymore. In new england states, of course prescott bush, george w. Bushs father. Republican senator from connecticut, rare when you see republicans having statewide offices in some of the new england states, and so the party migrated south and it migrated west. Thats contributed to it. You also i think have the rise of the activist wing of the party. You have, of course, the pea tater strain and even before the tea party became involved you had consecutives that reagan nourished who are not part of the republican par establishment but a became part of it. They million precinct chairman and committee members. So this is a more conservative party than it was 30 years ago and i would say probably within the Democratic Party its more liberal than it was 30 years ago. Host lets talk bat couple of other books disney the mouse, the trade, greed, corruption and children at risk. When did this come out . Guest 1998. 17 years ago. I moved to florida in 1994 and became very interested in sort of disney and what it went to florida. This book was an expo say on how disney functioned and some of the problems that existed at disney. What im particularly proud about this book is two things that we sort of highlighted that disney was involved in that we felt the way that disney conveyed itself publicly was inconsistent. The first one is that we pointed out that disney had found that there was profits to be made in the online or im sorry the hotel porn business, and disney was an investor in a company that did that. The second thing that we showed was that disney had a problem they war not doing criminal background checks on hires and you had people with long rap sheets for a variety of offenses, including pedophiles, that were seeking to work at disney and bus they did no criminal background checks there were people that were working there that had long rap sheets. As a result of the book they sold their interest in that company and started doing criminal background checks. So those are the things i was particularly proud of in that book. Host you worked with casper weinberger. Served in the Reagan Administration as defense secretary. Used to call hi casp the knife. How did your relationship evolve and why his collaboration on these books. Guest i met cap weinberger the first time in 1991 and got to know him more in 1993 when i work on my book victory. He was a well man. No question, very hawkish on Foreign Policy people profoundly disagreed with him on that. I didnt. But you found even people that disagreed with cap politically saw him for the gentleman that he was and the genuine person that he was that had these strong convictions. So i worked on victory. He gave me a lot of interviews for the book, and as a result of that we collaborated on a book called the next war which was a series h series of war game scenarios. We werent saying this is what is going to happen, but as cap talked about, they often times did war games to look at u. S. Capabilities and see how well we would deal with certain threats on a large continuum. So the next war was a series of novelized threats we talked about some. Were sort of voss, middle east crisis delving of Nuclear Weapons. Some were perhaps more surprising. We have a scenario where the government of mexico collapses and you literally have tens of millions of refugees over the course of two months streaming across the border, in obviously a humanitarian crisis and trying to figure out how that scenario might be dealt with. The thing about cap he was generous with his time. He took me under his wing. I was a young writer. Was very encouraging and very supportive, and i will forever be grateful for him and just the way that he worked with me and dealt with me. Host one part of the book war can occur in many different ways but the worst one usually happens because one power believes it can advance its objectives without a war or with limited war that can quickly win and consequentially miscalculates both psychologically and the cold steel, therefore always makes it part of the play in the rounded and coherent security policy. That was the introduction by market thatch ever Margaret Thatcher. Guest that is an important point to make, particularly in the current political environment, the debate about Foreign Policy, the roll of the United States. When people look at cap weinberger they look at he built up this large military. He was reluctant to use mariners. He only usedded when the first felt that under of fundmental National Security interests wore at stake. American lives were at stake and there was a Clear Pathway to victory. He felt one of the problems with vietnam, one of the many problems with vietnam was we didnt go into the war saying, okay here is what were going to do, heres the objective heres how were going to accomplish it. We kind of stumbled into it and continued adding forces with no clear plan for victory to say heres how were going to try to achieve victory. So cap was a reluctant user of force, and one of the reasons we wrote that book was presillsly to highlight precisely to highlight the way you prevent war is by being militarily strong. When an adversary perceive weakness or unwillingness to use force that the prospects of war i think become much greater. Host use of the word miscalculation iraq, vietnam afghanistan, were those miscalculations . Guest i would probably classify them slightly differently. There certainly were miscalculations related to iraq and afghanistan and the discussion execution of the wars. The the case of iraq you had the initial shock and awe that achieved military victory. Certainly been a lot of debate about this. The mistake was we sort of let the army melt away, a lot of those ended up becoming insurgents and fueling this amazing cycle of violence we had to deal with in iraq. But i do think that in iraq you had of the miscalculation about what would happen to the exiraqi forces and the fissures within the country you had a pathway to stability and we did largely achieve that in 20082009. I think with the u. S. Withdrawal of forces there obviously the future is far more precarious. I think the challenge with vietnam we learned a lot from vietnam is the entire assumption behind military operations was not heres how were going to defeat the enemy. For lbj and to a certain extent even before that, by jfk the use of military force was simply a means to try to condition the enemy to come to the negotiating table. So you have these stories that have been written by a variety of historians where lbj would sit down and plot what were going to bomb, when, and how and it was all predicated on applying enough pressure to bring the viet cong or the north vietnamese government to the negotiating table. One of the lesson we learned is you cannot have as your end gain well negotiate a settlement. You have to have as your end game military victory. Now if a negotiation opportunity arises on your pathway to victory, maybe you take it if you make sense but the underlying strategic goal needs to be military victory. We have learned that, and but of course we have to relearn these ever generation unfortunately. Host the first sunday of every month on bob tv we go in depth with leading authors and our guest this sunday is Peter Schweizer. Our phone lines are up, 202748 8200 in eastern or central time zone and pacific 202748201 and follow us on twitter at booktv, and send us an email at book of cspan2. Org. Lets talk about clinton cash. I want to get your response to this saying no one produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the doctors no donors to the Clinton Foundation. Guest i reject that. The if the standard is we have to prove in the form of an email or a recorded telephone conversation somebody saying give me this money and i will do that in exchange, that is a standard that nobody can live to. I think what you can look at is a pattern of behavior, and we do this all the time, bill the way not just as it regards to clintons but regards to political scandals that are on the horizon. The question is do you see a pattern of behavior in which money flows in favorable action results, and if you look at some of the recent cases of political corruption whether thats governor mcdonald in virginia, who is serving jail time because gifts were exchanged, gifts that i guess were legal in the context of virginia law but they were favorable actions he took as a result. He actually has gone to jail on those charges. You have senator menendez in new jersey. Theres no smoking gun, quid pro quo per se where they have an email or a phone conversation that talks about such an exchanges, and yet he is facing prosecution. You had a governor down in alabama, who is in jail, on similar challenges. So the struggle that ive had and the problem ive had with the clinton response is they seem to be creating a standard for the clintons which is totally and wholly unrelated to the standard we hold any other politician to. And i would dare say if you had an american secretary of defense who was considering a matter before them, and he had a Family Foundation that received 145 million from that company that had the matter before him and he took action that war favorable to that company, it would at least warrant some investigation by government officials, and yet that and other examples occurred with the clintons and the belief, theres nothing to see here. Host they leave copies of the book early before its released. They refuted much of what you said. They pointed out there were errors in the book and created a webs correct the record. Org. Did you expect that . Guest i didnt else and ther fer ferocity of it. If you read anything about the clintons any public figure, the tendency is to ignore it and expect it to go away. If you look at a lot of the reporting thats come out. Politico and others, they were concerned about the book so i take that as a badge of pride. Not in the sense that i want to create anxiety but i want to reveal the truth and i think they were concerned about the fact that there is detail in this book, its not done in an overheated way and i think the fact patterns are very, very compelling. Anytime you write a book like this where youre dealing with literally hundreds of transactions, there are going to be slight errors, and there are some slight errors in the book. We had a couple of speeches that occurred in 2011 that we had listed in 2010 but much of that undermines the fundamentals of the book, and information in the book was confirmed. The Uranium Nuclear deal, which is two chapters. The New York Times did a story confirming the find office the book the Clinton Campaign has not refuted any of that except to say theres nothing too see here. We had similar things occur with Washington Post and abc news and others. So i feel very, very good about where the book is, and im heartened by the fact i see a lot of journalistic outlets taking this sort of frame of looking at the money going to the Clinton Foundation or the money that bill clinton has collected in speaking fees, and seeing it as potentially a transactional business model. Host your publisher said it was a wellresearched book, yet all of the research youve did George Stephanopoulos name did not come up in your research. He admitted to contributing 75,000 to the foundation. And the first interview you did was on abc with George Stephanopoulos. Guest youre right. I knew he would be aggressive, bum i got a lot of aggressive questioning, Chris Wallace was very tough. Andrea mitchell was very tough. Frank sees know at cnn, so i dont mind tough questions. The problem i had with stephanopoulos was the interview that he conducted had the audience known and had i nope he was an active Clinton Foundation donor and that he had appeared at that least seven Clinton Foundation events in recent years, clearly he has a connection in some sort of affinity for this organization. Think the interview would have been seen in a very, very different context. What he essentially did in the interview youre right the very first one he tried to frame it as can i had not proved any criminal misconduct so is there anything to see in to me thats a ridiculous standard. That is certainly not the standard at abc news. Its not as if they dont do political reporting. They only do political arrest they can show a crime has occurred. So to me it was very troubling that he was trying to frame it in this way and we never really in the interview talked about the context of the book and what the specific cases were in the book. Host i watched the interview a few days ago. Did you ever get the sense he talked to Clinton Campaign advisers before he sat down to talk with youve, and used information from them to frame the yes towards you . Guest i dont know for a fact he did that, but what his position was was extremely consistent with the position that the campaign adopted, which is theres no evidence that a crime has been committed here. Youre simply saying that this happened and that happened and assuming theyre connected. What we tried to show in the book was a pattern of behave and thats what people want to look at in the flow of money. Follow the money see if money curries some favor for some individuals, and what is particularly troubling in the clip top case, i think is the amount of money and the fact that were talking about foreign entities. These are not u. S. Corporations and u. S. Financial years financeers, theyre foreign agencies and had a profound influence on u. S. Foreign policy while she was secretary of state. Host as a leading an core for abc news, can George Stephanopoulos sid down with Hillary Clinton as a candidate or president and be fair and objective. Guest no. He was a panelist, was a participant in Clinton Foundation events. Presumably you only do that if its an organization you believe in. If i were to do an event for the red cross i would do that because i believe the red cross is a Good Organization and i believe in their mission. To me, overall knopp plows George Stephanopoulos is compromised when it comes to doing any interview with the Clintons Clintons and with republican candidates for president s. Anything involving the 2016 election in my mind would be suspect, given the entangling ties and relationships he still has with the christian tops. Host he would argue he gave the money because of the work of the foundation, aids, haiti, and white he gave them the contribution. Guest he would argue that. The problem is this ills a very politically connected charity. If he were interested in helping haiti or deal being aids there are numerous organizations out there that are not connected to people who are running for president of the United States. He could have easily given it to them, and if you look at the Clinton Foundation model they actually dont do handson work with people that are struggling with aids in africa. They partner with other organizations. So even from the standpoint of effectiveness, if that was his goal do what he could do most effectively, there other organizations he could have given to that are not connected to a president ial candidate. Host he worked the clintons during the campaign, he wrote a book very critical of clinton. Why dithird contribute to the foundation sunny dont know the full answer, and when i sat down for the interview we didnt know about the contributions at that time. I kind of assumed that his connection to the clintons were a previous chapter in his life and i was prepared to give him the bin fit of the doubt. Timorous certain is an example tim russert, for example. It is hard to speculate why people make decisions they do but clearly he had an affinity for them. Its not for me just about the 75,000, which certainly is a lot of more. To George Stephanopoulos, probably not a huge amount. But its the time. The fact he is taking to much of his time good to clinton events, to judge a contest sitting next to Chelsea Clinton speaks to a chummy unless that is not appropriate for somebody who has declared themselves to be a journalist and anchor of a Major Television network. Host a lot more to talk about including your upcomping book but lets be get to the phone calls david from florida good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, and its s aexplained to peter on other occasions its hobe sound florida, but lets leave that alone. Id like to make the observation that this interview is the first time ive seen mr. Schweizer on television since the week after the book was published. Its amazing how theres a media blackout on the book, which and on mr. Schweizer because if there is someone who could explain to the public the danger of this conflict of interest between the donors to the foundation and american politics and the corruption of american politics its mr. Schweizer and he should be on more Media Outlets than merely cspan. Have a good day peter. Host david, thank you for the call, from hobe sound florida. Guest thank you, david. It has been interesting there has been Media Coverage when the book came out. I continued to do some media on fox news, but ive been really surprised, frankly by, for example, cnn. I did an interview on cnn on their media Sources Program on sunday related to the case of George Stephanopoulos. Really has not been anything else that has been done. I did a tenpart series with cnn as it related to extortion and throw them all out, but when it came just specifically to the subject of the clintons ive been disappointed how some major news outlets handled the reporting and the lack of interest it in. There have been others i have been very, very surprised and encouraged by, as i said the New York Times did a front page, 4,000 word article confirming the findings on the uranium story. The Washington Post has been fair in the way theyve characterized a lot of the reporting. But, yes in the Mainstream Media particularly the television networks, its really been quite shocking. Host from kelly in california, james is next. