Transcripts For CSPAN2 Michael Nelson Trumps First Year 20180204

Faculty and students and its a real pleasure to be here today. At the finish line of what has been a terrific project for much of the last three years here at the Miller Center. Our first year of project. Were now one yore and one week into President Trumps administration. And we started planning this effort in the spring of 2015 shortly after i arrived at the center but it really came from the Miller Center itself. There was a real question when i came in as the new director here about how we think about the upcoming three years with president ial election looming almost two years out from when i had arrived. And how we thought about taking the extraordinary assetses that we built here over the years at the Miller Center. Our own scholars and practitioners and Current Administration people at the time and future Administration People thats what the Miller Center is. And after several weeks of planning, we came back with this idea got the support of our governing counsel and started to build both human support, Financial Support for the effort. It has been a Terrific Team effort thats brought together all parts of the Miller Center. It built on terrific things that we have done in the past not just our scholarly work but the War Power Commission that was done here in 2009 that was a Bipartisan Group looking at president s role in the constitutional system. And that kind of combination of scholarship and former practitioners was something that we wanted to inject into this project. It was easy to predict that a new president , any new president was going to face immense challenges and we knew that because we looked back at president ial history. Lyndon johnson once said you get one year, you get one year before the Congress Stop it is thinking about you and starts thinking about their own reelection. No matter how big a majority youre elected with. Theyre going to start thinking about what it means for them in the next years midterm both the midterm primaries that will start soon and then the midterm general election. And then on the National Security side, we saw from looking back at history, that every president faces crisis in the first year and crisis comeses at precisely the wrong time when a new team comes into place many of these people may be very experienced but they dont know one the or how to work together. And we saw that in particular in the bush 41 administration and Vice President dick cheney who then was secretary of defense cheney told us in his oral history of that administration. We were probably dick cheney has this wonderful ability to go from being very selfconfident to also being very selfcritical he said on paper we may be the best National Security team ever. And he might be right. The president of the United States had already had eight e years as Vice President , had been the director of the cia has been ambassador to the United Nations. Vice president secretary of defense cheney had already been a white house chief of staff and a Senior Member of congress. Secretary of state james baker had already been secretary of the treasury, had been a white house chief of staff and colin powell the new joint chief of staff had already been National Security advisor. And the list went on and on bob gates was a deputy National Security, and National Security easers kept teasing him that he was going to keep having to do the job until he got it right. And he said we were great on paper until we were presented with a crisis that failed cue in panama and we totally screwed it up. I was giving speech in gettysburg i dont know why the hell baker was and they hadnt established a process so what we wanted to do across domestic and foreign issue was think through systemically how a president does the job in the first year. How do they appoint their cabinet . How do they establish those processes that make an Administration Work . How do they identify their priorities and move forward on those priorities . Particularly legislatively but everyone things that a president can do by executive action . How do they manage that that very difficult two miles between the white house and capitol hill and manage those relationships . We heard jimmy carter told us in his oral history he was elected as an outsider he didnt need the support of his Political Party or lobbying or groups in washington. Now, that sounds very is similar to the year that weve been through. And he said president carter said because i didnt have those relationships, they felt like they were on the outside. And it limited his ability to get some of the things done that he wanted to get done so he wanted to look back across president ial history to assess not just the structure of president ial first years. But what the opportunities and threats for an incoming president were, and to help shape the understanding of the first year for Incoming Administration for the public in general, and it for the washington policy community. As they themselves he is to plan for this moment that comes in sometimes every four years and sometimes with this president every eight years. We wanted to bring together researchers with practitioners and what we were able to accomplish is extraordinary looking back on it we had 60s says available and today were releasing in this book which is a collection of what we believe were the best of those essays. This book was edited by mike