Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20240622

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 the great. So i call this the june knee damage Jimmy Stewart mr. Smith goes to washington scenario. You have wellintentioned politicians being tempted by outside forces. My experience over the last 20 years or so the opposite is true that you have a lot of corporations and entities that essentially wants to be left alone by the federal government and 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 look back 15, 20 years ago, Companies Like google or microsoft had small lobbying presence in the United States. They were doing what they would doing and you have a series of actions taken by congress, people from both Political Parties that essentially forced those Tech Companies to set up lobbying operations so my view is often times what happens in washington d. C. Has listed do with bribery and more to do with extortion. Does the money political figures with a certain core set of beliefs . One organization supports one politician because they support the issues that are important to their cause, and not use bribery or extortions . Guest sometimes it does. It is aligned with a cause or policies you getting large sums of money from a certain industry but people would be surprised, lot of major corporations tend to give to people down the middle politically. The oil and gas industry, they give to democrats who perhaps are predisposed to support their position. A lot of times acts as a means of access or a gateway and i have examples i find in the book from executives from shell oil and others that literally talk about being in the meeting, and high gasoline prices one of them call potential nationalization of u. S. Oil companies but after the meeting the samey the official asked this executive if they might consider organizing a fundraiser for them. If you are an executive, if you heard this veiled threat that maybe we should try to nationalize you guys in the attempt to say could you raise money for me today is hard not to see that as some sort of mixed motive practice. Host you say we want to believe Committee Assignments that based on knowledge, expertise and background but a member of congress will end up on a powerful Committee Like the house ways and Means Committee or Financial Services committee only if he or she can raise the money, the more powerful Committee Assignments, more money members expect to extract from industries that they oversight or regulate. This is one of the shocking things i was naive about but i always assumed a member of Congress Gets elected, they are distinguished attorney and end up on the Judiciary Committee or may be served in the military so they can end up on armed services. The shocking reality is both Political Parties do this they have a system they loosely call party dues and party do is basically function as up price list. If you want to be on a socalled a committee which is deemed to be a powerful committee from which you raise a lot of money, house ways and means for example, house Financial Services committee which has oversight of wall street and the banks you are going to have to raise somewhere on the order of half a Million Dollars in election cycle not for your own reelection but to go to the Party Committee of your party whether it is the republican or Democratic Congressional committee and if you dont raise that money there will be threatened if you continue to not raise that money you could be booted from that committee and put on the socalled see committee which is one that you cant raise a lot of money from. People tend to want to be on them. The Veterans Committee which we would all does important work making sure veterans are taken care of and their needs, that is considered see committee because apparently the ability to extract money from veterans or an industry connected to veterans is not so great. The sad reality is Committee Assignments in washington d. C. Are determined by this priceless and your ability to raise money and if you dont raise sufficient funds for your committee you will be removed and put on lower or less host among the many books have written, several on Ronald Reagan. Have you ever met him . I did. I met Ronald Reagan after he left the white house in 1994 in his office in los angeles. I think sort of looking back certainly saw a and little bit of the forgetfulness the king with age with alzheimers but we had a 30 minute meeting, it came as a result of a book i had written on Ronald Reagan and the cold war called victory, that is the result of the book being published. What was your impression of him even though he had stages of alzheimers . He had presents. I have met other president s corresponded with former president s, he had presence, he was very engaging, he certainly still had an understanding of the core issues. Reagan always struck me as somebody who had a sense or understanding of a few very important things. Eyesight in one of the books on reagan from oxford, talked about foxes and hedgehogs and sort of talk about the way people think, you have foxes who know a lot about a lot of things you could look at somebody like Richard Nixon or bill clinton and say they are foxs. They understand the minutiae of a lot of issues so you have foxes on the one hand, hedgehogs on the other. Hedgehogs are people who know about few very important things profoundly important things so i would put for example Ronald Reagan as a hedge hog. He was not a technocrat, was not a detail guy but he understood human freedom, he understood human psychology when it came to freedom and i think that made the difference for the worlds and the type of leader he was. What significant moment, his meeting with Mchale Gorbachev, he walked away from that meeting why . Guest he walked away from that meeting because the meeting is sensibly was to come to an arms control agreement, possibly seeking the elimination of Nuclear Weapons which had been a concern of Ronald Reagans for a while. A lot of people who understandably see him as very hawkish failed to recognize he had profound moral concerns about Nuclear Weapons. He was prepared to potential in come to some sort of agreement on the eventual limits and elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The problem is Mchale Gorbachev adds real goal at reykjavik was to end the u. S. Missile Defense System the Strategic Defense Initiative sometimes called star wars. That became very apparent when you look at even the russian transcripts of those meetings, that was 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 want to get rid of a weapons system that would prevent ostensibly nuclearweapons from being used against civilian populations. Host the beginning of your book reagans war the epic story of his 40 year struggle and final triumph over communism Ronald Reagan is impossible to understand outside his battle with communism, it consumed more of his attention than any other endeavor and touch the center of his life, it cost him his first marriage, brought him his second wife, damaged his relationship with his children, brought death threats, left him sitting up at night guarding with his kids with a 32 caliber pistol, brought him three assassination attempts win a fourth joy arranged assassin named John Hinckley talking and inch from death Ronald Reagan came to believe his life had been stabbed by god for a divine purpose defeating communism. Guest this i think is an interesting turning point in reagans ark. Reagan in the 1940s is a labor leader Screen Actors Guild, was a harry truman democrat. He voted for fdr four times. I think the real turning point or Tipping Point for Ronald Reagan when it came to political philosophy had less to do with tax rates and some of these other issues although they did influence him. It had to do with this violent strike that occurred where there were elements within the Screen Actors Guild who were supportive of the communist party were members of the communist party and these individuals 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 its lead him to become the profound anticommunist that he was and that i think we did transform the cold war in a fundamental way. In line host this book grinning with the gipper wit, wisdom and wisecracks of Ronald Reagan has a sense of humor. I want to ask about his upbringing, he grew up in a troubled household but did have a sense of humor. Guest he grew up in a troubled household, loved his mother very much his father had a drinking problem, had fits of employment and times when he was not employed the way Ronald Reagan dealt with that a man of strong conviction, and light touch and by that i mean he used humor not lead to light in the moment but to convey certain fruits. We talked about the relationship between reagan and gorbachev, he would tell gorbachev of jokes about communism and the ludicrous the of some of the problems you had in the soviet system and gorbachev would laugh. It was the moment of lighthearted this but those jokes, embedded in some had certain truths that i think redesigned to convey reagans views about communism. In the beginning stages of the 2016 campaign, jeb bush is front and center in your book the bushes portrait of a dynasty, a want to share part of what you said. Blood runs figures in politics or patronage. John adams called it family spirit desire to promote the essence of our families. It is the idea deeply ingrained from our earliest use, longtime Family Friends know that they possess a strong tribal sense, dynastic instinct that drives them. And yet you talk to other candidates, Martin Omalley saying the presidency is not a crown to be passed from one family to another, a reference to the bush family and clintons. I have said that as well. I think anybody that read the bushess book knows i have a lot of admiration for the family, i think they have a strong sense of civic duty but it is troubling to me is that we have a circumstance that we have brandname s that have taken over american politics, the bushes in the Republican Party and the clintons in the Democratic Party where there is a sense of this brand representing the future of governance. I have a concern with that as a problem with that. I have come to the conclusion that even in the case of Ronald Reagan, nobody in american politics is irreplaceable. The notion that people would have in the Democratic Party that Hillary Clinton is the only democrat that could govern us the only one that could win and likewise republicans saying that about the bushes i dont think American History bears that out. American history bears out the unexpected, the potential for people that look like perhaps ordinary leaders to the great leaders during times of crisis. I think the reliance we have of we have to go back to a family yet again for another leader strikes me as not particular the american. I am not saying they are antiamerican but the american ethos is about new blood and new leaders. Host we remember Election Night 2000 the campaign was supposed to seal at night, continued another five weeks, the bush versus gore decision and on the cover of the bushes portrait of a dynasty, a photograph, jeb bush on the phone with Florida State officials basically saying what is going on here . We had George Herbert walker bush looking on carefully and george w. Bush, you can read his mind saying what is happening . Guest and amazing drama. What is interesting about the family, something i respect about a family is that sense of loyalty, that transcends politics, an amazing ability to convey loyalty but also to have an innate competitiveness within the family which made them so successful as a political dynasty. The kennedy dynasty was more talk down, you had joe kennedy calling the shots, directing the career steering the careers of jfk, ted and body. With the bushes is more bottom up, the sense and expectation that you are a bullish you are expected to contribute to American Public life in one way or another and there is a competitiveness between them so while the brothers love each other very much there is a fierce competitiveness to be the one that extends the Family Dynasty or extends the family brand as it were more than the others ended is a unique and effective model as far as dynastys go. Jim was the one who was supposed to win in 1994. Very interesting how that worked out going back, decades ago, jab was running for governor in 1994. Everybody in the family knew he was going to run, they expected him to run and they thought he was going to win. He really is the policy guy, he eats and breathes policy and understands it very well. He is the one that went 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. Was running for governor in texas against and richards who was a very charismatic campaigner, governor of texas of when i interviewed family members and asked in 1994 when did you think was going to happen . To a person they said jeb is going to win, george w. Is not going to win because even though he is more of a hot head and not as polished, the opposite happened. It totally changed i think the dynamics within the family. It lead joy of the to a lot of soulsearching. Everybody expected him to win and he didnt and it led to george w. Being recognized within a family in a way as having political smarts that had not been appreciated by 04. Host the selection of George Herbert walker bush as Ronald Reagans running mate was a decision made late in the frost this by todays standards. Had gone through the vice presidency walk us through the decisionmaking process and how significant was ended relationship over the years between Ronald Reagan and George Herbert walker bush. Guest great question. A lot of times now in recent political elections the tendency is to pick somebody on the outside for your vicepresident ial running mate who may be wasnt running against you but will add something in terms of the state they