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. My comment really is regarding abc news and its become such a travesty of what news is supposed to be. Kind of the disney version of news and im not sure we expect anything from george testify stephanopoulos. He has sold out. Its consistent with your saying that mr. Stephanopoulos, his connection with the Clinton Foundation and all of that, its part and parcel of to my mind, the whole degrading of American News in general but certainly abc has gone a long way toward the bottom. In network news these days. Thank you. Host thank you james. Guest the caller brings up a couple of points i agree with. One is a lot of news and the question of how superficial is it does it 0 go bee detail, focus on the issues that are important . We have a president ial election coming up, we have Political Races in 2016, it does seem to me the media gets preoccupied with the horse race aspect of the story much more interested in how things are playing rather than what policy prescriptions are that candidates are coming up with, and i think he is right as well that the stephanopoulos case is a particularly egregious one. Ive mentioned this to several other people. Brian williams, the nbc news anchor actually went through the situation where he was exaggerating some of his experiences, which obviously i dont think is a good thing but as i explained to people, what brian will williams did was going on shows lice letterman and exaggerating his experiences and you can fault him for that. In the case of George Stephanopoulos youre talking about the very product the news product itself. Were not talking about going on a talk show and talking about an experience. Youre talking about the news product itself, and if anything people want to have the sense that the people that are delivering their news have as few entangling relationships as possible with the people they are reporting on, and if they do have those entangling relationships, theyre disclosed. And in the case of stephanopoulos, that was not done, and thats why i think it was a particularly egregious example, and for life of me its shocking that Brian Williams has faced the sanction he faced from nbc, and abc has done nothing as it relates to George Stephanopoulos. He has gone on his merry way. To me its just a shocking and stunning display of a lack of interest in even appearing to be without bias or without an agenda. Host i realize this is hypothetical but your the head of nbc news. Would you put Brian Williams back on nightly news, knowing what you know. Guest thats a tough question. I certainly think that sanctions were required because he was talking in a way about things that he was doing in the news. I think unless there were if there were explicit examples i havent followed ill closely enough. If there were explicit examples during a news broadcast when there was an exaggeration, i would probably ban him from the nightly news. If we are talking soley about cases where he is going and talking on a College Campus and he is maybe slightly exaggerating one of his war experiences i dont think it would warrant the kind of ban he is faced from nbc. Host one thing you found interesting in researching your books . First, friendly spies how americas allies are using economic espionage steal our seek credit. Guest that large burkecracys bureaucracies, in this case spy agencies seek to reinvent themselves in bay that maintains their power. This is a book published right after the cold ware, saying a lot of the spy pratts apparatus that had been built it user during the cold war, a the cold war were being rejiggered, spy on the United States for economic benefits. Host a year later youve came out with vic victory the Reagan Administrations strategy that hastens the collapse of the soviet union. Guest my lesson is that bold actions taken by bold people can transform history. What i argue is that the collapse of the soviet union was not inevitable when it occurred. It occurred because of very aggressive policies and actions taken by the Reagan Administration particularly by Ronald Reagan himself but also cia director bill casey and secretary of defense casper weinberger. Host do as i say not as i do profiles in liberal hypocrisy. Guest the lesson there is that most people, regardless of their own are of their stated political philosophy or ideology most people live their lives as conservatives and the contention in the book is essentially that when you oak at people like Michael Moore or bill clinton or others, they function often times in a way that is to their benefit and so they live their private lives as conservatives because they find it much more helple for their children and their own lives. Host the longest subtitle ive even in the book makers and takers. Why conservatives work harder, feel happier have closer families take fewer drugs give more generously, value honesty more and even hug their children more than liberals. Guest this is sort of a mischeesous mischievous book there hat been a series of books, a professor at can c berk live who argued that to understand consecutives you have to understand theyre psychologically flawed. They grew up in homes where there was Corporal Punishment that took place that their parents werent very affectionate with them. A whole host of psychological explanations that were given as to why people that were conservative, and i really took offense to that. I think that people are not preprogrammed to have certain political beliefs. I think its a market place and people embrace certain ideas and philosophies because they find them attractive, and the point i was trying to make in this book is ideas do influence the way in which we live our lives. One of the example is found was that people who are hostile to capitalism and believe that the capitalist system is rigged dont tend to have the same work ethic as people who dont do things that way. That may seem common sense but to me thats an example of how ideas and beliefs influence the way in a very practical way in which we live their lives. So i conclude the book by saying that ideas have consequences, but hopefully we can get past this game of trying to say that one side or the other is psychologically flawed or that these are terrible people and these are good people, and recognize that its rally ideas that animate the way in which people live our lives and we should focus the debate on ideas rather than people. Host we lets go to mike in north carolina. Good afternoon. Caller thanks, cspan, for taking my call, and thanks, mr. Schweizer, for entertaining my question. Every time i call in i never can compose my thoughts good enough to get across the one paint i want to make, but i know you cant answer the question but its been playing around in my mind for a long time. Why in a country as large and tie verse and rich and prosperous as america canned we find someone beside the clintons or the bushes to run as president and are we really free when our nominees are bought and paid for and the money stacked against them. I sigh the popularity oft bernie and all the popularity of the other candidates but it gets right down the fact were not really free and can i ask one onemer question host mike, lets get a response to the first question and well follow up. Guest the question the caller asked about why cant we find somebody other than a clinton or a bush . I think a question a lot of people have asked. When you look at the two party establishments, the democrats and the republicans theyre in a sense playing it safe by going with these candidates. The notion if you are the Democratic Party and you are an activist and you want a democrat in the white house in 2016 is we need to pick somebody that we think is going to be a safe and sure bet. Hillary clinton has been in the public life for a long time. We know what the warts are we know whats out there. And sew a safe bet is to go with Hillary Clinton. Plus the fact that the clinton political machine is the machine that democrats that dominates the Democratic Party. Their ability to raise money their ability to get activists out in primaries is unmatched within the Democratic Party. Republican party is the same thing. Bush is an established brand. We know who jeb bush is. He was governor of florida. We know what the family is. The family has this political machine, this ability to raise money. So they are the sort of logical or safe choice within the Republican Party. What i would say to the caller and to everyone else out there is if you look to the span of American History it riddled with the corp corpses of save choices. I hear from people this sense of throwing their hand up and saying its rigged, its not going to change. Thats been echoed through American History for decadeses and the fact of the matter is the safe choice is not offer times the one that wins. So i would say to those who dont like the choices of those two or are concerned about dynastic policies in the United States, dont lose heart. Its not predetermined and there are choices out there on either side that can be exercised. Host quick followup from the bushes pork trait of a dynasty. You point out that jeby as he was called, the serious one the thoughtful one and talked about running for president as early as age eight. Guest yes. Yes. Jeb has always been civicminded publicminded and when his father ran for congress ran for the senate in 1970 and lost, when hi father was engaged in Public Service in various appointment it was jeb of the children who took the most keen interest in what his father was doing. He has always had this inclination and its very interesting to speculate going back to 1994, if indeed george w. Bush had lost in texas and jeb had won in florida i think the odds are that jeb would have been probably the nomination in 2000 and would have been president. And then of course you can have speculations out about decisions or choices he might have made differently. Its interesting how one election that perhaps you dont think over the larger span of National History the governor of florida and the governor of texas, that one election could have substantially changed the course of american president ial politics because of this unexpected loss and this unexpected victory. Host or if reagan had chosen somebody else as his running meat. Guest exactly. If reagan picked somebody else, phil crane or somebody else that perhaps was more in down with his political philosophy, thats exactly right. Host mike, lets go back to your followup in north carolina. Thank you for waiting to. Caller thank you very much. You can see the liberal news media, this overwhelmingly in control, and the likes of George Stephanopoulos he plant it the question about abortion the very first thing. He got the debate going against the republicans and he is meshed with the clintons and you take all of you can just go right on down the line, even Cokie Roberts, i thick his a good journalist but theyre all like i cant think of the word. Why are the debates hosted by whoever whelmingly liberal left wing Dianne Sawyer and candy crowley, she helped obamas carried obamas water for them. Why do the liberals take over the debate . Thank you very much. Guest this is a perpetual complaint conservatives have with merit in some cases. I do draw the a distinction Cokie Roberts has not been active in politics so i think thats fine. We should judge them by their body of work. I think again the stephanopoulos case is a unique one and i think certainly it is a question in how much the media influences the political debate to look at what the agenda points are and the sorts of questions they ask when they ask them, and of whom they ask them can have a profound influence on electoral politics. The caller races home and fair questions. Host james from miami florida,. Caller i want to thank you. For your passion and i just some people might think this is an unfounded witch hunt but like benghazi or a conservative attack on the clintons again but my question is why do you think that political adversaries ofllly particularly the 2016 president ial candidates why do you think they havent taken action like legal action, against her based on the accusations in your book . Guest thats a good question. The political opponents running for 2016 on the republican side or democratic side are not themselves in a position to take legal action. Legal action in this area basically comes down to very, very few entities. You have the fbi which can do an investigation. The fbi is under the department of justice so theres that question of political high jinx and whether theyd be willing to do that. The second possibility would be the department of justice itself or u. S. Attorneys in, say new york or elsewhere. Again, this is the Obama Department of justice, so i think its highly unlikely that youll see legal action taken in this area, and i think the third option would be a congressional committee, with subpoena power to ask questions. There was recently senator grassley who is the chair of the Judiciary Committee has written a letter to the attorney general with a series of questions relating to the uranium deal, which was confirmed by the New York Times, the details of which. So i think theres a possibility of those things taking place. But