nelson on our panel today and stephany mike is senior fellow with us. Stephanie is the assistant director of president ial studies. And jeff who was the director of policy here at the millers center when we started the project was a real designer of the entire effort, and a builder of it as well and now head of the emission and external affair about a mile and a half down the road at the school. And were still delighted to have jeff with us us in part of our family. We were able in coverage and outlets including cnn, fox, time, slate, npr washington times, the Washington Post, more than two dozen first year project events across the country, jeff produced a terrific event at the Reagan Library including an assembly of previous speech writers going back to i think, at least the reagan administration. Not carter right i think reagan, bush, clinton, bush, and obama that went from ken who is probably you know 40 years out from his job to a uva and Miller Center alumni kyle oconnor an obama speech writer listening to Lyndon Johnson recordings to writing for barack obama. We were able to do events that connected prak practitioners anl who cochaired volume on National Security who is a professor here at the Miller Center cohosted first event in washington of the project and second event we launched project and then did an event on National Security in the first year. At the Widrow Wilson center and jeff was a huge part of this event at the Historic Homes and learning centers associated with president s washington, jefferson hoover, kennedy, reagan, bush, and clinton. And then finally we worked with Transition Team both for the Hillary Clinton and donald trump campaign. And this work helped connect about us to the Incoming Administration both in the transition and across the last year. So i want thong all of them and all of you for being part of this ride with us, and i want to start by quickly introducing the panel a few of whom i mentioned already, mike nelson first who is senior fellow with us and teaches at roads college, mike took this work and quickly produced a book with help of uva press, and President Trumps first year which was recently reviewed i think in the Washington Post as probably some other places. Mike wrote for the project including polling some of the great excerpts of our Oral History Program in one of the first memos produced for the project. Mel who as i mentioned is a constant professor and coed tore of the volume on the dangerous first year. Mary kate who was a speech writer had in the bush 41 administration, mary kate and i both graduated in roughly the same time at uva she went on to work on the Bush Campaign i went on to work on the campaign we know who went further and higher as a result of that. I was rearranging deck, she was writing a flight plan. Mcghee who is this our president ial Recordings Program who was a professor here at the millers center who worked on several volumes including i think, the third volume of that, which was planning the president s first budget where he both coed ditted volume and then also wrote an essay on Lyndon Johnsons first yearing in passing of medicare and medicaid and lessons of working with with congress in that endeavor and finally stephany abbott who coed ditted volume as assistant director of president ial studies really is the air Traffic Controller on all things that happened here at the center. So with that i want to turn it over to the panel and and have you all take it away for the discussion. Welcome everyone thank you for coming. I want to start by turning to mike nelson and ask him to step up to the podium and deliver his remarks. What a great pleasure it be eit is to be with a charlotteville audience and what a great privilege it was and with with all thanks to bill to be part of this extraordinary first year project, and hes told you a lot about it. I want to tell you a little bit it be this book crucible which is just been published in which you can actually buy along with this one trumps first year. [laughter] if youre so inclined, but you be when youre edited something youre very, very close to it. And you all know the saying about cant seat forest through the trees. But then months later the book actually arrived and i was able to see the forest and i just openedded u up table of content this im saying in part because they elected new members to the Baseball Hall of fame. If there were president ial scholars hall of fame the roster of contributors to crucible would be inaugural members of of the president ial scholar hall of fame in cooperstown or who knows where. A wonderful book, and having only written little bits it, i think i can say that without being inmodest. But ill immodest when i tell you about the project i took on that came out of my experience because what the first year, that brought a first year project that was kind of immersed those of us who were involved in. In the long history of the american presidency. And the long history of the constitution of which the presidency is a part. Were talking now well over two centuries of continuous operation. Donald trump is the president but hes number 45. So long list of those who come, came before. And i could go on and on i koangt go on and on but i want to make a couple observations and maybe even read you a couple of passages. From, from my book trumps first year which had again was informed by and kind of grew out of the extraordinary first year