will from with the demographics they are from. In 1980 it was unusual because reagan won the nomination, george h. W. Bush was the runnerup, george h. W. Bush became the selection and he became the selection after this internal debate within the reagan campaigned essentially rested on two things, number one that george h. W. Bush had a lot of knowledge, he served as cia director, u. S. Ambassador to the un, had served as a convoy in beijing, china. He had the expertise but more importantly they recognize george h. W. Bush had a temperament being a team player. The belief that he was not going to try to undermine Ronald Reagan, he was not going to try to grab glory for himself. Those became the qualities that led him to be the choice. The choice was not without dissension but wound up being an excellent choice and i think they had a very good relationship. They were not close they were not house. These were very different people. People forget that culturally they came from very different backgrounds. Politically they had differences live reagan in a way was the antiestablishment republican, potentially looked at running in 68 against nixon ran against ford in 76, he would be antiestablishment republican, george h. W. Bush was the consummate establishment republican having served as chairman of the Republican Party itself so i wouldnt say they were close but they worked well together and there was the Mutual Respect on both parts which i think was a key ingredient between the two and they had different strikes, george h. W. Bush was not the warrior visionary that reagan was. On the other hand george h. W. Bush understood the mechanics of government and how things work. I think they complemented each other very well. Host you get a sense how different Republican Party is today versus 1976 when gerald ford selected bob dole, when reagan selected the republican more moderate liberal pennsylvania senator to be his running mate, went on to serve as his age each s secretary in his administration but that his change in the last 15 to 20 years. It has been very interesting to see both Political Parties and ago this transformation. The case of the Republican Party, it has become more activist, it has become less establishment and i think that there are a number of current that runs through that and part of that is geographical. Ease even unsafe of the Republican Party was a state like pennsylvania which republicans dominated for generations, not so much anymore. New england states, prescott bush, george h. W. Bushs father from connecticut, pretty rare when you see republicans having statewide offices in new england state so the party migrated south, and migrated west so that contributed to it. You also have the rise of the activist wing of the party you have the tea party strain but even before the tea party became involved you had conservatives that reagan very much nourished who were not part of the Republican Party establishment per se but became part of it. They became precinct chairman and state chairman and Committee Members so this is a more conservative party that was 30 years ago and probably within the Democratic Party is more liberal than it was 30 years ago. Host lets talk about a couple other books. Disney the mouse betrayed greed, corruption and children at risk. When did this come out . Wikipedia this came out in 1998. Guest that was 17 years ago. In 1994 i became very interested in disney and what it meant to florida. This book was an expos d. A. On how disney function and some of the problems that existed at disney. What i am proud about this book is two thing is we highlighted that disney was in, we felt the way disney conveyed itself publicly was inconsistent with disney, the first week play in the book that disney had found that there were profits to be made in the online or at that point the hotel porn business and disney was an investor in a company that did that. The second thing we should was disney had a problem. Theyre not doing criminal background checks on their hires and you had people with long rap sheet for a variety of offenses including pedophiles seeking to work at disney and because they did know criminal background checks there were people coming there, working there that had pretty long rap sheet. As a result of the book, they sold their interest in that company and started doing criminal background checks. Those are the things i was particularly proud of in that book. Host use the deferment of time working with Caspar Weinberger to serve in the Reagan Administration as defense secretary. Was the director in the Nixon White House with your relationship with him how, how did that evolve and why this collaboration and these books . Guest i met in the first time in 1991 and got to know him more extensively in 1993 when i worked on my book victory the Reagan Administrations secret strategy that hastened the collapse of the soviet union. Very hawkish on foreign policy, there were people who profoundly disagreed with him on that. I certainly didnt but even people who disagreed with him politically saw him for the gentleman that he was an average genuine person that he was. That had the strong convictions. Gave me a lot of interviews for that book and as a result of that we collaborated on a book called the next war which was a series of war game fictional scenarios, it was not predictive. We were not saying this is what is going to happen but as he talked about it at the pentagon they often did war games to look at you as capabilities and see how well we would deal with certain rights on a large continuance of the the next war was a series of novelized threats we talked about. Some were obvious, middle east crisis, and developing Nuclear Weapons, some of them were perhaps more surprising. We have a scenario where the government of mexico collapses and you have tens of millions of refugees over the course of two months streaming across the border and obviously a humanitarian crisis trying to figure out how that scenario might be dealt with. The thing i love is he was always generous with his time. I was a young writer but he really took me under his wing, was very encouraging and supportive and i will forever be grateful for him, of the wave that he worked with me and tells with me. Host one part of the book, war can occur in many ways but the worst ones usually happen because one power believes it can advance its objectives without a war at all with only limited war that can quickly win and consequently miscalculate, psychology and psychologically and the cold steel always makes it play incoherent security policy. That was the introduction by Margaret Thatcher. Guest that is an important point to make, particularly in the current political environment debate about foreign policy, what should the role of the United States be when people look at him, he built this large military but he was very reluctant to use u. S. Force, he was willing to use it in certain circumstances when he first felt fundamental u. S. National security interests were at stake. American lives were at stake and there was a clear path way to victory. He felt one of the problems was vietnam, one of the problems with vietnam was we didnt go into the war saying here is what we are going to do, here is the objective and how it is we are going to accomplish it, we stumbled into it and continued adding forces with no clear plan for victory to stay here is how we are going to achieve victory. Caspar weinberger is a reluctant user of force. One reason we wrote that book was to highlight the way you prevent war is by being militarily strong. When an adversary perceives weakness or unwillingness to use force, the prospect of war become much greater. Host iraq, vietnam, afghanistan, where those miscalculations . Guest i would classify them differently. The word miscalculations as related to iraq and afghanistan and execution of those wars in the case of iraq you have the initial shock and of that achieved this military victory, certainly a lot of debate about this, the mistake was we sort of leftled the army melt away. A lot of those seeking insurgents and fuelling this amazing cycle of violence we had to deal with in iraq but i do think in iraq you had after the miscalculation about what would happen to the exit iraqi forces and fissures within the country you had a path way to stability and we did largely achieved that in 20082009. With the u. S. Withdrawing forces the future is more precarious. The challenge with vietnam and we learned a lot of this from vietnam the entire assumption behind military operations was not here is how to defeat the enemy. For lbj and to a certain extent before that, 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 stories written by a variety of historians where lbj would sit down and plot what we are going to bomb, when and how. It was all predicated on applying enough pressure to bring the vietcong or the north vietnamese government to the negotiating table. One of the lessons we learned from that is you cannot have as your end game we will negotiate a settlement. You have to have as your end game, military victory. If negotiation opportunity arises on your halfwit to victory may be taken if you make sense but the underlying strategic goal is military victory so we have learned that and of course we have to relearn these every generation unfortunately. Host the first sunday of every month on booktv we go in depth with our meeting of his and our guess is Peter Schweizer who has written or edited more than a dozen books. We want to hear from you. Phone lines are open at 2027488200. For those in the east and central time zones. If you in the mountain or pacific time cents 7488201. Also follow us on twitter on booktv, send us an email at book lets talk about the untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich and get your reaction to this response from brian fallon a Clinton Campaign spokesperson saying no one has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton never took action as secretary of state to support the interests of the donors of the Clinton Foundation. Ted purdy direct response. Guest i would reject that. If the standard is we have to perform an email or recorded telephone conversation somebody saying give me if this money and i will do that in exchange, that is a standard that nobody can live to. What you look at as a pattern of behavior, we do this all the time not just in regards to the clintons but political scandals on the horizon. The question is do you see a pattern of behavior in which money flows and favorable action results . If you look at the recent cases of political corruption whether that was governor mcdonald in virginia who is serving jail time because gifts were exchanged gifts that were legal in the context of virginia law but actions he took as a result, he had gone to jail on those charges, you have senator mendez in new jersey, there is no smoking gun quid pro quo per se where they have an email or phone conversation that talks about such an exchange and he is facing prosecution. A governor in alabama is in jail. The struggle with the clinton response they seem to be creating a standard for the clintons which is totally and wholly unrelated to the standard we have for the politicians. Host if you had an american secretary of defense who was considering the matter before them, and he had a Family Foundation that receive 140 million from that company that had the matter before him and he took action that was favorable to the company it would at least warrant some investigation by government officials. And other examples with the clintons and the belief is theres nothing to see here. Host they leaked copies of the book early, refuted much of what you said in the book, pointed out there were errors in the book and created a website, correcttherecord. Org. Did you expect that . Guest i was surprised and pleased anyway. If you look at a lot of things written about the clintons or any public figure, by and large the tendency is to just ignore it. They ignore it and expect it to go away. If you look at the reporting that came out, they were concerned about this book. I take that as of badge of pride. Not in the sense i want to create anxiety with them but want to reveal the truth. They were concerned about the fact that there is detail in this book, is not done in an overheated way. And i think the fact patterns of very compelling. Any time you write a book like this where you are dealing with literally hundreds of transactions that are going to be slight errors that there were slight errors in the book. We have a couple speeches that occur in 2011 that we had listed in 2010, but none of that undermines at all the fundamentals behind the book and a lot of the information in the book was confirmed. The Iranian Nuclear deal which is two chapters of the book, the New York Times did a 4,000 word frontpage story confirming findings of the book, the Clinton Campaign has not refuted any of that except to say theres nothing to see here. We had similar things with a Washington Postabc news and others, i feel very good about where the book is and i am heartened by the fact that i see a lot of journalists taking this sort of frame of looking at the money going to the Clinton Foundation or the money that bill clinton collected in speaking fees and seeing it as potentially a transactional Business Model. Host publisher harpercollins it was a Real Research would. ve. 