the clintons are if you talk to journalists and ive talked to many of them the clintons are by for the most nasty and most aggressive people to go after. Journalills will tell you if you write a store exposing something related to the bushes or related to other democrats you might get an angry email, you might get a complaint. If you write the same thing relates to clintons you may have half a dozen clinton operatives talking to your editor. And whenever it comes to legal issues, he when it comes to journalism, its its request question of courage. A lot of people have to ask. Thes and calculate, die want to put up with what i have to put up with to go after them on this particular issue because its warranted and i think thus far nobody has demonstrated the courage to do that. Host if you had the ability to ask Hillary Clinton one question what would it be . Guest well, i think the challenge is always asking questions of Public Officials whether youre going to get an honest straightforward answer, and i would say on both sides over the aisle if you ask difficult questions youre not going to get them. What i think is probably most important would be to try to get to the bottom as it relates to the emails. To me theres never really been a straight answer to the question of the emails that were slide, where they are. Its clear now just based on the revelations that have come out that the Sidney Blumenthal emails, emails not given to the state depth that were not of a permanent nature, that were state Department Related and the clintons never turned over to the state department. That was profoundly important question. I wrote and finished clinton cash before the email scandal came out. If you ask me now. The email scandal it works hand and glove with the issues raised in clinton cash. The 30,000 emails erased were released transactions or the requests of Clinton Foundation donors wanting something from the secretary of state. Host one speech, and i want to rephrase what reread what bare re gold water said in 1945, i remind youve that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. One of the most memorable speeches in any Convention Speech ever. Guest yes. Having written speeches before for political figures i probably would have said that slightly different. Think anytime you use the term extremism in a phrase, that immediately becomes the magnet that everybody looks to. I think what gold host did he write that speech . Cincinnati was written with him and speech writers about gold earth was very detailed and intently involved in the speeches he wrote. So no question he was involved in that process. But i think the principle that goldwater is stating is true, when it comes to liberty we have to have a principled standpoint. We cant have a sort of situation where were willing to compromise on the issues of liberty and freedom. The term extremism is probably not the best world, certain live not the word i would have used in that cop text. Host lets go to maplewood new jersey, emanuel. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Host hello. Caller im here, just been taking in the information from some of the responses. To me this is an extreme right can give it is commented mainly done on here and i can assure you this is not my bench. I met the other end of the spent drum. Theres really nothing else i can say. I understand clearly the contents of the book. They are fine. I am not questioning that. If they were questioned i was there thats fine. Im not object into that. When you went over the continuation. I remember distinctly before bill clinton ever became president and from then on theres been an organization to bring in all these cases to the supreme lord and for a Supreme Court concerned, those decisions relating to the Second Amendment and relating to Citizens United. If that hasnt destroyed our country i would like to know what has. I wish you well. Thank you for the call. I would say i am concerned with what the caller said. He said first of all this is a right wing agenda that is trying to move along and the contents of the book may be fine but that is another issue. One of the problems they have in the country becomes easy to throw around a label. What i would challenge the caller to say is that the look at something written by a liberal or conservative, evaluate and whether it is truthful or factual or not. That should have a certain consequence in the way you view the tenure of Hillary Clinton and secretary of state and the transactional nature of what is taking place. I tried to shy away from labels. Sometimes labels are necessary. Liberal or conservative. But i look at a variety of sources or look at the nation and mother jones. Desire to news outlets and i am sort of a limited government conservative. But they have valuable things to say in their streets within those pages from time to time. Theres some interesting things published. I would encourage the caller should not be so quick to assign labels to people and say there may be truth over here but because it is conservative i wont Pay Attention to the truth. Post though post co. Host guest yeah, if you look at the 1990s the economy did fairly well. Theres always debates in any administration how much is congress, how much is the president how much his fundamental changes within the economy. In the 1990s you have it like government. Unique bill clinton and republicans Controlling Congress and the revolution beginning with the internet. Certainly a lot of things bill clinton did that were helpful to the economy. He was in favor of free trade. He dealt with an agreed with republicans related to limiting certain taxes. You can look at what bill clinton did concede there were some beneficial things he did. There they were also troubling thing today. Host and sierra mist arizona. Caller good morning. I am trying to figure out mr. Schweizer, why we should receive your book in the same vein in which vince foster was killed in the white house. It does seem to be a continuation. If im wrong on that assumption, the assumption is based on the history of air and i dont know that youve done enough to separate yourself from bad history to make the implications that you are sort of implying they are criminals again. This is the one reason i dont want to see a clinton because i know we are getting ready to go down this progress path once again. But the creepiness what i dont understand. How do you think we dont see through it . Guest cert might theres a lot of crazy things that have been written about the clintons that i would not agree with. What i ask you to do if you dont want to buy the book and put money in my pocket, go to the library and read clinton cash. There is no cocaine in this book none of these sorts of outlandish charges are in this boat. I look at money that came to the clintons and when the money arrived in what happened in response. Let me give you an example because the basic premise is the clintons enrich themselves through their public position. And they give you one example. Bill clinton has given speeches after he leaves the white house in 2001 after hillarys tenure as secretary of state and does this today. The biggest single payday speech ever comes in 2011. Until this point is average speaking fee is less than 200000 a year. Should become secretary of state. The payments he gets overseas entities paying him hugely inflated prices goes through the roof. Bill clinton has given 13 speeches for which he gets paid half a Million Dollars or more. Of the 1311 occurred while he was secretary of state. The single biggest payday of a 750,000. Ericsson and 2011 was having problems with the state department. All sorts of cables came out in wikileaks. They are upset because ericsson is selling Telecom Equipment for the government of iran. Another thing the state department does not want them to do. They are looking at long extensions to include the technology they are selling to iran. In the middle of all this for the First Time Ever they never paid before besides 750,000 for a single speech. He gives a speech nine days later the state Department Issues a statement that says we are not going to broaden sanctions to include technology. We ask ericsson and other companies to police themselves. You can tell whatever conclusion you want. What i show as dozens of examples like that. The question becomes decide for yourself. Do you think this is a coincidence . They dont dispute the decisions made. They say its all a coincidence. I dont believe they happen not frequently in politics. Over the last dozen years couldnt have been involved at hundreds of transactions with Foreign Investment and Foreign Corporations around the world. There is barely an oligarch, royal family or a foreign investor in trouble with the law not represented. What we did is look at the Clinton Foundation contributors. Those are disclosed because of a wise decision barack obama made as president of the United States. For Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state they were required to release the names of other contributors and do so on an annual basis. They have been a great and remit to the effect. The New York Times had undisclosed multiMillion Dollars donors that were not disclosed. They violated their agreement with president elect obama almost immediately. When he looked down the list are familiar names. General electric, boeing et cetera. When you look overseas you see obscure companies that operate Mining Companies in the democratic republic of congo, guys who were financiers in nigeria to be convicted of crimes at aiding and abetting an enterprise or money laundering. Theres some unlikable people in the clintons are eager to take their money from them. Dont be a question a lot of people would consider. My experience of the book has been conservatives who dont like the clintons have embraced the book but weve also had a lot of progressives who believe the clinton are for sale whove embraced the book because they see the sorts of people they take money from. They have lucrative deals. That should be troublesome not just to a conservative who doesnt like the clintons but somebody who would be concerned about human rights and corruption and other issues. As you know supporters call your book fiction. Has a political hatchet job masquerading and if you failed to outline the many good things the foundation as done in the poorest areas of the world. Host i think the information speaks for health. It is all about transactions and follow the money. I do think the Clinton Foundation has done some good things. It is hard because it is hard to ascertain what the Clinton Foundation does and that is not just me saying that. That is what Charity Groups you can go online and they look at the finances and evaluate that. How effect of our day, how do they spend money. They do not even evaluate the Clinton Foundation because of what they regard as the quote unquote unusual business model. Its hard to ascertain what the Clinton Foundation does. The way in which the structure of, the last internal financial controls the Better Business here and others have taken them for makes it difficult to determine what are those. Host georges next. Limit 10 11 night. Caller good morning. I have a comment and a question. I want to compliment mr. Mr. Schweizer and the gentleman from maplewood, new jersey. I think they were very good answers and accurate. With regard to that question, last fall i saw Richard Vickery who originated direct mailer to campaigning successfully defend certain mr. Short there is a layer stated that he favors a governor. The clear implication was a sitting governor for the republican nomination. He wouldnt reveal who that was clear back last fall. I wonder if mr. Short third who is obviously very informed might be one to speculate who the republican governor is. Guest i certainly would know who he was referring to but i would share his sentiment. If you look at american political history, when we have president s who have executive mix. His background they tend to adjust better and function better as president because they know how government works. If youre a legislature in not saying you cant overcome this. If youve never run a large bureaucracy and youre not used in making executive decisions you have a much larger learning curve. History bears that out. Theres certainly examples that would take them on the head. Abraham lincoln come you dont see a lot of executives there, but he functioned as an extremely high level enormously effective in getting things done. I would share the sentiment. Always be equal. I would favor a governor because theres no substitute for knowing how to run a date and to do so effectively. Host sonia is next. Thanks for watching. Guest the book is about follow the money, follow the power. My hobbies over the years watching conservatives. The washington spec tater february 1st 2004 the top story goes unobserved. How many of the bush family members have lucrative connections to contract was in iraq and my making a lot of money. Take the washington times, a stronghold republican newspaper until he passed away a few years ago. Reverend Sun Myung Moon a rail ltd. Owns the paper and was responsible for brainwashing young people around the world and affording the American Government for hundreds of millions of dollars. Republicans to this day allows for to enrich themselves. Very strange bedfellows they have. Very strange. Guest i cant speak much to the washington times. I look at the newspaper. I dont know what the Ownership Structure is now. The profiteering as related to iraq in others. It is legitimate to look at any of our political leaders since the weather is taking place. Ive come to the belief in conclusion one of the biggest problem we face a selfenrichment by the permanent Political Class that you have a group of people republicans and democrats that have a lot more in common than people realize and they function in this way in which selfenrichment to Public Service has become a very effect means to enriching the families and themselves. Which is the subject of your book throw them all out land deals and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison. In the book you say the following. Permanent Political Class is figured out how to extract wealth based solely on position and proximity to power. If you have a seat at the table youre in for a feast. If you dont youre probably on the menu. Guest is a function of centralized power. One of the reasons found others in so many others whove written about politics are concerned about the concentration of power is the concentration of power in one of the things i talked about in throw them all out was the fact is lott Congressional Staff numbers. This went on in a widespread way. In 2009 when you are debating the affordable character upon the care talking about reform in roughly of the u. S. Economy you have members introducing amendments who were pushing for those in doing so quite lucrative way. There was nothing illegal doing so. Members of the Senate Armed Service committee approving the military budget for the procurement of weapons of who own stock defense contract reason they are trading stocks accordingly. The list from london the statistic of the quantitative economics. They looked at the stock returns of members of the u. S. Congress on the u. S. Senate and compare that with the stock transactions of hedge funds and Corporate Executives and what they found is the average american underperforms the stock market. It beats the market by 5 . The average hedge fund at the time was beating the market of 7 . The study found the senator was