project of the Miller Center. You know about when donald trump ran for president , and when he gave his inaugural address the theme was america is essentially a day or two away from the apock but what i looked at looking at the year historically was sphals drurp was fortunate to take office when he did. And unlike Abraham Lincoln he didnt have to deal with a secession of seven states during the period between his election and his inauguration unlike Richard Nixon he did not inherit a war in which half a million american soldiers were bogged down. And Franklin Roosevelt and barack obama he didnt take the oath of office in the midst of a massive financial crisis. Although the world had had its share of problem when is the Trump Presidency began. There were ongoing, not new or urgent. The domestic economy had been growing slowly but steadily for all but one quarter of the previous six years. The annual rate of inflation was below 2 and Unemployment Rate dipped below percentage of americans who regard as middle oral up or class had had reached 62 a greater share than before the 2008 financial crisis. The stock market was already booming. And unlike all his recent republican predecessors, Donald Trump Took Office with a Republican Congress. So you look at it that way, donald trump was dealt a very good hand, and honestly you know, im somebody who appreciates the significance of the tax cut bill that was enacted last month into law. But when you step become and you think what have been president s able to do in the past when they have a congress controlled by their own party . One major piece of legislation and for republicans especially a tax cut, is sort of like a six inch putt, right . So i think that history gives a way of kind of measuring not the rightness or o wrongness but just kind of the scale of accomplishment so thats one thing that history i think gives us some perspective on. Another is this, when you think about the last 70 years or so, and the way in which we have chose our president s, and the talent pool from which we have chosen our president s, and what you see is a trend of which Donald Trumps election was kind of at the latest manifestation so think about this. During the quarter century roughly quarter century after world war ii, the president s we elected not only had experience in government. But it was experience at high level of government in washington. Right, senators, Vice President s, general truman, with eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, nixon, ford, every one of them had sort built their career nott in government but in washington. Well, no surprise there. Right think about what happened before this period began, the federal government was widely credited with licking the depression and beating the axis and americans had confidence in the federal government and along comes the vietnam war and all comes to watergate crisis starting with jimmy carter election in 1978 a country still want people with experience and government, but not in washington. Right that was part of carter appeal as it was governor Ronald Reagan as it was governor bill clinton as it was governor george w. Bush we were experienced people but not part of that mess in washington. Well if you think sort of next iteration of this trend is somebody who comes along and saysive no experience in washington, and i have no experience in government and thats a reason to vote for me. [laughter] and that is sort of where we are now and as people are looking ahead to 2020 and talking about Mark Zuckerberg or Oprah Winfrey we may have more to look forward to in that way but again it is a way of understanding that trump didnt just drop out of the sky, that theres been a long term almost quarters of a century long trend of which he is kind of the most recent manifestation so where did donald trump come from if not the world of government he came from the world of business. But a particular kind of business. He was never the head of a of a publicly traded corporation who had to share power with an independent board of directors and shareholders. He ran essentially a tightly controlled private company, staffed in part by family members where he was the boss. The point being that he didnt come out of that sector of the Business World publicly traded corporation. Where you have to learn u how to share power with other stakeholders. Which might be more relevant to becoming president in a constitutional system of government where guess what, you have to share power with other stakeholders. He also came out of the world of celebrity. But a particular again a particular kind of select. He wasnt a Ronald Reagan who made movies and Television Shows that were conspiring or dramatic and then by the way spent eight year as governor of california. He came out of the world of reality tv. I dont know if this is one of your guilty pleasures i wont ask anybody to confess that they watched survivor or the apprentice. But understand what what drives the success and he was very successful on the apprentice for 14 years. What drives success of those programs is guilty pleasure we say in seeing people fail and seeing conflict. So what was the catch phrase of the apprentice it was not youve got the job. [laughter] right. It was youre fired. And so donald trump came out of a world of select but its a world of celebrity in which conflict and putdowns are kind of of the essence of things. And one of the thing is