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. Because to me there has never really been a straight answer to the question of the emails that were excluded, where they are. Its clear now just based on some of the revelations that have come out with the Sidney Blumenthal emails that there are emails that were not given to the state department that were not of a personal nature that were state Department Related and that the clintons never turned over to the state department. I think that is a profoundly important question. I wrote and finished clinton cash before the email scandal came out and if you ask me now about the email scandal i think it works hand in glove with the issues raised in clinton cash. I think those 30,000 emails that were erased were primarily related to the transactions or the requests of Clinton Foundation donors or those who were paying speeches for bill clinton wanting something from the secretary of state. Host one of the speeches that you edited, and i want to rephrase what reread what Barry Goldwater said in 1964 that famous line that i would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and let me remind you that moderation in the suit of jus pursuit of justice is no virtue. One of the most memorable speeches of any Convention Speech ever. Guest yes. And having written speeches before for political figures i probably would have said that slightly different. I think anytime you use the term extremism in a phrase, that immediately becomes the magnet that everybody looks to. I think host did he write that speech . Guest ing it was written with him and with some speech writers, but goldwater was very, very detailed and intently involved in the speeches that he wrote, so theres no question that he was involved in that process. But i think the principle that goldwater is stating is true is that when it comes to liberty we have to have a principled stand point. We cant have a sort of situation where were willing to compromise on the issues of liberty and freedom. But i think the term extremism is probably not the best word, its certainly not the word that i would have used in that context. Host lets go to maplewood new jersey. Emanuel is on the phone. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Guest hello. Caller yes. Im here and just been taking in the information from some of the callers and the responses from the time i connected with you and i am only going to make the one comment that i made to the person that answered this phone. There seems to be a complete ignoring of the integrity of fox news, and im not particularly surprised that fox news would give this gentleman all the time he needs. And this has nothing to do with stephanopoulos. He should have told people that he had contributed 75,000. That, i think, was not right at all. So its nothing to do with him. It just is, to me, this is an extreme right conservative comments mainly that im hearing, and i can assure you this is not my bent. Im at the other end of the spectrum. And theres really nothing else i can say. I understand clearly, and it has nothing to do with the contents of the book. Theyre fine. Im not questioning that. If they were being questioned, then i would say thats fine. Im not objecting to that. Its just that theres another bent here in addition when you went over some of his prior books, this is just the continuation. And i also remember distinctly before bill clinton ever became president and from then on, including against obama theres been a organization of conservative lawyers that have been bringing all these case toss the Supreme Court. And as far as cases to the Supreme Court. And as far as the Supreme Court is concerned a couple of those decisions relating to the arms Second Amendment and relating to Citizens United, if that hasnt destroyed our country id like to know what the hell has. Have a good day. I wish you well. Guest well, thank you for the call. I would say that, you know im concerned with what the caller said. He said two things. He said, first of all, this is sort of a rightwig agenda rightwing agenda thats trying to move along and that the contents of the book may be fine but thats another issue. I think this is one of the problems that we have in the country. It becomes very easy to sort of throw around a label. And what i would challenge the caller to say is whether youre looking at something written by a liberal or written by a conservative evaluate it and determine whether its truthful or factual or not. If he says the contents of the book are fine thats great, but that should have a certain consequence in the way you view the tenure of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and the transactional nature of what was taking place. So i always try to shy away from labels. I know sometimes labels are necessary, liberal and conservative. But, you know, when i consume news, i look at a variety of sources. I, on my kindle, look at the nation i look at mother jones. These are two news outlets, as it were, that politically would probably be different than where i am. Im a sort of limited Government Conservative, but they have valuable things to say and theres truth within those pages from time to time. I dont agree with everything they publish but theres some interesting things that are published. So i would just encourage the caller to not be so quick to assign labels to people and so to say there may be truth over here but because im conservative, im not going to Pay Attention to that 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 bill clintons biggest single payday speech ever come comes in 2011. Up until this point his average speaking fee is a little less than 200,000 a year. She becomes secretary of state. The payments he gets from overseas entities paying him hugely inflated prices goes through the roof. Bill clinton has given 13 speeches his entire speaking career for which he gets paid half a Million Dollars or more per speech. Of those 13, 11 of them occurred while he was secretary of state. Now, the single biggest payday, 750,000, comes from a Swedish Company calls erickson. Eric szob in 2011 is having problems with Hillary Clintons state department. There are all sorts of state Department Cables that came out in wikileaks that prove and make this case. Theyre upset at ericcson because theyre selling Telecom Equipment to the government of iran and that Hillarys State Department is looking at broadening sanctions to include the very technologies that ericcson is selling to iran. In the middle of all of this ericcson for the First Time Ever decides to pay bill clinton 750,000 for a sickle speech. Single speech. Nine days later the state department under Hillary Clintons name, issues a statement that says were not going to broaden sanctions to include technologies covered by ericcson, were going to ask them and other companies to police themselves. You can draw whatever conclusion you want from it. I dont draw a conclusion, but what i show is that there are dozens of examples like that. And then the question becomes i would say to the caller is decide for yourself. Do you think this is all just a coincidence . Thats what the clintons say. The clintons say they dont dispute that the money came, the decisions that were made, they just say its all a coincidence. I dont believe that coincidences happen that frequently in politics. Host quote over the last dozen years the clintons have been involved in hundreds of transactions with Foreign Governments, Foreign Investors and Foreign Corporations around the world. It appears from the Clinton Foundation donor list and the roster of those who are sponsored speeches that there is barely an oligarch or a representative of a foreign country that is not represented. Guest we looked at the list of the Clinton Foundation contributors. Those were disclosed because of a very wise decision that barack obama made as president of the United States. He said for Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state, they were going to be required to release the names of all their contributors and to do so on an annual basis. That was a requirement that president elect barack obama imposed on the clintons. And they actually had a signed, written agreement to that effect. As i point out in the book and has now been confirmed by the wall street journal and by the New York Times, there were undisclosed, multimillion dollar donors that were not disclosed. In other words the clintons violated their agreement with president elect obama almost immediately. Yeah, there are familiar names General Electric and boeing and other companies. But when you look overseas, you find that very obscure companies that operate, you know, Mining Companies operating in the democratic republic of congo, you know guys who are financiers who live in nigeria who have a history of being convicted of financial crimes, of aiding and abetting a criminal enterprise or money laundering. There are some very unlikable people that give money to the clintons and the clintons are eager to take their money from them. And that would be, i think a question that a lot of people would consider. My experience with the book has been that, of course, conservatives who dont like the clintons have embraced the book but weve also had a lot of progressives who believe that the clintons are for sale who have also embraced the book because they see the sorts of people that they are taking money from. Youve got, you know, individuals who do deals with war lords in africa. Very lucrative deals. Who are committed to giving 100 million to the Clinton Foundation. That should be troublesome not just to a conservative who doesnt like the clintons but i think to somebody who would be concerned about human rights and corruption and other issues. Host as you well know Hillary Clinton supporters call your book fiction they say, quote, it is a political hatchet job masquerading as a book, and you fail in the book to outline the many good things that the foundation has done in some of the poorest areas of the world. Guest right. Well, i would certainly reject the hatchet job. I think the information speaks for itself. Its all about transactions its all about follow the money. And i do say in the book that the Clinton Foundation has done some good things. The problem is its hard because of the way they intentionally set it up, its hard to actually ascertain what the Clinton Foundation does. And thats just not me saying that. This is what Charity Groups like Charity Navigator, you can go online and look at Charity Navigator, and they look at the guts of charities, and they evaluate them, how effective are they how do they spend their money . If you go to Charity Navigator they do not even evaluate the Clinton Foundation because of what they regard as its quoteunquote, unusual Business Model. Its hard to ascertain exactly what the Clinton Foundation does. It does some good things, but the way in which they structure it the flow of money the lack of internal financial control that is the Better Business bureau and others have dinged them for makes i it difficult to evaluate what are those good things they do. Host george is next, good afternoon. Guest good afternoon caller good afternoon. I want to compliment mr. Schweizer for his answers to the lady from florida and the gentleman from maplewood, new jersey. I think they were very, very good answers and accurate. With regard to my question, last fall i saw richard vigori who originated a direct mail order campaigning successfully as im certain mr. Schweizer is aware state that he favors a governor. The clear implication was a sitting governor for the republican nomination. Hes not he wouldnt reveal who that was and thats clear back last fall. And i wonder if mr. Schweizer who, obviously is very informed might be willing to speculate upon who that sitting republican governor is. Guest i certainly wouldnt know who richard was referring to. But i would share his sentiment. I do think that if you look at american political history when we have president s who have executive experience background, they tend to adjust better and i think function better as president s because they know how government works. If you are a legislator and im not saying you cant overcome this, but if you are a legislator and youve never run a large bureaucracy and youre not used to making executive decisions, i think you have a much larger learning curve than you do as a governor. I i this history bears that out i think history bears that out. Now, there are certainly examples that would take my statement and turn it on its head. Abraham lincoln, for example, you dont see a lot of executive experience there but he functioned as an executive at an extremely high level and was enormously effective in getting things done. So i would share the sentiment. I think, you know, all things being equal i certainly would favor a governor because there is no substitute for knowing how to actually run a bureaucracy and to do so effectively. Host sonya is next daytona beach, florida. Thanks for waiting. Caller thank you. The book really is about follow the money follow the power. My hobby is just over the years just watching can conservatives so im give you a for instance. The washington spectator a very respected newsletter, february 1, 2004, the top story was the bush familys profiteering goes unobserved in iraq. How many of the bush family members had lucrative connections to contractors in iraq and they were making at lot of money. 