getting. Market by 12 . The question became the just the senators are great Financial Investors that to be running hedge fund or do they have access to inside information and trade on the inside information. What i did in the book is similar to what i did in the clinton book as i followed the market. I looked when stock racer made what legislation was before their committee and probably the most stunning case i found and bought the then republican chairman of the House Financial Services committee, Spencer Bachus during the 2008 financial had a closeddoor meeting with the fed chairman in the treasury secretary. Topsecret meeting on capitol hill. A handful of senior politicians required to cell phones at the door because it was joe topsecret. We found out Henry Paulson based on his memoir said he gave an apocalyptic rendering above would have been to the u. S. Economy based on a financial crisis. The next morning Spencer Bachus bought options sure in the u. S. Market. He got something called crocheters ultrashort gt gu that the market would go down and a second time in the book it wasnt much of a bad because the treasury secretary to chairman the night before ended up making substantial amount of money off of the deal host you read about john boehner said he was reading the opposition to the house of representatives. He was entirely alive with him when he came investment decisions. Specifically what are you referring to . Guest im not sure i can render the actual name of the companies. John. And to benefit from the Affordable Care act as john kerry was doing at the same time. My contention based on the experience was not as stark as it was with one day of information in the mind of god i said we should have a requirement that are members of Congress Outgoing trust when it comes to stock investments. I think it makes no sense to our members of congress to actively trade and sell stock at their own free will. Why theyre making decisions in health care, national defense, the economy in general to have a profound effect on the stock prices of companies. The Affordable Care act was a prime example. Host our next caller is from richard. Good afternoon. Caller thank you. Good idea on the blind trust, sir. A question going back to the donation by George Stephanopoulos and to the foundation. I am puzzled on exactly why that is bad because if i donate to a charity, that doesnt discourage me from the challenging charity leaders. I can stop donating anytime i want. He who pays the piper calls the tune. In this case stephanopoulos is the one paid men. He is not under any control. It seems to show if you stretch you might say it means he supports the clintons. Its easy enough to find out what his political views might be because it gives opinions at various times over the years he has. I dont see how entangled him in any negative way. Host precisely the interviewed George Stephanopoulos did was the Clinton Foundation itself. You have an entity that is given 75,000 because he obviously believes its a good thing which is fine. If you are grilling me about my criticisms of the Clinton Foundation, it seems to me you have a basic obligation to say just as a point of clarification reported disclosure on the Clinton Foundation donor. Ive given 75,000 into go on on without her question he wants to do. Thats the concern of problem. Host nexus from tyler, texas. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Im a little nervous here. Im from middle america. A middle class individual. Just going to be retired. I retired after 30 years. What i have seen from local state and federal. Is federal. Just a set of communications for the president s whenever they came in the smith county. Also a set of wiretaps for a federal investigation. What ive seen is all too often im talking about the very grassroots at the bottom of the way to the president of the United States that there is corruption on all sides of the issue. We want america to work. We want our constitution to work. Right now i watch all the news programs and whenever he turned the tv off i go outside, im full of anxiety. Everybody seems to have the side that no one wants to do what is right anymore. Guest i think you bring up a good point. Corruption is rampant and the question becomes how do we deal with it. One way people deal with it is sale throughout my hand and walk away. If you take the position, whatever your political views whether liberal, conservative or middle of the road that is the wrong solution. Then they see the change of the permanent political pass in the selfenrichment. The second solution some people propose is we need new laws and regulations. History shows us they always find a way. Theres always a way to get around a new law for new regulation designed to restrict them. The question becomes what is the solution. Strip them of their power and put it on them rather than restrictions on the American People. For Example Campaign finance for all sorts of laws have been setup designed to somehow prevent politicians from being influenced by the flow of money and i dont think the lots have been successful. To me the larger issue is one of extortion that i talked about earlier that politicians go out and actively seek businesses and industries and introduce bills and regulations explicitly designed to collect money from those entities. The way you deal with getting rid of our limiting the amount of money and the amount of influence on our politics is by regulating politicians not the American People. In 27 states around the country including florida where i live we have a simple law that says in the Florida Legislature meets politicians cannot solicit or receive campaign contributions. The restriction is entirely on the politician. If you violate that you violate the law. To me that is a very, very sensible way to get around the fact when congress meets not very far from here, you have politicians who are marking bills are drafting bills and walking out of their office building, getting across the street where they can legally do so talking to a lobbyist or people interested in the bill and raising money from them. Why not simply say the same thing you have in congress. By the way, if nothing else we have a much shorter congressional session because they want to go out and raise money. Today we have to start fundamentally thinking about these things in different ways. Host back to your book what you took away from architects have ruined them how they wrecked the Global Economy and will do it again if no one stops them. Guest the unintended consequences of good intentions can be disastrous. The 2008 financial crisis and what i argue is suffers by housing not just another entity is to broaden homeownership in the United States is something republicans and democrats have raised was wellintentioned, was a good idea but absolutely disastrous because you have a lot of people buying homes that they couldnt afford, that they were unable to pay the mortgages on and that played an Important Role in the financial crisis. Host extortion how they distract both the minor own pockets. Guest politics is a little bit like professional wrestling. What you think of going on is not actually going on. This is an analogy that in my mind some people with a cynical that really explains what goes on in washington d. C. When i was a kid in Seattle Washington i would turn on channel 13 which is one of the independent channels and you could see professional wrestling than a guy having a guy with a chair and throwing them out of the rain. I thought this was amazing. These guys hate each others guts. When i watched it more paid more attention i realize these guys dont hate each other. These guys are in business together putting on this display for our benefit. Theres a lot in washington that goes on. A lot of what we see as the partisan divide israeli manufactured in a way in a lot of ways the Political Parties have in common in disagreement. Host we are about halfway through our three halfway through our three hour conversation with Peter Schweizer. We have time for one more caller. Jerry from south dakota. Caller hide. Yes, i like your analogy about the wrestlers did i just finished reading a book about pretty boy bobby human and boy bobby hume and indicate the inside about how they rode down to louisville, indiana and got paid to throw the chair they lost the match. It was great. I tell my sons actually i love those guys back in the 70s. Anyway, back to what im talking about. I basically have always registered and theyve already been democrats. As far as Hillary Clinton, i dont see it. They are you know i think a powerhungry machine like you would say and i just dont think shes the right candidate. He was in the 80 years. Okay, get out. Put more money back into america. When you hear about president our schools will put your money here. We have problems in haiti, south africa and whenever. What is wrong with good old United States of america. Maybe if they put some money into the School System we can hire better teachers. I lived in the tampa bay area for pretty much 28 years and i was there with martin child beat him in 94 and douse a problem. The first thing he did was no child left behind. Jeb bush would give vouchers that was his plan if there is a School Feeling and you had an Exceptional Child that was straight as they could give a voucher to a private school. That is what concerns me about him. Guest who are you going to vote for . Caller i havent checked the web via. I think sanders i like what he says. He is a throwback i think his age. I dont like the fact that hes older, but the person that i think is interesting as a conservative friend of mine said years ago i voted for kennedy because they didnt need money. They came back to me when he decided to run. Hes rash, controversial, but i dont know. I actually like jesse ventura. Host we will give our guests a chance to respond. Just go the clinton and bush not as much enthusiasm in either side of the inner party. The clouds that Bernie Sanders is more energetic. Certainly in terms of enthusiasm and you find something similar on the republicans lied then you have people in the Republican Party establishment that like the idea of jeb bush asserted a good faith established choice. A lot of enthusiasm from people saying hes been number one choice and i think hes the best candidate. It is going to be interesting. People that can say this process is so long. Its going to rent two years to have the general election from him the whole thing started at the beginning of this year. Were trying to sort out and said through the way people want to lead our country. It should be a marathon. If you look back at the 2008 election the big assumption was Hillary Clinton in a slam dunk and then along came this young senator from illinois named barack obama who won the nomination. That is where scenario can play on either side. Host if people want to follow you to reach out to you or viewers here, where can they do so . Guest look at my website which is Peter Schweizer. Com. If you want to look at clinton clash clinton cash. I have an Organization Called the Government Accountability institute. There is a way to get in touch with me in sending a message message there if youd like. Basically an organization based in florida. Weve got about 50 employees were redoing depth investigative research. Host do you treat . Guest im still trying to get the testing. Host we will come back and continue our conversation with Peter Schweizer. Hes written and added more than a dozen books. What hes reading now right now and also cap weinberger who influenced him over the years. Well continue our conversation here on cspan2. We continue conversation with author transfixed. He came from one washington to the other. Guest thats right. Grow up in seattle. My father was an engineer at the link. Went to my first two years as an undergraduate at a Small Liberal Arts College called Pacific Lutheran University where i was on the debate team. I enjoyed the debate team in high school and college and transferred to George Washington university and graduated in 1987 with a bachelors degree. 1988 i went to oxford raced in two years and a master of philosophy and international relations. Fantastic experience. Id encourage anybody who has the opportunity to go there to take advantage of it. The approach to learning is different in a way. Its solid and expand the system and i really thrived in the environment enjoyed it very much. I did make the mistake of writing my masters thesis which fell apart the next year. Host whether your kids think about what your dad does . Guest theyll find interest in. Some are more interested in politics than others. My parents were never ones to say this is what youre going to do. I am glad and grateful and excited that i get to do what i do and have got kids that i love that i enjoy spending time with. Host by d. Like to write and how do you go about the process of putting the book together whether its clinton cash for editing speeches what is your approach . Guest honestly i hate the writing process which is strange thing. One anothers research and thats what i thrive on. If youve read most of my books youll find things you hadnt read somewhere before. I looked a research project. On the clinton cash book i love looking at what was happening creating a template of these transactions while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Once the narrative is together in my mind based on the fact they begin writing. If you look at a book in the process of writing a complete the pier just take a chapter of time. Im going to write this chapter on uranium and you complete the project and going to the next one. If you take it in small bitesize chunk six becomes less intimidating. An ebook coming out in september. It is an ebook because of course its a lot of books released by publishers in new york you have a long way to time in the editing process and review. That will be coming out in september are applying the same principles we apply to follow the money to see where money flowed in a third benefit that accrue to those providing the funds based on jeb bushs public career. Postcode taste on his Financial Disclosures hes made a lot of money since the governorship in florida and in part using the bush team to capitalize on it. Guest you have the issue in family relationships which is the key. Clinton cash is about a husband and wife, secretary of state and the flow of funds they are enrichment that takes place there. And what were investigating his jeb bush substantial increase in the earth basically went from 1. 