background. Is that nowhere along the way either through experience or interest or study and by the way, im not going to say donald trump is stupid. Hes not stupid. Hes not stupid at all. But theres a difference between stupid and ignorant im ig about everything under heading of science im ignorant. Donald trump happened to take on a job where knowledge of the history of those who have come before, knowledge of the constitutional system in which you are now a leader. Might have been helpful, but ones last thing ill read from the book is maybe the scariest but also in terms of writing it, the most fun. I hope listening to it the most fun. Nothing in long Business Career had required donald trump to share power with the absence of governing experience and lack of knowledge about americans history and Government Trump had it best a dim understanding of the sharing of power bandaided by the constitution both between the state is government and the federal government and between the branches within the federal government. Examples of his ignorance, not stupidity, examples of his ignorance abounded. A week before the election he oddly promised that he had convene a special session of congress as soon as he was sworn in. Even though congress is always in session when a new president is sworn in. Andrew jackson trump said, quote, was really angry about what he u saw happening in regard to the civil war. Which jackson died 16 years before the war. Speaking of Abraham Lincoln to a republican audience, trump said most people dont even know he was a republican. Right . Does anyone know . Well, every republican who was ever thought of himself or herself as part of a party of lincoln knows he was a republican. [laughter] frederick towing douglas trump declared as a person it shall Frederick Douglas is example of someone who is doing an amazing job. [laughter] and then maybe a little more distressing less kind of it shall at a july 8th meeting with house republicans, trump professed his devotion to the constitution. I want to protect article 1. Article 2, article 12. Go down the list. [laughter] there are 7 articles not 12 much a longer list. After mentioning roger to a crowd of youngstown, he wondered does anybody know who the hell he is . Well president s mckinley birthplace 12 miles from where trump was giving the speech. Weeks after hurricane maria, racked the Virgin Islands trump referred to the president of the Virgin Islands which like all american states and territories actually has a governor. The president of the United States is the president of the Virgin Islands. [laughter] my just in terms of, you know, last to keep from cries sometimes but my favorite is when, of course let me say this. Trump has been the equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt and john f. Kennedy in these ways. Each one of those who president s took a new form of Communications Media and mastered it. Right, fdr, fire chats, radio, john f. Kennedy the press conferences, the debates, television. Donald trump social media. Right . Social media as a way of communicating his thoughts directly to us. Sometimes in interesting ways as you might expect from a Reality Television star, hes been great at sort of attaching catch phrases that are negative. Fill in the blank. All of you this is like a sing along blank hillary. [inaudible conversations] blank ted. Right. Terms failing . [laughter] news. Fake. All right we all remember this stuff. Thats pretty amazing. What we dont have are are the equivalent of the two word phrase blank, health care. Blank, infrastructure. Right, in other words this is somebody who again, it is a reality tv world. But nonetheless, extremely effective especially in solidifying the base of support as hes already got thats already expanding not all expanding but solidifying and my favorite distinct of the trump is when, you know north korean government for years, they put out these wild statements about how about the evil americans and evil president and all previous president s have been is like yes, with im not going to stoop to that level, right . Until donald trump was accused by the north korean government of being an old lunatic. And his reaction was not to having them branded a lunatic. But he took offense at have been them branded as old but thats something to be learned from that. Im going to stop right there because ill guarantee you this is the worst talk youll hear this afternoon. Even though it was pretty good because [laughter] these folks are just the rock stars of the afternoon. But thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] i would like to turn now to mel to talk about Foreign Policy and National Security. Hello, delighted to follow mike. Long ago mike and i were colleagues at vanderbilt university, and so ive learned a lot from him then and i still love listening to him. So he knows how to say things in a really e luminous compelling way that makes us see realities. So i also want to thank bill, and jeff for sort offing asking me to be part of this project on the first year. It has been extraordinarily worthwhile for me to do this. So let me tell you a little bit my role about my role, and some of the implications of what we derived from studying the lessons of the first year of five previous administrations. So, we, group of very renown scholarred look at the first year of the kennedy, and first year of reagan and first year of george h. Bush and clinton