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 c guest i cant speak much to the washington times. I look at the newspaper and i read it and i dont know actually what the owner should structure is now. To the point about the profiteering, related to iraq and the others i do think it is legitimate to look at any of our political leaders and to see whether self enrichment is taking place. I have come to the belief and the conclusion the one of the biggest problems in the countrys self enrichment by what i call a permanent Political Class, that you have a group of people both republicans and democrats that in a sense have a lot more in common than people realize and they function in support of this matter and way in which self enrichments republics service has become a very effective means to enriching the families themselves and it is a persistent problem. Host the host the subject of your book politicians and their friends get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison, in the book you say the following. The permanent Political Class has figured out how to extract wealth from the rest of us based solely on their position and proximity to power. If you have a seat at the tip we are in for a feast. If you dont have a seat at the table you are probably on the menu. That is right. Is a function of centralized power. One of the reasons the Founding Fathers and so many others who have written about politics are concerned about the concentration of power is the concentration of power means the ability to make money so one of the things get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison is insidertrading laws dont really apply to politicians and Congressional Staff members, and this went on in a very widespread way so in 2009 when you are debating the Affordable Care act or obamacare you are talking about reforming roughly 20 of the u. S. Economy. You had members of Congress Introducing amendments pushing for votes, treating Health Care Stocks at the same time and doing so quite lucrative lee and there was nothing illegal about them doing so. You had members of the senate armed Services Committee approving the military budget for the procurement of Weapons Systems to own stock in defense contractors and treating those stocks accordingly and what was troubling to me was the statistic done in the journal of quantitative economics, they looked at the stock returns of members of the u. S. Congress, u. S. Senate and compare that with the stock transactions of hedge funds and Corporate Executives treating their own Company Stock and what they found was the average american and doperforms the stock market the average Corporate Executive trading isnt Company Stock beat the market by 5 , the average hedge fund at the time was beating the market at 7 . The study found that the average u. S. Senator was beating the stock market by 12 . The question became is it just that the senators are great Financial Investors . They all ought to be running hedge funds . Or they have access to inside information and trade on inside information . What i did in the book similar to what i did in the clinton book was simply followed the money. I looked at when stock trades were made, whether they were buying or selling, what legislation was before their committee and how they did on those investments and the most stunning case i found involved does and republican chairman of the House Republican Services Committee Spencer Baucus do in the 2008 financial crisis had a closeddoor meeting with the fed chairman and treasury secretary, topsecret meeting on capitol hill just a handful of senior politicians, they were all required to leave their cellphones at the door because it was a topsecret. In that meeting we found out Henry Paulson based on his memoir said he gave an apocalyptic rendering of what was going to happen to the u. S. Economy based on the financial crisis. The next morning Spencer Baucus options orting the u. S. Market. Ebonics all fresh air . Q betting the market would go down and of course as i contend in the bucket wasnt much of a bad because the treasury secretary and the fed chairman the night before had told him the market was going to go down 80 end ed up making a substantial amount of money off of that deal. Host you write about john boehner was leading the opposition to obama care in the house of representatives, i have been fighting john kerry on policy matters but was entirely allied with him when it came to Investment Decisions lose speaking specifically. This does that four five years, i cant remember the actual names of the companies but what john boehner was doing was buying stock in companies that were going to benefit from the Affordable Care act. As john kerry was doing at the same time. My contention based on that experience in those particular cases it was not as stock as it was with Spencer Baucus where you had one day this information came but in light of that that i said we should have a requirement that members of congress have blind trusts when it comes to stock investments. I think it makes no sense to allow our members of congress to actively trade, buy and trade and sell stocks at their own free will while they are making decisions in health care, national defense, the economy in general that has has joy profound effect on the stock prices of companies and i think the Affordable Care act in 2009 was a prime example of that. Next caller from durum n. C. Richard, good afternoon. Bill nye deal on a blind trust. Questioned going back to the donation by George Stephanopoulos to the foundation. I am puzzled on why that is bad because if id donate to a charity that doesnt discourage me from challenging the Charity Leaders or the charity. I can stop them needing any time i once. Shields saying he who pays the piper calls the tune. George stephanopoulos is the one paying so he is not under any control, and message seems to show he supports the foundation. If you stretch you might say it means he supports the clintons but it is easy enough to find out what his political views might be because he gives opinions at various times and over the years he certainly has so i dont see how entangled king and denny negative way. Guest you bring up a fair point but the interview George Stephanopoulos did with me was my criticism of the Clinton Foundation itself. You have an entity that he is giving 75,000 to actively because he obviously believes it is a good thing which is fine but if you are growing 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 or a point of disclosure i am a Clinton Foundation donor. I have given them 75,000 and then to go on with whatever questioning he wants to do. That is the concern i have with it. Host next caller from texas, good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. A little nervous here. I am from middle america, middle class individual, disability retired and retired after 30 years and what i have seen from local, state and federal, i use to set of communications for the president when i came into smith county, also a set of wiretap for federal investigations and what i have seen is all too often, talking about from the grass roots at the bottom to the president of the United States, there is corruption on all sides of the issue. Middle america, we want america to work, we want our constitution to work. Right now are watch all the news programs and what i turned the tv off i go outside full of anxiety of what i am listening to, everybody seems to have a side bet no one wants to do what is right anymore. Guest i think youre right corruption is rampant and how to deal with it, one way people deal with it is throw up my hands and just kind of walk away. I think if you take that position, whatever your political views, liberal, conservative or middleoftheroad, that is the wrong solution because you are ceding the terrain to what i call the permanent Political Class and the people that are engaging in this corruption and self and rich and. The Second Solutions some people have proposed is we need new laws and new regulations and the problem is history shows us they always find a way around them. Theres always the cute way to get around a new law or new regulation designed to restrict some so the question becomes what is the solution . I think the solution is to strip them of their power and to put the onus on them rather than the restrictions on American People. For Example Campaign finance. We have all kinds of laws that have been set up that are designed to somehow prevent our politicians from being influenced by the flow of money and i dont think those laws have been successful. To me the larger issue is one of extortion, i think politicians go out and actively seek businesses into industries and introduce bills and introduce regulations explicitly designed to collect money from those entities so i think the way you deal with getting rid of or at least limiting the amount of money, the amount of influence money has on our politics is by regulating the politicians, not the American People. What do i mean by that . In 27 states including florida where i live we have very simple law that says when the Florida Legislature meets politicians cannot solicit or received campaign contributions, period. The restriction is entirely on the politician. If you violate that you are violating the law. Of states do the same thing. To me that is a very sensible way to get around the fact that when congress meets not very far from here, you have politicians who are marking up bills or drafting bills and theyre walking out of their Office Building getting on a cellphone across the street where they can legally do so, talking to lobbyists were talking to people who are interested in the bill and raising money from them. Why not simply say the same thing you have in congress, you are going to have based on what happens in these states and by the way if nothing else we have much shorter congressional sessions because they want to go off and raise money but we have to start fundamental rethinking of these things in of these things in different of these things in different ways. Host architects of ruin how a gang of radical activists and liberal politicians destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth in the pursuit of social justice. Guest the unintended consequences of intentions can be disastrous. By that i mean this was a look at the 2008 financial crisis and what i basically argue is a lot of efforts by housing activists and other entities to broaden Home Ownership in the United States this was something both republicans and democrats embraced, was well intentioned, was a good idea but was absolutely disastrous for the economy because you have a lot of people buying homes that they couldnt afford, that they were not able to pay the mortgages on and that played a very Important Role in the financial crisis that we politicians extract your money, buy votes, and line their own pockets. Host politics is a little like professional wrestling. What you think is going on is not actually going on. This is an analogy that to my mind some people would say is excessively cynical but i think really explains what goes on in washington d. C. When i was a kid growing up in seattle, washington i would turn on channel 13 which was one of the independent channels and you could see professional wrestling and see a guy hitting a guy with a chair, when i first watched it i thought this is amazing, these guys each others guts. Then i started watching it more and pay more attention i came to realize when the second, these guys dont hate each other, these are business partners, these guys are in business together sort of putting on this display for our benefit but theres an inside joke going on. There is a lot washington d. C. That goes on in that way. A lot of what we see as the partisan divide is really manufactured in a way and i think theres a lot more the two Political Parties have in common, this permanent Political Class, than they have in disagreement. Host we are halfwit for our conversation with Peter Schweizer. Gary from south dakota. Caller i like your analogy about restlessly joy just finished reading the book about pretty boy bobby king and jake peavy insight about the bruiser wrote down a loser of indiana and he got paid for throwing the chair and lost the match so it was great. I used to tell my sons i went to see them and i loved him in the 70s. Anyway, back to what im talking about, basically i always registered democrat. My family has always been democrat but as far as Hillary Clinton and the clintons i dont see it. They are just a powerhungry machine like you were saying and i just dont think she is the right candidate. They have had their run. Using their eight years, she is secretary of state, now get out, run the Clinton Foundation put more money back into america. We hear about president obama talking about the infrastructure, our schools put your money year. If you have problems in haiti south effort that and whatever, what is wrong with good old United States of america . And maybe if they put some money into the School System maybe we can hire better teachers. As far as jeb bush i did in tampa, tampa bay area for pretty much about 48 years. I was fair when launch on els beat him in 1994. That was the problem. When he got back in first thing he did was no child left behind and jeb bush gives vouchers that was his plan, if you had an Exceptional Child that was straight as they could give him a voucher to a private school. That is what concerns me about him. Host who are you going to vote for . Caller i dont know. I havent checked out web yet. Sanders i like what he says but my conservative friends call me a communist. Or socialist or whatever. I think his age, i dont think i dont like the fact that he is older. The person who is really interesting is donald trump. The conservative friend of mine said years ago i voted for kennedyes because they didnt need money. I am like you know what . It came back to me when he decided to run he is brash and controversial but i dont know. If he did get the nomination i would probably go that way. Actually i got into a political discussion with my nephew, i actually like jesse ventura. Host will give our guest a chance to respond, thank you for the call from south dakota. Guest i am hearing what i heard elsewhere. The clinton and bush front line near, not as much enthusiasm on either side in either party. And drawings seem to be larger and more energetic. I am not suggesting he will win the nomination but in terms of enthusiasm you are finding something similar on the republican side, in the Republican Party establishment liked the idea of jeb bush, enthusiasm from he is the best candidate. And process is so long it will run two years, when we have the general election win this thing started