3 million to somewhere in the magnitude of 20 million to the accumulation has something to do with the fact that part of the time the president of the United States and the ability to influence government was related to it. Host what is the title . Guest the title is up in the air. It has been proposed bush bucks to go with clinton cash. I think its something that conveys the notion which is our political engage in self enrichment. Some of them are some of them arent in the key determination is trying to look at the flow of money, the timing of the flow and let the reader decide. We showed the cases and that the ms outlook this warrants further investigation. I think anywhere i say im ordinary criminal act has taken place. Host give us one thing you want people to read. Guest what we look at is a series of transactions in an airport we built with state funds and the people who benefit from the transaction are talking to the bushes and thats all i can say. I will probably have researchers back and forth. But you heard it here on cspan cspan 1. Host will go to paul in kearney, nebraska. Good afternoon. Caller youre getting a lot of mileage out of here [inaudible] im going to try to get through this fast. Im a little bit left of center. It doesnt mean im completely left. The main question id like to have what amazes me and our country today i dont know this country is run by big business. Various industrial complexes could you name it, the Big Industrial complex. The education right down the line. I liked your comment also on the Supreme Court and the corporations that people to campaign. Also, as far as the news media, for instance in nebraska 80 with you immediately have that there is fox news. I can hardly recall since obama has been elected one could think about the Obama Administration. Host a lot on the table. Thank you for the call. Guest the caller brings up a good point when he talks about the role of corporations in the way americans govern. This is one of those examples of the professional wrestling analogy i would use. The assumption a lot of people convey is Big Government and big business are at war with each other and i was completely reject that. Theres a lot more collaboration between Big Government and big business. Big business regulates excessively and it may sound counterintuitive but the reason they do so is that allows big business to have smaller competitors fall by the wayside who can put up with regulatory requirements. One example is dog for a financial reform that took place. Very complex very detailed regulatory requirements. Obviously a debate about more regulation of us. A large financial and petitions like citibank and goldman asked by a march like a dog for reform. It is going to be expensive to comply that the smaller competitors are not able to comply with it and they are driven out of the market place. I would agree with the caller that will pit business and government together or not opponents. They are collaborators. The question becomes what do you do about it. For me the only solution is to try to limit the size and scope of government because government has become coop by large corporations and the way you force large corporations to compete is to get the government out of the way and allow more open competition to occur. I would disagree with the caller. Fox news when you look at the new side which is their job to report news does a fantastic job in doing so and they have regarded well by their journalistic colleagues. I know they are. I think often times people conflate evening programming which is commentary with the new side. They get upset when something is said on the evening broadcast that they dont like. The purpose of the evening broadcast is to do programming driven around the hose. It is not designed to give a new steel per se. That is what msnbc does and what cnn does. Host tulsa, oklahoma. David, Peter Schweizer. Caller yeah, so many times when i watch television i hear pessimism about politics, negativity and politics. I was wondering who are some politicians today that you respect and you believe do it the right way. Guest thats a good question. First of all i can be pessimistic about politics but i am optimistic about the country. It is my nature to be optimistic. The key question is are we going how the government that reflects the bias of which is that the American People operate government held captive by what happens inside the washington beltway. The caller before who reference fox news is i did a couple onehour specials that fox news for full disclosure. Those were specifically about the washington beltway and how washington d. C. Has become so fabulously well be. That is a function of government that is out of control and too large. To answer your question politicians that i respect and do the right way for the cronyism and corruption standpoint that could give you a couple names on both sides of the aisle. If i were to look on the left side of the aisle that i wouldnt agree with him on policy prescriptions. I would say barney frank is somebody in congress theres no evidence ive seen involving financial misconduct for self enrichment. Theres no evidence hes engaged in self enrichment or cronyism. On the conservative side the concert they look at somebody like ted cruz for example without evidence of self enrichment taking place at ted cruz. The larger issue is over a span of a parrot time. One of the reasons i endorse term limit is i do think the longer somebody stays in public life the harder it becomes to resist temptation to cut corners and make themselves wealthy, et cetera. I do think new blood is something very poor. Host is that youve coauthored author, including friendly spies how america allies are using economic espionage to steal secret. The area the Reagan Administrations secret strategy with the collapse of the soviet union. The next were you coauthored with kat weinberger. Reagans war the epic story of the 40 year struggle and final triumph over communism. Chain of command you coauthored with caspar weinberger. Do as i say not as i do profiles than hypocrisy back into destiny. Architects have ruined a Big Government liberals wrecked the Global Economy and how they will do it again. Throw them all added up to cap politicians and cronyism a couple years ago and your more recent book extortion how politicians extract your money and mine their own pocket in your most recent book, clinton cash. Back in erie pennsylvania. Caller good afternoon. I make 10 an hour. Which group do you think congressmen and women are more likely to act on behalf of. Constituents or donors. A manic, to follow. Host how would you answer that question . Caller im asking that if your gas you dont mind. Guest most politicians are very responsive to donors. But the point that i would make is somebody in your situation for the situation all americans are in the sydney to look at elected officials and say which one will create a circumstance that allows greater opportunities for me. It is going to be very hard to change the equation as to who is maurice on third to what you want. The question you have to ask yourself is which one will create a circumstance for greater opportunities to flourish in. That is who i would like to for political leadership. Caller with Citizens United we are opening ourselves up to foreign money. I wonder what have the republicans done to stop Citizens United. As you were saying, you are right when he dont look to people who will help us. Former senator Rick Santorum was trying to get rid of social security. But i really wonder what republicans have ever done to help the 99 chris and people like me. I just dont understand why people would go for republicans to tell you the truth. Guest i would not for a politician to help you. If you look for a politician to help you, good luck. A politician will respond to what is in their interests, not what is in your interest. You should look for the politician who will create greater opportunity for you. That is different than helping. As it relates to Citizens United, she mentioned Citizens United was increasing the flow of foreign money. Thats not quite the way i would characterize it. I think people have a fundamental First Amendment right to communicate ideas they believe in. If you are wealthy billionaire if youre concerned about the environment and you want to run as if they want to do something about Global Warming you have the First Amendment right to do so. The point to highlight in the clinton cash book does go to the core issue of foreign money and wise so troubling. We have the census in american politics that we dont want foreign money influencing our political system. If youre a Foreign Corporation you cant set up a Political Action committee. You cant donate to the campaign. The clintons have done by bill clinton taking speaking fees from foreign entities, we now have a conduit and a model but if we dont deal with them in the future will come to influence our political system and allow Foreign Corporations and entities on a major scale to influence our political process and that is what im particularly concerned about. Host at the debate that took place back in 1992 he says during the debate with church Herbert Walker bush and bill clinton i notice bill clinton mention the father of George Herbert walker bush early in the debate. My observation is mr. Clinton was very sly. There is a smirk on his face. Mr. Bush appeared in only to react in a melancholy manner because of the attitude George Herbert walker bush had the love and essentially president bush. Guest thats an interesting observation. I will have to see the debate. It would not surprise me if that is what he says occurred and george h. W. Bush had that response. That would not surprise me. Theres no question in the family there is a generational respect and a very clear sense of a future generation of the bush family you are standing on the shoulders of the previous generation and they are very thankful for the heritage they have. I think it becomes very difficult for the family as it would for a lot of people that when family members are brought into the political debate were attacked or criticized its hard for them to respond because there is a strong emotional bond. I write in the book about how george w. And they were competitors different people but they did reconcile beginning with the 2000 president ial election and the whole drama in florida and now they are close. Talk to me, dont worry about what my husband would do. So theres that sense, i think whether youre talking about a sibling or whether youre talking about a spouse and you are part of a political dynasty, its really impossible to avoid questions about family members. But its not always the easiest thing to deal with, because there is that sense of loyalty but also, you know, being independent. Host we hope you like us on facebook at facebook. Com booktv. You can also follow us on twitter and send us a tweet booktv. Well go to steve in montgomery texas. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, sir. Mr. Schweizer, your book on the Clintons Clinton cash, gives the impression that only the state department under Hillary Clinton had to approve of the uranium transaction. But werent the some federal and state agencies that also had to approve of the deal . And i would ask that both you and steve tell the country which other federal state federal and state agencies had to approve of the deal. For instance didnt an agency of the state of utah also approve of this same deal . Guest yeah. Yeah, i point out in the book and ive said in numerous interviews since then that there were nine Government Agencies that had to sign off on this transaction. The reason that i think the clinton, Hillary Clinton signing off is particularly concerning, however, is really twofold. First of all, Hillary Clinton is the only agency head of the nine that had to review this whose Family Foundation received 145 million from the shareholders who stood to make huge money from this deal. I mean, think about that for a second. You have a small canadian Uranium Company that wants to be sold to the russian stateowned entity, and nine people can connected with that company shareholders, the chairman of the company, etc. Send 145 million to the Clinton Foundation. That, to me, cries out for investigation, and i think if it were any other political figure, it would. The second reason, though, i think that its important to look at Hillary Clinton signing off on that deal as opposed to the state of utah as you pointed out or the department of Homeland Security is that Hillary Clinton and i talk about this in the book, and anybody can look at the Public Record had a very strong record of opposing precisely these kinds of deals. This came through a process called sifius which is the committee of Foreign Investment in the United States. They had to sign off on the deal, these are the Government Agencies that needed to approve the deal. Hillary clinton, going back to 20052006, had an enormously strong record of being a hawk on precisely these kinds of deals. She was opposed to the dubai ports deal because she didnt want the government of dubai owning ports in the United States, there were a series of other deals that i talk about in the book. She wanted to strengthen sifius, and she made blanket statements numerous times that she did not want Foreign Government agent agencies to own critically Strategic Industries as hands in this case as happened in this case. Yet she approved this deal. Thats why i think her in this decision chain is particularly important and demands further scrutiny. Host let me go back to the book that you edited, American Conservative Movement speeches, and Ronald Reagan, his inaugural speech, he made references to that, he used the word renewal quite often in his speech, renewing our determination, renewing america renewing our faith. And he said its now time for us to realize that we are too great of a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. Do you have a sense though, that reagan knew at the beginning of his term how he would conclude his term eight years later . Guest i dont think he knew how the term would be concluded. I dont think that he knew, you know that the economy would take off as much as it did, but i do think he believed if he could implement the reform agenda that he had both domestically and in terms of National Security that we had a great chance of turning things around in the country. This is what i think is so important, republican, democrat, whats so important was reagans optimism. But it wasnt optimism that was sort of, you know, unicorns and rainbows. It was a optimism based on his belief in the ingenuity of the American People, in the power of the Free Enterprise system, the commitment that the American People had to freedom and to american National Security interests. And i think thats what made him a great leader. He was able to harness that and then he was able to implement a reform ape general da that agenda thats so contrary to what we had in the United States running up to that point. Host lets go to bob in blackwood, new jersey. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Id like to start off by commending your guest today not only on the obvious sincerity of his efforts with his books which you can tell by listening to him anytime, but also for his bravery. In these books he goes up against some pretty big people in this world, and i commend him for that. It takes a lot of bravery to do that. Guest thank you. Host bob, you still with us . Caller yes, im here. Host okay. Guest yeah, okay. Id like to ask first about the citizen united case. I know your guest should be, from what i understand, pretty versed on that. It seems a little odd to me, and i kind of got a little strange feeling about that. A lot of people may not know, and im sure your guest does and a lot of people do know but not Everybody Knows that that started off as a smaller, kind of insignificant, you know in my opinion case. And then somehow it seemed as if rockets kind of roberts on his own, you know, merits, kind of directed that in the direction to where it turned out to be. And based off of his history of, you know, from what people have said that he seems to be, you know maybe 51 with his decisions on more corporate government versus things that, you know are better off for the American People, it just seemed kind of not to pass the smell test. And i was wondering if he thought there was any im not asking him to place any blame but ask him if he had any feeling there might have been a little premeditation at kind of how that thing kind of evolved. It didnt seem like a normal osmosis, it seemed almost too beneficial to be ironic how that worked out. Guest well, im not a Supreme Court watcher so i would hate to speculate why Supreme Court justices are making the decisions that they do make. What i would say is that Citizens United is pretty consistent with the decision going back, i think, to 1976, the socalled buckley decision. And the buckley decision basically had a very simple premise and argument that gets extended by Citizens United which is spending money on a political idea that you have is a fundamental First Amendment right. It is akin to being able to protest outside of city hall. That does not mean that you can give unlimited amounts of money to a political campaign. Citizens united does not say that either, but what it does say is that if you are an individual who are wealthy whos wealthy oryou want to get together a group of people who are not particularly wealthy but you are concerned and you want the country to have a stronger national defense, you know tighter environmental regulations, lower taxes higher taxes, whatever you want, you have a First Amendment right to give money to a political cause and to express those ideas and views through the media by buying ads etc. That is a view that a i happen to share. That i happen to share. I think the notion that if we got rid of the right of people to give money to political campaigns, our politics would be much more clean, i would reject that notion. I think the core problem that we face in politics is the same problem that is faced in Politics Around world which is when you give people power and people have flaws and people are ambitious and people are greedy, when you give people power, you have to watch them very closely, because the tendency that they are going to have is to accumulate power themselves and accumulate wealth for themselves, for their family members and friends. So the notion that were going to get money out of politics which is kind of a catch phrase out there, that thats going to clean up the political process its not. You can look at a lot of other governments around the world that have a different political system than the United States who are racked with the same kind of political corruption that we are. Its not going to solve the problem. What i argue we need to do is regulate politicians and their access to money and how they are able to use money, and we need to watch them like a hawk. We need to have absolute transparency on anything that our government is doing with the exception of a few rare things related to National Security. Host from this book, extortion, you make a couple of points. Congressman Alcee Hastings paid his girlfriend 622,000 over a fouryear period. Congressman jerry lewis paid his wife 512,000. Congresswoman Maxine Waters paid her daughter and grandson a total of nearly 500,000. Guest yeah. These are the socalled leadership pacs that have been established. So a leadership pac is a little bit different than a normal Political Action committee. Leadership pac is set up by members of congress or senators, and ostensibly you raise money lets say youre Maxine Waters, democrat from california, youre raising money as part of your leadership pac so that you can give money to other democrats so that they can get elected so you can enhance the population of democrats in congress. The problem, as i point out in the book is, that leadership pacs have become slush funds. Because they dont face the same restrictions that are on regular Campaign Committees or on joint fundraising committees. You can take leadership pac money and use it to enhance your personal lifestyle. You can hire family members and put them on the payroll, you can take the family on a golfing trip to scotland and have the leadership pac pay for it and you know say that you met with one person there. Its a way of subsidizing a lifestyle, and i think its an enormous problem, and its an example of this kind of selfenrichment. And theres an example where i would say you should not necessarily say that people cant give to leadership pacs, but you should restrict what people can do with leadership pacs and the way that they can spend their money. And theres, to me, no reason politicians should be allowed to use Political Committee money to enhance their own lifestyles. Host john is next madison alabama. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Ive got a question and a comment. Host certainly. Okay. Caller first is the question. Mr. Schweizer has been looking into the influence of money in politics for a long time and ive got a question about the drug money, the illegal money thats got to be billions of dollars floating around thats not accounted for, and yet you never see anybody being indicted or going to jail you almost never hear about this. And yet theres billions of dollars of unaccounted money out there. In your research, have you ever seen anything like the influence of this money on our politics . Guest i have not. But, you know, it would not surprise me to see money flow, you know, obviously they would channel it through something you know perceived to be legitimate means. Theres no reason why you wouldnt expect them to be trying to influence the political process. Everybody does, and i think thats part of the problem. Government has become so large and so powerful and so intrusive in every aspect of our life frankly, youd be a fool not to try to influence the political process. And i think that would go for what you were talking about illicit drug money. Host john, did you have a comment . Caller yeah. The comment is something different. Long time ago i was in the army at fort polk in 1980, and i saw the change. I was in the army through the 80s, and i saw the change that happened in the United States army when the reagan people and particularly secretary weinberger came onboard. And it was just amazing. Later on i was a Battalion Commander in the late 80s, and the difference was night and day, and i think secretary weinberger was a great man. I wanted to just say that on tv, and i would imagine mr. Schweizer probably agrees with. Guest absolutely. I hear that a lot, but it always warms my heart and i know that people work with him, the same thing, to hear that. He loved Americas Fighting men and women, and his real belief in building up the military and giving us the military capability we had was precisely to give them the tools to get the job done but to also minimize casualties as much as possible because he cared so much for soldiers. A lot of people dont realize that cap weinberger in world war ii served with General Macarthur in the pacific. So he was a veteran himself and was very proud of that fact. Host we had this special relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and winston churchill. You dont write about those two individuals. You write about Ronald Reagan, margaret that mucher and the special relationship between margaret that much thatcher. How did all of that come together to bring down the soviet union . Guest well, i think thats, those were all enormously important ingredients. You know, Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, reagan was still seeking the presidency in the United States, but they had this amazing affin i for each other affinity for each other, and they both had different manner of doing it, but they both had this profound sense that the cold war could be won. I would encourage a lot of people to go back and look at 1982 1983, some of the speeches and some of the statements that Ronald Reagan made as president of the United States. Here you had a president of the United States saying communism is going to end up on the ash heap of history. Him saying that, you know communism is this sad, bizarre chapter in Human History whose last days are being written. Now, in retrospect, everybody can look at that and say yeah you know, communism collapsed. But at the time, the established view was that these were just bizarre things to say. And if you look at the writings of John Kenneth Galbraith regarded as one of great economists of the 20th century you look at columnists at the New York Times and elsewhere they all thought reagan was a crackpot. I mean the assumption was soviet communism was here to stay, and we were going to have to cope with it and deal with it throughout Human History. It was a permanent part of the political landscape. Mrs. Thatcher had that same view. Theres an end pose where i write about episode where i write about reagan utters some of these phrases they go back to 10 downing street afterwards where Margaret Thatcher offers a toast where she toasts president reagans speech and thanks him for putting freedom on the offensive where it belongs. This notion that were going to be on the offensive were going to be proud of believing in individualism and freedom and were going to go on the offensive was a profound change in the psychology of the cold war. And, certainly, john paul ii in theological terms and in faith terms added to that part of the ideological struggle. And this notion that the individual has dignity the individuals entitled to freedom, this created i think, a complete change in the psychology of the cold war. And when you couple that with some of the very specific things that the Reagan Administration did in policy terms i think it fundamentally explains why the cold war ended the way it did and when it ended. Host we have about 40 minutes remaining in our conversation every first sunday of the month with authors and our in depth author this month is Peter Schweizer. Jeff is next in nebraska, good afternoon. Caller how you doing . I guess i got just more of a statement than a question, but i had the opportunity to do all the communications on board the white house helicopters through three different president s, george bush sr. Toward the last two years of bill clinton and the first two years of george bush jr. And as a fly on the wall, i will tell you [laughter] that the difference between the respect that was showed to the secret service marines any other person around was just so different and so, it was just incredible how disrespectful bill clinton was to the people that supported his whole and it wouldnt surprise me a bit that any of this stuff would be true in his because it was, its just so obvious. When we went to india, they spent 50 million on one trip in india, bangladesh and then sweden. So they dont care. The clintons dont care about our money. And i will tell you one other thing, and if he wants to make a statement or anybody has a question, george bush sr. Riding around with Brent Scowcroft and john sununu and james baker absolutely the most professional people you could possibly be around treated us unbelievable. Host jeff, let me ask you a question. How were the clintons disrespectful . Give an example. Caller absolutely his entire staff were like a bunch of hippie punks. And they treated us as such. When they left office they absolutely raped air force one. Because i had friends on air force one. We all intermingle. Thats what people dont understand. If you are in that arena with the president whether youre a marine supporting marine one or youre with the secret service whatever you all intermingle. And my friends on air force one told me they were just a bunch of freaks running through that aircraft. And if it wasnt nailed down, you better betcha it was gone. Host jeff, thank you for the call and sharing your own experience. What are you doing today, by the way . Caller im listening to your program, i find it very interesting. And i hope america understands and kind of listens to whats going on here, because i think were fixing to vote somebody into office thats going to repeat the same thing that mr. Obama has, and i think our countrys going to were on our last leg if we do. Host jeff, thank you from crofton, nebraska. Guest yeah, i certainly dont have any direct knowledge of that. There were certainly news reports about towels and things taken from air force one but i dont have any direct knowledge of that. Host lets go to bob in bradenton, florida. Good afternoon. Caller yes, thank you. I appreciate your analysis, mr. Schweizer. Id like you to consider something i think is quite important. When i listen to Bernie Sanders, he talks about the plight of the working person in the United States which i believe we can all agree is under increasing, greater economic pressure and that this has been building for at least four decades, since the early 70s. What i would like to say is that i agree with him totally in that analysis. However, when he goes to the next point to say that this is because of the increasing greed of Business Owners or ceos, i dont agree. And in my particular case, ive done some analysis, and i believe that we need to look very carefully at the impact of the Information Technology revolution on this whole process. Computers have improved in power by factor of one trillion in Price Performance over the last 50 years. The result of that is, is that ceos whose job is to maximize corporate profits thats their overriding concern now are enabled to replace people with computers and algorithms. And this has been going on through automation and outsourcing for the last 50 years. Guest well, i think the caller brings up a lot of valid points. I do think theres no question that the middle class is struggling in the United States. I think hes also right that you know, you cant really connect that to the compensation of people who become wealthy. And the example i always give is, you know, you take somebody like bill gates who, you know, founder and chairman of microsoft, you know, worth tens of billions of dollars, you know, he didnt make anybody poor when he made money. You know, he sold software, and he sold, you know, Technology Components to people. Nobody got poor because bill dates got rich. He got bill gates got rich. He provided a good and service that people wanted. And thats why i think its a misnomer, this sort of class warfare thats taking place. Bernie sanders certainly somebody who has done it. I think Bernie Sanders brings up valid points when it comes to crony capitalism. I think hes exactly right on that. But i think on this whole issue of income inequality which has also been now embraced by Hillary Clinton which i find kind of ironic, to me, just is fools gold. Its an attempt to try to deceive people in what the solution is. Steve jobs becoming rich didnt make anybody poor either. I do think the caller brings up a very important point in that this sort of fundamental shift in the economy, this movement to sort of an information economy, the capabilities that we now have technologically are creating huge challenges for people in the working class. You know, now were starting to have to worry about robots among all things. And i think those are some very important issues that need to be addressed in a very important and profound way by policy leaders. But youre not going to help the working class by tearing down Wealth Creation in the United States. Its going to have the opposite effect. Its going to make things worse. Its not going to make things better. From makers and take aers, you say the following on page 17 it is my contention that liberalism and conservativism are not simply political ideologies, but that they represent divergent ways of life. For those on both sides their political views are just the tip of the encompassing world view that addresses the biggest questions about life. This world view influence as you say it influences the decisions that they make about family Work Community and