and interestingly there was a lot of consensus about why things go wrong during the first year. Let me tell you the things that we came up with very quickly were very specifically things often go wrong the first year because of an absence of coherent strategy. Because of poor process and flawed teamwork. Things go wrong often because theres a distracted president who is more interested usually in Domestic Affairs than in National Security or Foreign Policy. Things go wrong because of poor staffing, delays and staffing key post in the cabinet. Things go wrong because of tension and acrimony between the executive branch of the government, the chief executive, and congress. Often things go wrong because the budget process is not integrated with Strategic Planning and Strategic Thinking and theres a gap between them. Now i dont need to go into any details, just think about those things and you know that, all of these wonderful qualities pertain to trumps first year. Nonetheless, as many writers have said during the last three or four weeks when theyve assessed trumps first year, it is significant that theres been no tragedy. Theres been no bay of pigs . Theres been no 9 11. One really good republican, Foreign Policy, National Security expert said trumps first year in some is unnerving. But largely uneventful. And we should be happy although things may get worse. [laughter] but i think we should assess trumps first year. Why is it unnerving . And i would say its unnerving because the failures dramatically exceed the successes. I think theres one unequivocal success of trumps first year in terms of Foreign Policy and National Security policy. Hes more or less eradicated the Territorial Base of isis. In syria and iraq but really noteworthy accomplishment already underway during obamas last couple of years. But which the military undertrump has succeeded in accomplishing in ways that probably most people did not anticipate. Thats about it, i think, in terms of successes. Let me tell you why. This is the way i look at the rest of the trump first year. Failures. Hes neither improved relations with russia which he said he wanted to do. Nor has he constrained russian actions in ukraine or in syria. Nor has he confronted putin over russias electoral intervention in the United States as well as in most european countries. President trump for all of his rhetoric has not stopped north koreas strategic advances. President trump has made no progress containing the projection of Chinese Military strength into the south china sea. And has very done very little to contain chinese influence elsewhere arranged the globe. Despite a lot of talk about iran, President Trump has made no progress, restraining iran in the persian gulf, nor has he either renegotiated the nuclear deal or improved the nuclear deal or gotten rid of the nuclear deal. President trump has made no progress in the middle east negotiations between palestinians and israelis. Trump has neither renegotiated nor terminated nafta. But hes successfully alienated both mexico and canada. President trump has cast aside americas leadership in terms of climate. President trump although this gets very little attention, has failed to readdress americas overall trade deficit, in fact, if you look at the statistics of the americas trade deficit grew by almost 11. 5 during the first nine months of the trump administration. While President Trump has been president over the last 12 months, americas standing in the world has plummeted. The confidence a new poll but gallop weeks ago showed that confidence around the world in america has plummeted. By 75 in germany, 70 in france, 54 in japan. Only 22 of the people around the globe think that the United States today can be relied upon to do the right thing in a crisis. In comparing american leadership, in comparing Global Leadership roles, people around the world now place the United States significantly behind their confidence in germany and slightly behind their confidence in china and just a tiny bit above russia. Thats whats happened. But still none of this constitutes a tragedy. Nonetheless, i agree with those scholars who say, we should be worried, indeed very worried. Let me tell you why, its because trumps America First agenda is truly a radical departure from the policies that actually made America Great after world war ii. So what is trump stand for . What is America First . America first is protectionism. America first is immigration restriction. America first is higher american by american. America first is disdain from multilateral institutions and alliances. America first is for building up americas military capabilities and its nuclear arsenal. America first is unilateralism in terms of american Foreign Policy. America first is to support authoritarian leaders around the world from putin and russia to turkey to cissy in egypt to the philippines, et cetera. Thats what America First is. But what are the policies lets just remember for a moment the policies that actually made America Great for two or three decades after world war ii. What made America First was promoting an open world promoting free trade, lowering tariffs, championing currency stability, supporting multilateral institutions like the United Nations or o the world bank. Championing democracy and selfdetermination and freedom and human rights although the not always living up to those o things. Nonetheless always championing those