at the beginning of this year but this going to sort out and sift through the people who want to lead our country. And along came this senator, young senator from illinois named barack obama who won the nomination. That is when is an area and fly on either side and that is so exciting about a process we have. Host listeners on cspan radio and on booktv, where can we reach out to you . Guest look at my website, Peter Schweizer. Com. If you want to look at clinton cash the untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich, clintoncashbook. Com has Media Encounters and i have an Organization Called Government Accountability institute. That is an organization based in florida, we have 15 employees where we do in depth investigative research. Host do you tweet . Guest i dont tweet a lot. Host we will be back and continue our cspan2 conversation with author Peter Schweizer. He has written or edited more than a dozen books. And we will continue our conversation on cspan2. President ial candidates often release books to introduce themselves to voters and promote their views on issues. Heres a look at some books written by declared candidates for president. In his book integration wars we continue host we continue our conversation with author Peter Schweizer who is a graduate of George Washington university, came from 1 washington to the other. Guest rule of in seattle. My father was an engineer at boeing, my first two years as a graduate, Pacific Lutheran University on the debate team i enjoyed the debate team at high school in college and transferred to George Washington university and graduated in the bachelors degree. Than in 1988 i went to oxford, a natural philosophy in international relations, fantastic experience i would encourage everybody has the opportunity to go there to take advantage of it. The approach to learning is different in a way you dont have classes and credits that you take, you have to write a thesis and i thrive in that enjoyment and enjoy it very much. I wrote my masters thesis on the soviet military which fell apart the next year. Go figure. Host what do your kids think of what their dad does . Guest i think they all find it interesting. Some are more interested than others. My parents were never ones to say this is what you are going to do. I am glad it and great land excited that i do what i do but the kids that i love and enjoy spending time with. Host why do you like to write . How do you go about putting a book together whether it is clinton cash for the bushes portrait of a dynasty or the books on Ronald Reagan . With your approach . Guest i hate the writing process which is a strange thing for another to say. What i love is research which is what i thrive on. I would like to believe if you read most of my books you will find things you havent read somewhere before even if you have a particular affinity for a subject. I love the research project. On the clinton cash book a really love looking at the flow of money looking at what was happening, creating a template of these transactions while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and then once that narrative is together in my mind based on the facts i began writing and what i tell all writers, if you look at a book in the process of writing a complete book it becomes overwhelming so just take a chapter at a time and say i am going to write this chapter on this uranium transaction for example. Then you complete the project and go on to the next one. If you take it in small bite sized chunks it becomes less intimidating. At least it does for me. Host you are working on a book on jeb bush that will come out when . Guest en ebook coming out in september which will be an ebook because with a lot of books released by publishers in new york you have a long lead up time in the editing process and we are not able to do that but that will come out in september and we are applying the same principles there that we apply to the bush book for we are following the money to see where money flowed and see if there were benefits that accrued to those providing those funds based on jeb bushs public career. Host base and his Financial Disclosure he made a lot of money since leaving the governorsship in florida and in part using the bush name to capitalize on it. Guest no question about it and you have the issue, family relationships which are so key, clinton cash, husband and wife, secretary of state and her husband the expresident and flow of funds there and the enrichment did take place, in the bushes portrait of a dynasty the question we are investigating is jeb bushs increase in net worth, basically went from one. 3 million when he left the governors mention to simmer 90s 20 million in debt accumulation of money have something to do with the fact that these part of that time his brother was president of the United States and the ability to try to influence government, was it related . Host what is the title . Guest the title is up in the air right now. It has been proposed bush bucks to the untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich. I dont know if that is what it will be, it seems of little too vernacular for me but that conveys this notions of we are very interested and concerned about which is our our political leaders engaged in self enrichment . Some of the mark some of them arent. The key determination is trying to look at the flow of money, the timing of that flow and then let the reader decide. As we did in clinton cash the untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich we should the case is and i said this warrants further investigation but i dont think anywhere in the book i say i am convinced or know that a criminal act as taken place because im not an attorney. Host give us one key is, one thing in the book that you want people to buy. Guest during his tenure of governor, we look at a series of transactions that take place. In particular there was an airport built with state funds and some of the people that benefited from that transaction are people who are caught with the bushes. That is all i can say. I will have my researchers in florida upset that i revealed that much but you heard it here on cspan first. We havent talked about it anywhere else. Host lets go to paul in nebraska. And good afternoon. Caller i am enjoying your program. I get a lot of mileage out of your professional dedication nebraska, very conservative. We try to get through this fast. On a good test i am left of center. Doesnt mean i am completely left. A lot of conservative views, one main question, if we are not the fastest country, dont know what that is. This country is run a Big Industrial conflicts, down the line, viewing corporations as people in relation to campaign donations. As far as the news media, in nebraska you would think in the news media they actually waive it. Since obama was selected what makes one good thing about the Obama Administration. Host you put a lot on the table, thank you for the call. Wikipedia guest the caller brings a good point when he talked about the role of corporations and the way america is governed. That is one of the examples of the professional wrestling analogy i would use. The solution people conveys Big Government and big business are absolutely at war with each other and i would completely reject that and there was more collaboration between Big Government and big business. Big Business Life and government regulates successfully. The reason they do so it allows big business to have smaller competitors fall by the wayside due cant put up with those regulatory requirements. One example i would give would be doddfrank, the big financial reform the took place, very complex very detailed regulatory requirements. Obviously you can have a debate whether Financial Sector needs more regulation or less but we do know that the large Financial Institutions like citibank and Goldman Sachs by and large really liked the doddfrank reform. Smaller competitors are not going to be able to afford to comply with it and will be driven out of the marketplace. I agree with the caller that the role of big business and Big Government together, they are not opponents, they are collaborators and the question becomes what do we do about it . For me we are the only solution to limit the size and scope of government because government has become coopted by large corporations and the way you force large corporations to compete against smaller competitors is to get the government out of the way and allow more on open competition to occur. Host reference to fox news. Guest fox news when you look at the news side which is their job to report news does a fantastic job doing so and they are regarded well by their journalistic colleagues. I know they are. I had those colleagues with people, they conflate evening programming which is commentary or programming side of fox news with the news 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 host. Is not designed to give a balanced news view per se. That is a side of the News Division and that is what am snbc does and what cnn does so that is an unfair criticism of fox news. Host david you are with Peter Schweizer. Caller so many times when i watch television i hear pessimism about politics there were some politicians today that you respect and you believe do it the right way so to speak. Guest good question. I am pessimistic about politics but optimistic about the country. It is my nature to be optimistic. Are we going to have a government that reflects the values and wishes of the American People . Are we going to have a government that is held captive by what happens inside the washington beltway. I actually did a couple of 1hour specials with fox news just for full disclosure. Those were specifically about the washington beltway and it was about how washington d. C. Has become so fabulously wealthy and that is a function of government that is out of control and too large. To answer the question politicians are trying to do it the right way, certainly from the cronyism and corruption standpoint i could give you a couple names on both sides of the aisle. If i were to look at the left side of the aisle and probably wouldnt agree on policy prescriptions. I guarantee i wouldnt i would say barney frank is somebody that when he was in congress there is no evidence i have seen involving financial misconduct or self enrichment that took place. I would put Bernie Sanders in that category. There is no evidence that he is engage in self enrichment or cronyism as far as i am concerned. On the conservative side you could set we look at somebody like ted cruz for example. There is not evidence of self and richmond that has taken place with ted cruz. For meet the larger issue is over the span of a period of time and one reason i came to endorse term limits which is not a view i previously had is i do think the longer someone stays in public life of harder it becomes to resist the temptation to cut corners to make themselves wealthy, etc. I do think an infusion of new blood is something that is very important. Host the. You have either you have either authored, secrets, victory the Reagan Administrations secret strategy that hastened the collapse of the soviet union, the next war which you coauthored with Caspar Weinberger, the book we talked about risk story of his 40 year struggle and final triumph over communism, the bushes portrait of a dynasty, chain of command which you coauthored also with Caspar Weinberger, do as i say not as i do profiles in liberal hipocrisy, hipocrisy, back in 2008, hipocrisy, back in 2008, generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic and envious, whine less. And even hug their children more than friends get rich off insider stock tips, land deals, and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison which came out a couple years ago in your more recent books, extortion how politicians extract your money, buy votes, and line their own pockets, and untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich. Lets go to death in ecommerce pennsylvania. Good afternoon. I make 10 an hour. Which group do you think congress men and the women are more likely to act on behalf of . Their constituents or their donors . And i have a comment to follow a. Host out of you answer that question . Caller i am asking that your guest if you dont mind. Guest most politicians given the political system we have i going to be very responsive to donors but i think the point i would make is that i think somebody in your situation with the situation all americans are in is they need to look and their elected officials and say which one is going to create a circumstance that allows greater opportunities for me . I think it will be very hard to change the equation as to who is going to be more responsive to what you want but i think the question you have to ask yourself is which one is going to create a circumstance for greater opportunities for me to flourish in and that is who i would look to for political leadership. Host you wanted to followup. Caller with Citizens United i feel we are opening ourselves up to foreign money to control us and i wonder what have the republicans done to stop Citizens United and as you were saying i think you are right, we need to look to people who help us like former senator Rick Santorum was trying to to get rid of social security. I wonder what republicans have ever done to help but 99 that is people like me. I just dont understand why people would vote for republicans to tell you the truth. Guest what i would say to the caller is i would not work for a politician to help you. If you are looking for a politician to help you good luck. A politician is going to respond to what is in your interests or not within your interests. You look for the politician would create greater opportunity with you and that is different from helping. As relates to Citizens United she mentioned Citizens