life. Guest yes. And really what i tried to show based on Academic Studies and research is that there are different tendencies between liberals and conservatives. Again, there are all sorts of exceptions to these rules, but when you look at the day conservatives at the data conservatives tend to be married more often than liberals do, they tend to have children more often than liberals do. Liberals tend to live in more urban areas, conservatives more in rural or suburban areas. And there obviously, are exceptions to those rules. But my view is that the beliefs that you embrace politically to the extent that you embrace a certain set of beliefs are going to influence the decisions that you make. So, for example to pick, you know, an extreme example if you are somebody who is a very radical feminist lets say and you believe that a patriarchy and marriage are oppressive institutions, odds are you probably are not going to get married. Your ideas are influencing a decision that a you make. If you are an environment, an environmentalist who believes that overpopulation is a massive problem and that the presence of human beings on planet earth in increasing numbers presents this, you know, horrific effect on the environment chances are youre probably less likely to have lots of children than somebody that is a conservative. And so i think this is an important notion. Now, certainly, my view is that conservative ideas generate positive outcomes in a way that liberal decisions dont generate positive outcomes all the time. But i always add to me, this is not a criticism of people. I have friends that are politically liberal that i get along with splendidly, we have a lot in common, and i enjoy that interaction. To me, its a function of ideas. What are the ideas we embrace and are those positive ideas or are those ideas that are negative and that have negative consequences. Host herbert is next, delray beach, florida. A lot of florida viewers today. Good afternoon. Caller mr. Schweizer, i have a question for you. Guest sure. Caller in my opinion, there is something that is of equal or great canner significance than ongoing corruption itself and that is the widespread semicovert ops operation which destroys the rights liberties of those considered a threat. And when i say a threat i mean a threat in terms of someone who can detect, identify and disclose the corruption. Host herbert, such as . Caller um, oh, well, i wont go into detail but i am one specific victim because of something that i did 20 years ago having to do with the real whitewater the one still kept secret from the public. But as a result of that, i and there are hundreds of others for Different Reasons are considered a threat to political interests. So therefore, i have no civil is rights legal rights nothing. Theres nothing i can do. Host response . Guest well, i think anytime you write the sort of things that i write you face the fact that people are going to not be happy with what youve written and ive been criticized by both republicans and democrats. And, look you also do recognize the fact that those that have the tools of power whether its in irs audits or others are out there. I personally have not faced the sort of things the caller was talking about, but i do think we have to be very cognizant of guarding our liberties in this regard. I personally have concerns about some of the things that are done in terms of domestic security from the standpoint of heightened terrorism. I think that the islamist threat is a real threat, and we need to have capabilities, but i think they need to be balanced with civil liberties. My concern with the Affordable Care act is very similar and its always kind of puzzled me why people who are very upset and concerned about domestic spying and the fact that Government Agencies have their phone records dont seem to be particularly concerned that that same Government Entity might have your medical records very soon. So i have a skeptical view about government power, and i think just not speak specifically with the callers circumstance, but i think in general i think we always need to be careful the tools that we are equipping government officials with because, as i think Thomas Jefferson once said, to the extent that government can do something for you, it can do something to you. And we need to be clear that it can turn on a dime very quickly. Host a couple of other notes. You spent how much time with sarah palin in 2008 after she was selected as john mccains running mate . Guest i actually worked with sarah palin after that, in 2011 and 2012. I was a speech writer for her, and i enjoyed that immensely. I wrote a couple speeches dealing with crony capitalism and corruption, particularly talking about the collaboration between Big Government and big business. There was a speech she gave in iowa to that effect in 2011, i believe, that was host which we covered. Guest yes. Very, very well received by both liberals and conservatives. And i think a lot of times when it relates to governor palin theres sort of a reflex reaction that political liberals have. If you actually look at her political history when she went in as governor of alaska, one of the first things she did was take on big oil. Big oil had a stranglehold on politics, and she did not like the fact that there was this very strong crony relationship between big oil and the Political Class. And she really shook it up. When it comes to fighting crony capitalism and selfenrichment she has a long history there. I was with her, i would say, approximately a year, year and a half. I enjoyed it very much. Host does she have a political future . Guest i think that she does to the extent she wants to have a political future. Im not sure that, you know, she is looking for running for elective office, you know, anytime soon. I dont have a lot of communication with her at all now, so its certainly i dont have any inside information. But theres no question that there is a passionate group of people that listen to what she says, they like the manner in which she says it, and they temper it when she says it, and shes a maverick. People like mavericks. They like people that arent cookie cutter and predictable. When it comes to political physicians and philosophy, she is a limited government conservative, but she also a i think, has a maverick streak that people like. Host obviously, you observed what happened in 2008. Was she the right choice at the right time for the Republican Party . Guest i think she was a person that injected something very positive within that ticket. I do think that she was not well prepared, and i think that probably goes to people that were assigned to help her and assist her in that process. My interaction with her was always that she was very responsive and that she was very much engaged. So when i wrote that speech on crony capitalism and corruption, she embraced it, she was fully engaged, and she wanted to be involved in it. Now, when youre thrown into a president ial election, of course, in the feeding frenzy of the media its something entirely different than what i experienced. But i do think if you are the Mccain Campaign and you are picking a running mate you better have people around them that are going to be Crystal Clear in, you know, whos doing the interview ises. There was, of course, the katie couric interview that was widely criticized. I think that that was a big mistake, and that was a mistake made by the aides that mccain had assigned to help her not made by the candidate herself. Host lets turn to lucinda joining us from desert hot springs, california. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. There was a couple of questions i had as far as if you had a magic wand, how would you gain access to Hillary Clintons private server [laughter] as well as lois lerners mystery emails . [laughter] guest well, thats a great question. I wish i had that magic wand, but i dont. To me, the emails are profoundly troubling, and i think they should be profoundly troubling to anybody that is concerned about transparency in government. Because think about this for a second. We have rules and regulations about government officials, about the use of email, the preservation of the email. In this particular case, those were not only ignored, they were completely subverted because a private server was set up detached from that entire process. Then when she leaves Public Service, rather than turning over those records and allowing state Department Officials to determine what are the private emails, what are the public emails which is, frankly, the common practice i mean, its not like theyre going to release, you know, private emails about yoga lessons from Hillary Clinton. State Department Employees go through and catalog which ones are relevant to Public Service. Well, Hillary Clinton decides im going to completely jettison that process, and i am going to delete from the Public Record and ostensibly erased from the server 30,000 some emails that we now know based on the Sid Blumenthal example included emails that were very relevant to the job that she was doing. If you take the minutes that Richard Nixon erased from the tapes and compare that to this, theres absolutely no comparison in my mind. And im somebody whos been very critical of Richard Nixon and his administration and the extortive practices and the corruption that took place. There was no comparison between deleting 30,000 emails and erasing a few minutes on tapes that Richard Nixon did in the white house. And yet people that support Hillary Clinton will continue to talk about how terrible Richard Nixon was and laud how wonderful she is. Its mind boggling to me. Host his most recent book is clinton cash, and coming in september an ebook on jeb bush. Peter is next from louisiana for our guest, Peter Schweizer. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you all today . Guest good, peter, how are you . Caller fine, sir. First of all ive enjoyed a few of your books but most people dont understand that progressivism comes from german philosophy. People dont know that the main ideas that they follow come from [inaudible] or hagel. So my question to you, dont you think its a good idea, maybe itd be a good book for you, to understand the basic differences between german philosophy hagel, and progressivism and the ideas that founded this country . Coming from aristotle and from locke . Thank you. Guest well, i think its a very astute observation, and i think a great point by the caller. There have been some wonderful books out there written on these very important fundamental philosophical differences that i would encourage people to read. You know, one of them goes by a title that, you know, will shock a lot of people but i think if they actually took the time to read it, would be very surprised at the deep philosophical nature of it. Thats a book by Jonah Goldberg called liberal fascism where he argues and looks at the embrace that progressives had earlier in the 20th century with many of the ideas of mussolini and others who were fascists. And this is, i think whats troubling about a lot of what we get with progressivism, which is its topdown. Its this notion that we need to have a governing elite that knows far more than we know because we cant really take care of ourselves and that this governing elite needs to make these decisions for us, and they need to basically engage in social engineering. They need to get us to do things we wouldnt ordinarily do because its for our own good, and they need to create carrots and sticks to make sure that we do what they want us to do, and thats what their role is. I dont think thats what the role of government is. The role of government is to create an environment and an opportunity for us to flourish. Not to create a regime of social engineering to steer us to a predetermined outcome that they want. And thats what i fear that we get with a lot of modernday progressivism. And why i think its so troubling. Host in your book on how politicians and their friends are getting rich off the American People, you say the following, quote with dramatic events surrounding the 2008 financial crisis, beginning in 2009 the u. S. Embarked on what you called the greatest reverse robin hood transfer of wealth in its history. Tax money was taken from all rich and poor and given to billionaires. Guest thats right. This was the bailouts of the banks in 2000. And one of the things i point out in the book that a lot of people dont realize is the 2008 bailout really when you look at Goldman Sachs and jpmorgan, there had really been four or five bailouts in the previous 20 years. And what had happened, it first happened in 1993 where the clinton administration, you had Goldman Sachs and other Financial Institutions had taken big bets on Mexican Government bonds. Those bets went bad. The Treasury Department actually came in and bailed out Goldman Sachs. There was another one that occurred in 1998 with the east Asian Financial crisis, and there have been a series of others culminating in 2008 with the financial crisis. And heres my concern about all of this and about bailouts in general Goldman Sachs and these financial entities never learned their lesson because they never paid the consequences for their bad bets. So theyre overleveraged in the 2008 financial crisis, they get bailed out, they get made whole they suffer no consequences. Do we really want to believe that they will change their ways and not overleverage the next time . Of course not. Thats why we get these repeated patterns. So the bailouts of the banks in the 2008 was a massive transfer of wealth from americans across the board, and the chief beneficiaries were those that run the large wall street Financial Institutions. And by the way its another reason as i said earlier in the interview, the notion that wall street and government are at loggerheads and are at each others throats and are enemies is patently ridiculous. Wall street wants a large active and intrusive federal government because thats the way they get the bailouts that theyve gotten these so many times. Host let me just follow up on one other point from extortion. Government bureaucrats can make things simple, but apart from dire emergencies they generally choose not to. Complexity is a useful and lucrative method for the legal extortion of politicians. Guest yes, thats right. So many laws and regulations now its impossible for us to decipher and the example i would give is go back and read glasssteagall, the big financial reform during the Roosevelt Administration in the 30s where they revamped the entire banking system. It was like 35, 36 pages long. Then fast forward to doddfrank in 2010. When you add all the rules and requirements, i mean, its well north of 10,000 pages long. Now, has the Financial System become that much more complex since the 1930s . Its a little bit more complex but its not that much more complex. Im absolutely convinced that even when it comes to writing regulations, follow the money. And for if you are a bureaucrat or youre a Congressional Staffer and you are writing rules and laws and regulations, there is no upside for you to write a simple and easytounderstand law. But if you can write a law that has teeth that, in other words people will go to jail if they dont follow that its complex and that its really, really difficult to desigher and understand youve decipher and understand, youve now got a business model. And in the case of doddfrank, you have that. One of the Congressional Staffers, and i think there are probably others, who was a principal author of that bill once doddfrank became