United increasing the flow of foreign money, that is not quite the way that i would characterize it. I look at Citizens United, i think people do have a fundamental First Amendment right to communicate the idea at they believe in. If you are a wealthy billionaire like tom styron and youre concerned about the environment and wants to run ads that say i want to do something about Global Warming i think you have a First Amendment right to do so. The point clinton cash the untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich book does go very much to the core of the issue of foreign money and why it is so troubling. We have this consensus in american politics that we dont want foreign money influencing our political system. If you are a Foreign National or Foreign Corporation you can set up a Political Action committee, you cant give to a super pac or donate to a campaign. What the clintons of the and by creating the Clinton Foundation and bill clinton taking inflated speaking fees from foreign entities we now do have a conduit and a model of that if we dont deal with it, in the future will come to influence our political system and will allow Foreign Corporations and foreign entities on a major scale to influence our political process and that is what i am concerned about. Host the debate the took place in richmond, va. In 1992 is the subject of this email from kenneth martin. During that debate with George Herbert walker bush and bill clinton i noticed bill clinton deliberately mentioned the father of George Herbert walker bush press got bush early in the debate. My observation is mr. Clinton was very sly. There was a smirk on his face and it was one of those gotcha moments mr. Bush appeared instantly to react in a melancholy manner because of that attitude George Herbert walker bush had of love toward his father and through than president bush. Guest interesting observation. I will have to go back and see that 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. No question with in this family there is that generational respect that one has for the other hand is very clear sense that as a future generation, youre standing on the shoulders of the previous generation and they are thankful for the heritage they have. It would not surprise me at all. I do think it becomes very difficult for the family but family members are brought into the political debate or family members are attacked or criticize it is hard for them to respond because there is a strong emotional bond. I right in the book about how george w. And jeb bush for much of their adult life were not particularly close, they were competitors very different people but they did really reconcile, really beginning with the 2000 president ial elections and the drama in florida and i now think they are very close. When do jeb is asked questions about george w. s tenure as president is a difficult thing from to deal with. He doesnt want to be disloyal to his brother but he is his own man and he is a different man so it presents quandaries. Host is lined the weve seen on the campaign trail he will say to somebody do you have a brother and sister and are you like your brother or sister in the face a note, exactly. A great point. The same dynamic with the clintons where Hillary Clinton is being asked questions came up when she was secretary of state and somebody asked her about what her husband might do or what her husbands views were and i think she rightly said look, i am here, i am secretary of state, talk to me, dont worry about what my husband would do. There is the sense what you are talking about a sibling or a spouse and you are part of a political dynasty it is impossible to avoid questions about family members but not always the easiest thing to deal with. There is that sense of loyalty, that being independent. Host we hope you like us on facebook at facebook. Com booktv and follow us on twitter and send as a tweet at booktv. We go to steve in montgomery texas, good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Peter schweizer, your book on the clintons untold story of how and why Foreign Governments and businesses helped make bill and hillary rich, gives the impression that only easy state department under Hillary Clinton had to approve of the iranian transaction, but werent there some federal and state instances that also had to of proof of the deal, and i would ask that both you and steve tell the country which federal, state, federal and state agencies had to approval of the deal. For instance the agency of the state of utah also approved the same deal. Guest i point out in the book and sit in numerous interviews since then that there are nine Government Agencies that had to sign off on this transaction. The reason i think the Hillary Clinton signing of is particularly concerning is twofold. First of all Hillary Clinton is the only agency head of the nine that had to review this, Family Foundation received 145 million from shareholders who stood to make money from this deal. Think about that for second. You have a small canadian Uranium Companies that wants to be sold to the russian stateowned entity and nine people connected with that company, shareholders the chairman of the company etc. Since 145 million to the Clinton Foundation. That to me cries out for investigation and if it were any other political figure it would. The second reason it is important to look at Hillary Clintons signing off on that deal as opposed to the state of utahs or the department of Homeland Security is Hillary Clinton, i talk about this in the book and anybody, but that the Public Record had a very strong record of opposing precisely these kinds of deals. This came through a process on foreign investment, had to sign off on this deal. They needed to approve the deal. Hillary clinton back to 20052006 had an enormously strong record of being a hawk on precisely these kinds of deals. You, as of close to the dubai ports deal because she didnt want the government of dubai opening ports in the United States, there are a series of other deals i talk about in the book, she wanted to strengthen and made blanket statements numerous times that she did not want Foreign Government entities as happened in this case to own critically Strategic Industries as would happen in this case and yet she reversed course from her previous position and approved this deal. That is why i think in this decision shane that is particularly important and demand for the scrutiny. Back to the book you edited American Conservative Movement speeches, Ronald Reagan and july 201981 first on a u. S. President face inauguration and the west front of the capital, made references to that in his speech used the word renewal quite a fan, renewing our determination, renewing our faith, he said it is time to realize the we had too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. You have a sense 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 thing he knew 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 and this is what i think is so important, republican democrat, any political figure, reagans optimism but it wasnt optimism that was just sort of senoslderstloo we in tboo mg want 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 caller i would like to ask first about the Citizens United case. I know your guest should be from what i understand reverse on that budget seems a little odd to me. I kind of got a little strange feeling about that. A lot of people may not know and i am sure your guest does the lot of people do know but not Everybody Knows that started off as of smaller kind of insignificant in my opinion case and somehow it seemed as if roberts on his own merits kind of directed that in the direction to where it turned out to be and based on his history of from what people have said that he seems to be maybe 5 1 with his decisions on more corporate government versus things that are better off for the American People did just seems kind of not to pass the smell test and i wonder if he thought there was not asking to place any blame but asking if he ever had any kind of feeling that there might have been a little premeditation of how that whole thing evolve. Didnt seem like the normal osmosis. It seemed almost too beneficial, ironic how that worked out. Guest i am not a Supreme Court watcher so i hate to speed and why they make the decisions they make but i would say Citizens United is pretty consistent with the decision going back to 1976 the socalled buckley decision. The buckley decision basically had a simple 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 city hall. That does not mean you can get unlimited amounts of money to a political campaign. Citizens united does not say that either. What it does say is if you are an individual who is wealthy or if you want to get together a group of people who are not particularly wealthy but you are concerned and want the country to have a stronger national defense, 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 for is the media by buying gadgets and were. That is of you 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 politics would be much more clean i would reject that notion. I think the core problem we face in politics is the same problem that is faced in Politics Around the 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 they are going to have is to accumulate power themselves and accumulate wealth for themselves and family members and friends so the notion the we are going to get money out of politics which is a catch phrase out there, that will clean up the political process. It is not. You can look at a lot of governments around the world that have a different political system in the United States to iraq with the same kinds of problems of political corruption and it wont 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 self and rich and we need to watch them like a hawk, have absolute transparency on anything our government is doing with the exception of a few rare things related to National Security. Host from this book extortion, and lc hastings the his girlfriend 622,000 over four year period, congressman jerry lewis paid his life 512,000. Congresswomen maxine daughter pater daughter and grandson a total of nearly 500,000. Guest these are the socalled leadership pacs that have been established. A leadership pac is a little different from normal Political Action committee. It is set up by members of congress for senators and ostensibly you raise money, at say you are Maxine Waters from california, you are raising money as part of your leadership pac so you can give money to other democrats so they can elect so you can enhance the population of democrats in congress. The problem as i point out in the book is leadership pacs are slush funds because they dont face the same restrictions that are regular Campaign Committees or joint fundraising committees. You can take a leadership pac money and use it to enhance your life style. You can hire family members and put them on the payroll you can take the family on a golfing trip to scotland and have a leadership pac pay for it. Say that you met with one person there. It is a way of subsidizing lifestyle and i think it is an enormous problem and an example of this kind of self enrichment. There is an example where i would say you should not necessarily say people cant give to leadership pacs but restrict what people can do with them and the way they spend their money and berries to me no reason politicians should be allowed to use Political Committee many to enhance their lifestyles. Leading king john from madison, alabama. Good afternoon. Caller i have a question and the content. First, the question, Peter Schweizer has been looking into the influence of money in politics for a long time. I have a question about the drug money, illegal money joy has got to be billions of dollars that is not accounted for. 