law, guess what they did . They left capitol hill and they got involve ised with a Consulting Firm to do what . To interpret this complex bill that nobody else could understand. Thats, i think the problem that we have with rulemaking in the United States today. If youre at the epa and your job is to write regulations and you write them simple and straightforward, thats great for the country. But if you want to leave that job and become a consultant to corporations, write those environmental laws very complex, very hard to understand. You can leave the epa, and as the author of those regulations you can write a ticket to make massive amounts of money from large corporations who are desperate to follow that bill and cant understand it. Host well go to mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. Trish, thank you for waiting. Whats your question . Caller well, its really a couple of comments. I must say i admire your work. You do a Great Service to us because, unfortunately, we have become a country of dummies. Not all of us, but a lot of us. And until we, the people, wake up and start reading unbiased books like this, this will continue. And to echo what you said about people that are rich dont really take away from us i was running sorry guest thats all right. Caller you know, walmart getting richer doesnt take away from me. I only make minimum wage. Thats my fault. I didnt get an education. So Walmart Donald trump, the government, nobody owes me anything. I did or didnt do, so that is my fault. That is my problem. But we have become very jealous and very petty. A lot of its what has been fed to to us through the media. So theyve created this that we hate the rich and the nonsense like that. Until people start valuing what they have not what they dont or what this one has, you bill gates being rich isnt going to hurt me. I dont care if hes rich. And he does wonderful things with his money. But the fact that he came up with such great ideas it benefits me and the rest of the world tremendously. So i dont understand why people dont realize this and keep harping on pettiness and jealousy, you know . So keep doing what youre doing because there are people youre getting to, and until we can wake people up, its going to be more of the same. And by the way as long as the immigration problem exists for the people who dont realize it the day all those Illegal Immigrants start voting republican, that wall will be built. It will spin your head. The democrats wont touch those people with a 20foot pole. So thank you again for all you do for us. Guest thank you very much. I appreciate the call. Host quick question about the cover of clinton cash. The photograph of bill and Hillary Clinton. Where was that from . Guest you know im not sure. Its interesting the title of the book was a colleague of mine came up with clinton cash, which is fabulous. And then the design the publisher, of course, does the jacket design. I am not an artistic person. Anybody who knows me knows im not artistic. So when i saw the coffer, i really liked it the cover i really liked it. I thought they captures the essence of the book very well, and i was very pleased with it. Host barbara is next california. Good afternoon. Caller well, good morning [laughter] host well, almost afternoon in california. [laughter] caller thats all right. Thank you so very much for taking my call. I have a policy question, two policy questions. Focusing on makers and takers. Guest okay. Caller if youll recall, there was a dispute between governor christie and senator rand paul. New jersey is a donor state, kentucky is a receiver state. Right now there are more states electing to eliminate the state taxes. I have no problem with that. However, regarding policy should a receiver state lets go back to new jersey and kentucky taxpayers in new jersey, a donor state are funding residents of kentucky, a receiver state. Thats based on policy. Guest uhhuh. Caller so if a state chooses to eliminate their state tax once again, i dont have a problem with that should they continue to be a receiver state . And the ten poorest states in the United States are all receiver states. Taxpayers from other states are funding them. And they have been the poorest states for decades. Guest yes. Well, i think that the caller is looking at decisions that are made by certain states to eliminate or reduce state taxes and the fact that, i guess in the case of kentucky, she was saying that they are a net receiver of federal tax dollars. Reducing the state tax rate is not going to really influence the amount of federal dollars that are flowing to the state. The two are not connected. What i would say though in principle is i agree with the caller, this notion that certain states are winners or losers in the lottery in washington d. C. Based on seniority of political officials, for example, is very, very troubling. And its one of the reasons that i think one of the most overlooked solutions that we could have in the United States to a lot of the turmoil we have politically is to embrace federalism. The notion of allowing a lot more to be done at the state level than at the federal level. And i think if you look at a lot of the issues, you know, for example, obamacare very very divisive in our country. Essentially, what we have in National Politics today is people trying to get to 50 plus one, and then they want to implement this agenda and impose it on the entire country. And that leads to sort of the divisive winnertakeall mentality. And i think the better solution for example on an issue Like Health Care is if the state of vermont, for example wants a singlepayer Health Care System or if california wants something akin to obamacare let them vote to have it. If texas wants to have its form of Health Care System allow them to have it. That way you dont get the sort of winnertakesall, prison politics where were fighting at a National Level hand and tooth on every single issue. Host in one of your earliest books, friendly spies, in light of all we know now spy on german chancellor merkel and more recent cases by the Obama Administration, chapter one of the book is called a matter between friends, and you begin by quoting the Deputy Director of the u. S. National Security Agency whos since passed away. He basically says this quote if you dont think youre being exploited by friends and enemies, buster, youre crazy. [laughter] guest right. Yeah, i think a little bit in germany when the political figures were saying that they are shocked and horrified that the cia or the nsa is spying on them, this is what goes on. I mean, this is state craft. And you hope it doesnt get out of hand between countries, but it takes place regularly. And if the german [speaking german] the Intelligence Agency there were not spying on u. S. Government official, they would not be doing their job. This is the nature of the way that the world works. And i think its naive for us to assume that it doesnt take place. Now, it can get out of happened, and you can create a out of hand, and you can create a circumstance where you create a lot of tension between allies. That certainly seems to have occurred between the German Government and the Obama Administration in light of these recent revelations. But espionage is something thats going to take place it will continue to take place and i think we all want at least as it pertains to foreign espionage, i think we all want our spies to do a very good job because, frankly, wars have been prevented because of good intelligence, and certain wars have taken place because of bad intelligence. Host when you write your books, is there a good time of the day for you . Guest its a good question. Im a procrastinator. If i can push off writing the book for weeks and weeks and weeks, i would. So i benefit, first of all from having contracts with publishers so im required to have a book done. And i have to start writing in the morning. If i do not get a good start in the morning i basically have to write the whole day off. So its important for me to get a good start in the morning. That being said, im very envious of writers who are able to sit down and say its 9 00, i need to bang out a couple of thousand words. Im a little bit more of a slow start sort of guy. So i have to commit myself. If i start at 9 00 in the morning, i have to say i have to get 2,000 words done, and im not going anywhere until i get 2,000 words done and that could mean 5 30 in the afternoon some days. Host chapter by chapter. Guest chapter by chapter, exactly. Host lets go to lee rockville, maryland. Good afternoon to you. Guest yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Enjoying the show. Guest thank you. Host thank you. Caller i live in maryland, and right next to where i live is the commonwealth of virginia which is a gunfriendly state. And in the commonwealth of virginia, they are constantly advertising in the Washington Area about their gun shows. And i have a question for mr. Schweizer. If someone whos wearing an arab head dress and viva bin laden Bumper Sticker viva bin laden tshirt would go up to one of these gun shows this the commonwealth of virginia or anywhere else for that matter and ask to buy a dozen ak47s do you think there should be some kind of a background check . Guest well, where i live in florida, and i am a gun owner when i buy at a gun show or i buy from an arms dealer i do undergo a criminal background check, and i think that thats good, and it makes sense. Theres also a restriction in florida as to if im buying a handgun, there is a twoday waiting period. I dont get immediate possession of the handgun. And, of course, theres a limit on how many firearms i can buy at the same time. So the scenario youre talking about where somebody would want to come and buy a dozen certainly would not be an experience that i would have in my gun purchasing. Host eddie is next from lehigh acres, florida. Good afternoon. Caller yes. Hello . Host go ahead, eddie. Guest hello. Caller yes. What i was wondering about, we were talking about Hillary Clinton and such, and what im looking at is that you can look at look at whos running their Campaign John to podesta. He has a lobbying firm in washington, d. C. , he and his brother are lobbyists for walmart, air companies boeing one of them. At the same time hes running Hillary Clintons campaign. Now, if you look back a ways, Hillary Clinton used to be on the board of walmart. Now, you were talking about ties between corporations and politicians. If you looked at whos surrounding these people and running the show, you talk about this person running or that perp running, theres that person running, theres other people making these calls. Guest well, i think theres no question that, you know people who are advising campaigns or policy advisers in campaigns or even large donors are going to go to canada. Theyre going to say this is something they favor, this is something they dont favor and those conversations take place all the time. I think the question becomes you know, what decisions are they making and why are they making those decisions. And thats why were big supporters of transparency. Host any difference between that example and Dennis Hastert who left the speakership and made a lot of money here in washington, d. C. . Guest yeah. I actually have information on Dennis Hastert in throw them all out involving when he was in congress. Its interesting, when you look at his net worth when he became speaker of the house in 1998 and when he left in 2006, it went up rather dramatically even though he was just the speaker of the house. And he engaged in something that i call the land deal. In this particular case, he bought rural land in illinois the state where hes from, and then nine, eight or nine months later he put an earmark into the federal transportation bill to build something called the prairie parkway. Well any guesses to where that prairie parkway was going to run . It was going to run right by the property that he had purchased before. He then a year later was able to sell it for substantially more than he had paid for it because of course now everybody knew that this federal highway was going to be running by it. So, yeah, this is a persistent problem. Dennis hastert did this when he was speaker of the house became a lobbyist afterwards. Obviously, theres this, you know, very bad situation we dont know all the details about involving this extortion and apparently something that he did when he was younger. And i think it goes to the heart of the theme of so much of my work which is the corruptive influence that power can have on the human soul and the abilities and decisions that people make when theyre in those situations. Host we only have a minute or two left. Ron from pittsburgh, pennsylvania, you get the final question. Good afternoon ron. Caller yes. I wanted to ask Peter Schweizer about daryl darrell issa. He convened numerous investigative committees on wrongdoing and i wanted to havent heard from him for like a year. And you think with Hillary Clinton and what theyre all doing that he would be doing something about that, but nothing, ive heard nothing. Host well, he no longer chairs the committee that oversaw the investigation, but you might want to follow up. Guest no, i think thats exactly right. He was a very aggressive head of the Oversight Committee which is i think is what you want if you believe in the balance of powers in our government. You want congressional committees that are actively looking at corruption. Darrell issas no longer chairman of that committee. The new chairman of the committee from utah seems to be off to a pretty good start and i think hes fulfilling that role well. So i anticipate that you will see, you know, responsible and reasonable investigation, and i think nobody should be opposed to it particularly if its, you know, trying to root out these kinds of issues. Host two final points. Do you consider yourself an equal opportunity critic democrats and republicans . Guest yes. Im politically conservative, but i dont confuse conservative with republican. I, basically am distrustful of government power and of established government power. And so yes id go after both parties, but i am a limited government conservative. Host when youre not writing books, what else do you do . Guest i enjoy shooting at the gun range, i enjoy spending time with my family, i enjoy travel, and i enjoy, you know the great friendships that i have. And we also do other journalistic as well other journalism as well in addition to books. I write articles and i do television as well. Host beyond the jeb bush book which is coming out in september, wed love to have you back to talk about it guest sure. Host what are your next projects . Guest we are looking at the flow of american money into american politics, this would be a systemwide analysis as it looks to congress, president ial races, etc. The laws are very, very clear were not to have foreign nationals or Foreign Governments giving to political campaigns. There are various ways in which some entities have found man evens around that means around that, and we want to explore that and expose that. And again as other investigations have this the past, it will probably lead to blowback with both Political Parties. Host it has been a very fast three hours with Peter Schweizer. Thank you for joining us here on tv. Guest its wonderful to be here. Im honored. Thank you. Host thank you. Rivacy has changed. In the modern age, this is a discussion from maryland. Good afternoon and welcome to the Annapolis Book festival, im asking you to turn off your cell phones so that we