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 somet guest it would not surprise me to see money flow, something perceived to be legitimate means no reason you wouldnt expect him to be trying to influence the political process. Everybody does and that is part of a problem. Government has become so large and so powerful and so interested in every aspect of our life, frankly you would be a fool not to influence the political process and that would go to what you are talking about, drug money. Host do you have a comment . Caller the comment is something different. I was in the army in 1980. I saw the change. I was in the army through the 80s. I saw the change that happened in the United States army when the reagan people and particularly secretary weinberger came on board and it was 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 and i wanted to say that on tv and i would imagine Peter Schweizer agrees with that. Guest i hear that a lot. People who work with him, same thing to hear that. He loves Americas Fighting men and women at his police in building of the military and giving his military capability we have is precisely to give the tools to get the job done which also minimize casualties as much as possible because lot of people dont realize Caspar Weinberger served with General Macarthur in the pacific so he was a veteran himself and was very proud of the fact. Host there was a relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and winston churchill. You write a lot about Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and the special relationship between those two leaders and you had Pope John Paul ii in the 1980s. How did that come together to bring down the soviet union . Guest those were allimportant green. Margaret thatcher became president Prime Minister in 1979 reagan was seeking the presidency of the United States but this amazing affinity for each other they both had different manner of doing it but they had this profound sense that the cold war could be won. To look back at 19821983 some of the speeches and statements that were reagan made as president of the United States, you had a president of the United States saying communism is going to end on the ash heap of history. And saying communism is the sad bizarre chapter in Human History whose last days are being written. In retrospect everybody can look and say communism collapsed but at the time the established view was these were bizarre things to say and if you look at the writings of john kenneth galbraith, the great economist of the 20th century, or columnists and the New York Times they all thought reagan was a crackpot. The assumption was soviet communism was here to stay and we have to cope with it and deal with it throughout cumin history, was a permanent part of the political landscape. Margaret thatcher had the same view. There is an episode i write about in reagans war the epic story of his 40 year struggle and final triumph over communism, Margaret Thatcher offers the toast where she toasts president reagans speech and thanks him for putting freedom on the offensive. The idea that we are proud to go on the offensive for individuals and freedom was a change in the psychology of the cold war and certainly john paul ii in theological terms and face terms added to that ideological struggle and this notion that the individual has dignity, the individual is entitled to freedom this created a complete change in the psychology of the cold war and coupled that with the very specific things the Reagan Administration did in policy terms i think fundamentally explains why the cold war ended the way it ended. Host we have 30 minutes remaining and our in depth offer this week is Peter Schweizer he has written more than a dozen books edited and, that many of those. Jeff is next from nebraska. Caller i got more of a statement than a question but i had the opportunity to do all the communications on the white house helicopters, george bush senior, the last two years of bill clinton and the first two years of george bush jr. As a fly on the wall i will tell you the difference between the respect that was shown to the secret service marines, any other person on the ground, was joy us different, just incredible how disrespectful bill clinton was to the people that supported it wouldnt surprise me to let it was so obvious. When they went to india as they spent 50 million on one trip, india, bangladesh sweden. They dont care. The clintons dont care about our money and i will tell you one other famous. George bush senior riding around with johnson in new and james baker, the most professional people you can possibly be a round, unbelievable. Host let me ask a question how where the clintons disrespectful . Give an example . Caller his entire staff were like a bunch of hippy pumps. They treated us as such. When they left office they absolutely raped air force one. I had friends on air force one. What people dont understand, if you were not a marine with the president , whether you were a marine supporting marine 1 or the secret service for whatever, you all intermingle, my friend on air force one told me they were just a bunch of freaks, running through that aircraft and joy if it wasnt nailed down you better best host thank you for sharing your experiences. What you doing today . Caller i am listening to your program. I find it interesting. I hope america understands and listens to what is going on here because i think voting somebody into office that is going to repeat the same thing mr. Obama has, i think our country is on our last leg if we do. Host thank you. Guest i dont have any direct knowledge of that. I remember when the clintons left the white house there were news reports about towels and things taken from air force one but i dont have any direct knowledge of that. Host bob in britain and florida, good afternoon. Caller thank you. I appreciate your analysis Peter Schweizer. I would like you to consider something i think is quite important. When i listen to Barry Sanders he talks about the plight of the working person in the United States which i think we can all agree is under increasing greater economic pressure and this has been building for at least we for decades since the early 70s. I agree totally on that analysis. However when he goes to the next point to said this is because of the increasing greed of Business Owners and ceos i dont agree. In my particular case i have done some analysis and i believe we need to look very carefully at the impact of the Information Technology revolution on this whole process. Computers will improve and empowered by 1 trillion in Price Performance over the last 50 years. The results of that is ceos whose job is to maximize corporate profits, their overriding concern rna pulled to replace people with computers and algorithms. This has been going on throughout the nation for the last 50 years. Guest the caller brings up a lot of valid points, no question the middle class is struggling in the United States that he is also right that you cant really connected that joy the compensation of people to become wealthy, bill gates, worth tens of billions of dollars, he didnt make anybody poor when he made money. He sold software. He sold Technology Components to people. Nobody got for because bill gates got rich the got rich because he provided a good and service that people wanted. That is why it is of a misnomer fiscal as warfare taking place, Bernie Sanders certainly somebody, brings up valid points when it comes to crony capitalism, i think he is exactly right on that but on this whole issue of income inequality which is embraced by Hillary Clinton which i find kind of ironic, to me is fools gold. Is an attempt to deceive people in what the solution is. Steve jobs becoming rich didnt make anybody for either. I do think the caller brings up an important point in that this sort of fundamental shift in the economy this movement to information economy, capabilities we have technologically are creating huge challenges for people in the workingclass. Now we are starting to have to worry about robots among all things and those are some very important issues that need to be addressed in a very important and profound way by policy leaders but you wont help workingclass by tearing down Wealth Creation in the United States. It will have the opposite effect, it will make famous worse, not value honesty more, are less materialistic and envious, whine less. And even hug their children more than liberals you say it is my contention that liberalism and conservatism are not simply political ideologies but that they represent divergent ways of life. For those on both sides political viewers, the encompassing worldview that addresses the biggest questions about life, this world view influences you say the decisions that they make about family, Work Community and life. Guest what i tried to show based on academic study and research was there are different tendencies between liberals and conservatives. There are all sorts of questions to these rules but when you look at the data, conservatives tend to be married more often than liberals tend to have children more liberals tend to live more in urban areas, conservatives live in rural or suburban areas and obviously there are exceptions to those rules but my view is the believes that you embrace politically to the extent that you embrace a certain set of beliefs are going to influence the decisions that you make. For example to pick and extreme example if you are somebody who is not very radical feminist and you believe the patriarchy and marriage are oppressive institutions odds are you probably are not going to get married. Your ideas are influencing the decisions that you make. If you are an environmentalist who believes overpopulation is a massive problem, and presence of human beings and increasing numbers presents of horrific effect on the environment chances are you are probably less likely to have lots of children than if somebody who is a conservative. This is an important notion. Might view is my conservative ideas liberal decisions dont generate positive outcomes of the time but i always said to me this is not a criticism of people. I have friends who are politically liberal and i get along with splendid, we have a lot in common, it is a function of ideas. Where the ideas we embrace and positive ideas that negative and have negative consequences. Host herbert is next in delray beach, fla. Good afternoon. Caller i have a question for you. In my opinion there is something that is equal or greater significance, ongoing corruption itself, the widespread semi covert operation which destroys the rights liberties and lives of those considered a threat. When i say a threat i mean a threat in terms of someone who can detect, identify and disclose the corruption. I wont go into detail but i am a specific victim because of something i did 20 years ago having to do with the real whitewater kept secret from the public but as a result of that, there are hundreds of others for Different Reasons are considered a threat to political interest. I have no civil rights, nothing. There is nothing i can do. Guest any time you write this sort of things i write you face the fact that people are going to not be happy with what you have written and i have been criticized by republicans and democrats, you do recognize the fact that those who have the tools of power, or other abilities 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. And domestic security from the standpoint of terrorism, i think the islamist threat is a real threat and we need to have capabilities but the need to be balanced with civil liberties. E 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 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 worked with her in 2011 and 2012. I was a speech writer for her and enjoyed that immensely. I wrote a come of speeches dealing with crony capitalism and corruption, talking about collaboration between Big Government and big business. A speech she gave in iowa to that effect in 2011 very well received by both liberals and conservatives, and i think a lot of times when it relates to governor palin theres a reflex reaction that political liberals have. You actually look at her political history, when she went in as governor of alaska, township first things she did was take on big oil. Big oil had a stranglehold on politics and she did not like the fact there was a strong crony relationship between big oil and the Political Class in alaska, and she shook it up. When it comes to fighting crony capitalism and selfenrichment she has a long history. I was with a her a year and a half. Host does she have a political fourth . Guest i think she does to extent she wants to have a political future. Im not sure that she is looking for running for Elective Office anytime soon. I dont have a lot of communication with her at all now so its i dont have any informed information. Theres no question theres a passionate group of people that listened to what she says, they like the manner which she says and it temper it, and shes a maverick. People like mavericks people that arent cookie cutter and predictable. When it comes to political positions and philosophy, she is a limited Government Conservative but also has a maverick streak that people like. Host you observed what happened in 2008. Was she the right choice at the right time for the Republican Party sunny think she was a person that injected something very positive within the ticket. I think 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 wanted to be involved. When youre thrown into a president ial election, of course the feeding frenzy of the media is something entirely different from what experienced if youre the Mccain Campaign and youre picking a running mate you better have people around them that are going to be Crystal Clear in who is doing the interviews. There was the katie couric interview. That would big mistake and a mistake made be the aides that mccain assigned to help her not the candidate. Host lets turn to lucinda in california. Caller good afternoon. There was a couple question is have. If you had magic wand how would you gain access to Hillary Clintons private server as well as lois learners mystery emails . Guest thats a great question. I wishing 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. Think about this. We have rules and regulations about government officials about the use of email, the preservation of email. In this particular case, those were not only ignored they were completely subverted because a private server was set up detached from the process. Then when she leaves Public Service, rather than turning over those records and allowing state Department Officials to determine whether the private emails whether the public emails, which is frankly the common practice. Its not like theyre going to release private emails about yoga lessons from Hillary Clinton. State Department Employee goes through and catalogue which ones are relevant to Public Service. Hillary clinton decides im going to completely jettison that process and 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 mine. Im somebody who has been very critical of Richard Nixon and his administration and the extortive practices and corruption that took place. Theres 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 Richmond Nixon was and laud our wonderful she is. Its mindboggling to me. Host his most recent book is employ clinton cash and an ebook on jeb bush. Peter is next from louisiana. Good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. How are you all today . How are you . Caller fine, sir mr. Schweizer, i enjoyed your books but i most people dont understand that progressivism comes from german philosophy. People dont know the main ideas they follow come from my question to you dont you think its a good idea, maybe 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 lock. Thank you. Guest i think that its a very astute observation. 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. One of them goes by a title that 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, a book called liberal fascism where he looks at the emt brace progressives had in the 20th 20th century with many of the ideas of mussolini and others who were fascists, and this is what is 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 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 create carrots and sticks to make sure we do what they want us to do i dont think that 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 serb e social engineering to steer to us a predetermined outcome they want thats what i fear we get with a lot of modern day 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 the 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. Taxman 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 jp morgan there, had really been four or five bailouts in the previous 20 years, and what hat happened is it first happenin 1993 where the Clinton Administration you had Goldman Sachs and other financial institutes hat taken big bets on Mexican Government bonds. The bets went bad. The Treasury Department actually came in and bailed out gold main sack. There was another one that occurred in 1998 with eeast asia financial crisis and a series of others culminating in 2008 with the financial crisis. Heres my concern about all of this and bailouts in general. Goldman sachs and these financial entities never learned their lesson because they never paid a consequence 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 happenings. So she bailouts of the banks in 2008 was a massive transfer of wealth from americans across the board, and the chief beneficiaries were those that run to 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 pat tently ridiculous. Wall street wants a large active intrusive federal government because thats the way they get the bailouts they have gotten so many times. Host let me follow up. One other point you say the following government bureaucrats and writers 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 thats right. So many laws and regulations now its impossible to decipher, and the example i give is go back and read glass stiegel the big financial reform during the Roosevelt Administration and 30s where they rae vamped the entire banking system. I it was 35, 36 pages long. Then fast forward to doddfrank in 2010. When you add all the rules and requirements its well north of 10,000 pages long. Now, has the Financial System become that much more complex since then set 30s . Its a little bit more but 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 a Congressional Staffer and youre writing rules and laws and regulations there is no upside for you to write a simple and easy to understand law. But if you can write a law that has teeth that in other words people will go to jail i if the dont follow, its combplex and really difficult to decipher and understand you now have a Business Model and in the this case of doddfrank you have that. One of the Congressional Staffer i think there are probably others who was a principal author of the bill, once dodd frank became law guess what they did . They left capitol hill and they got involved with a Consulting Firm to do what . To interpret this complex bill that nobody else could understand. That is the problem that we have with rulemaking in the United States today. If youre at the epa and your job is to write regular legislation ises and you right them simple and straightforward treats great for the country but if you want to leave that job and become a consultant to corporations, write this 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 account understand it. Host to pennsylvania, trish good afternoon. Thank you for waiting. Caller a couple of comments. I admire your work, you do a Great Service to us because unfortunately we have become a country of dumbies. 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, i was running sorry were not getting richer walmart getting richer doesnt take away from me. I make minimum wage. Thats my fault. 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 it is what has been said to us through the media, so i thatting this crated that we hate the rich and nonsense. 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 itch dont care and he does wonderful things with his money. But the fact 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 so keep doing what youre doing. There are people youre getting to and until we i can wake people up we can wake people up its more of the same. By the way as long as the immigration problem exists so the people that dont realize 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 wall you do for us. Guest the very much. Host quick question about the cover of clinton cash. Where that at the cover photo from . Guest im not sure. The title of the book was a colleague of mean came up with clinton cash which was fabulous. The publisher does the jacket design. I im not an artistic person. And so when i saw the cover i really liked it. I thought they captured the essence of what was in the book very well, and i was very pleased with it. Host barbara is next, los gatos, california. Good afternoon. Caller good morning. Host good morning, well, almost afternoon in california. Caller thats all right. Thank you for taking my call. I have a policy question. Two policy questions. Focusing on makers and takers. 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 tax payers in new jersey donor state are funding residents of kentucky, a receiver state based on policy. 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. 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 flowing to the state. The two are not connected. What i would say, to the in principle, is i agree with the caller this notion that certain states are winners or losers in the lottery in washington dc based on seniority of political officials, for example is very, very troubling and one of the reasons 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 to allow more to be done at the state level than the federal level. If you look at examples for example, obamacare 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 the agenda and impose it on the entire country. That lead to the divisive winner take all mentality and the better solution, for example on an issue like health care, if the state of vermont wants a single pair healthcare system, or if california wants something akin to obamacare let them vote to have it. If texas wants to have its form of healthcare system, allow them to have it. That way you dont get the sort of winner takes all prisoner politics where were fighting at a National Level hand and tooth on every issue. Host one of your books friendly spies, spying on german chancellor merkel and me toronto of brazil and the Obama Administration, chapter one of the book is called a matter between friends and you again be quiting walter dealy the direct orow nathaniel security agency. The says this if you dont think youre being exploited by friends and enemies buster, youre crazy. Guest right. I think a little bit in germany when the political figures are saying they are shocked and horrified that the cia or the nsa is spying on them, this is what goes on. This is statecraft. You hope it doesnt get out of hand between countries but it takes place regularly and if the german the Intelligence Agency there were not spying on u. S. Government officials they would not be doing their job. This is the nature of the way the world works and its naive for us to assume that it doesnt take place. Now, it can get out of hand and you can create a circumstance where you create a lot of tension between allies. Thats certainly seems to have occurred between the German Government and the Obama Administration in light of these recent revelations. But espionage is something that is going to take place it will continue to take place and i think we all want at least as it pertains to Foreign Espionage he can we all want our spies to do a very good job because frankly, wars have been prevent because of good intelligence, and certain wars have taken place because of bad intelligence. Host when you write your books, there is a good time of the day for you . Guest its a good question. Im a procrastinator. If i can push off writing for week is would. Benefit from having contracts with publishers so im required to have a book done, and i have to start writing in the morning. If 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 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 exactly. Host lee rockville maryland good. Afternoon to you. Caller yes, good afternoon gentlemen. And 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 gun friendly state. And in the commonwealth of virginia theyre constantly advertising in the Washington Area about their gun shows. I have a question for mr. Schweizer. If someone who is wearing an arab head dress and bin laden bumper viva bin laden button, and a viva bin laden tshirt would go to a gun show 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, in where i live in florida 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 that 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 theres a limit of how many firearms i can buy at the same time. So the scenario youre talking about, where somebody would want to come and boy a dozen certainly would not be an experience i would have in my gun purchasing. Host eddie is next from lee high acres photographs. Florida. Good afternoon. Caller hello . Host go ahead. Caller what i was wondering about, were talking about Hillary Clinton and such, and what im looking at is you can look at who is running their campaign. Podesta. He has a lobbying firm in washington, dc. He and his brother are lobbyists for walmart boeing, one of them. At the same time he is running Hillary Clintons campaign. If you look back a was, Hillary Clinton used to be on the board of walmart. Now, you were talking about ties between corporations and politicians. If you looked at who is surrounding these people, running the show, you talk about this person running or that person running theres other people making these calls. Guest well, i think theres no question that people who are advising campaigns or policy advisers in campaigns or even large donors are going to go to candidates and say this is something they favor or something they dont favor and those conversations take place all the time. I think the question becomes what decisions are they making and why are they making those decisions . 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, dc. Guest i actually have information on Dennis Hastert in throw throw them all out when he was in congress. His net worth when he became speaker of the news 1998 and when he left in 2006 its went up dramatically, even though he was just the speaker of the house, and he engaged in something i called the lan deal. In this case he bought rural land in illinois, the state where he is from, and then eight or nine months later he put an ear mark into the federal transportation bill to build something called the prairie parkway. Well any guess where that prairie parkway 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 the had paid for it because of course now everybody knew the federal highway would be running by it. So this is a persistent problem. Dennis hastert did this when he was speaker of the house became a lobbyist afterwardses, obviously theres this very Bad Television we dont hoe the details about involving the extortion and something 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 arrest. Ron from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. You get the final question. Good afternoon ron. Caller yes. I wanted to ask Peter Schweizer about darryl issa, convened numerous investigative committees on wrongdoing, and i want to i havent heard from her 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. Guest heoo he no longer chairs the committee that oversaw the investigation. Guest thats exactly right. He was the very aggressive head of the Oversight Committee which i think is what you want if you believe in the balance of powers and checks and balances in our government. You want congressional committees that are actively looking at corruption. Isis is no longer chairman of the committee. The new chairman from utah, seems to be off to a pretty good start. And i think is fulfilling that role well. So i anticipate that you will see responsible and reasonable investigations, and i think nobody should be opposed to it, particularly if its trying to root out these kinds of issues. Two final points do you consider yourself an equal opportunity critic . Guest 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 im a limited Government Conservative. Host when your 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 joy the great friendships i have. And other journalism as well in addition to books. I write articles and i do television as well. Host beyond the jeb bush book in september wed life to have you book. What are your next projects no . Were looking at the flow of foreign money into american politics something we have look at before which i think is a particular concern. This would be a systemwide analysis as it looks to Congress President ial races et cetera. 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 means around that, and we want to explore that and expose that, and i think as other investigations have in the past, it will probably lead to blowback for both political party. Host it has been a very fast three hours with our guest Peter Schweizer. Thank you juror joining us on booktv. Guest its wonderful. Im honored to be here. Thank you. Host thank you. This is booktv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Heres or primetime lineup