thingses. What made America Great was building alliances with likeminded countries and supporting the principles of collective security. What made America Great was supporting the rule of law. What made America Great was building up America Military superiority but seeking to control the arms race con sis sis con sis taintly but broadly speaking big generalization these were the policies that bred peace amongst the great powers for the last 75 years. No great power of war. Do you know what an accomplishment that is . Thats what made America Great. We supported policies that prevented great power war. We supported policies that that brought unprecedented unanticipated prosperity to all of western europe and japan. And more recently in the 1970s and 80s to places like south korea, and taiwan and singapore and then since the end of the cold war, policies that have brought huge prosperity so large swaths of the people of china and inked india and even vietnam. These were the policies that brought more people out of the poverty in the last 40 years than in any comparable era in world history. Those were the things that made America Great. Now, trumps first year has averted disaster. But we need to worry about America First because its based on a zerosum dame of world politics. A zerosum view of the world an based on a strategy that actually brought world wars in the first part of the 20th century. And repeated depression. Thats why the vast majority of Foreign Policy experts not democratic Foreign Policy experts. But the vast majority of republican Foreign Policy experts opposed the America First agenda because its not the agenda that made America Great. So all of us, all americans have good reason to worry about the future. Thank you. [applause] thawrntion, mel so were going to turn our attention to domestic policy making and again hes going to assess the last for us. Good afternoon, everyone i was commenting to stephanie as bill was welcoming everyone today. How hard it is to believe that were here. That the this is the final event of our first year project. And its been an incredible road for this, for this center and to try to distribute. And really to everybody that works here because this truly has been a team effort. And a project thats brought this center together in ways that it never has been before. He stepped out right now. But in that light it is really great to have jeff back here today for this event. I think hes in the back anywhere there. So in any case, as stephanie indicated my role in this panel is to think about a little bit about trumps first year broadly designed in the arena. When we think about domestic policy and life in the United States i guess, over o the last year, were all familiar with the chaos. And, of course, with the strong passion that trump has generated. What really hits me, though, is try to assess this, is the feeling that trump and his administration missed an important opportunity this e year. That they missed it for specific and troubling reasons and that they may not get another chance at that opportunity. We know pretty well that general overview of trumps policy achievements and failures. Legislatively, no significant achievements until the passage to the tax cut in it is. The failure to repeal obamacare or build a wall otherwise change immigration policy or to pass infrastructure bill. The tax cut was by any definition of big win, but as mike indicated, this really isnt much of a legislative return when you control the white house and both houses of congress. Trump course has been active in other areas particularly of executive actions, rolling become as much as he can of president obamas regulatory legacy from Climate Change to immigration. Conservatives love much of this because theres debate over how much a lot of it actually means. Lots of things that were either newly implemented or not at all and action that congress had taken, and in any case it is inherently permanent the next president can reverse these executive actions just as easily as trump took them reversing obamas actions. Trump has been notable successful in aa pointing federal judges here actually pacing obama significantly and, of course, gorsuch to the supreme court. His role has been quite significant. I will say as a side on trump overall impact i was struck by a point that the political scientist made in a column that most of the recent praise of trump record comes from social conservatives, and that conservative policy walks people in other words, would have to maintain a reputation were analyzing effect of policy have been far more muted or even critical in their assessment. I think this is i havent evaluated that person by person but i was really struck by the argument on that. And who exactly is praising trump but back to my main point today the missed opportunity. What am i talking about . What everyone thinks of trump his election in november 2016 highlighted a crisis in the United States. The feeling among a substantial segment of the policy that conventional politics and goarches has failed them and leaders no longer acted in cultural or regional. Now we can parse the motivations of trump voters in many ways and people have done that pretty much endlessly since the election. For example theres a strongly held belief on the left people like tom who is best example that nativist and racial motivations drove most donald trump voters i think thats part it have but i think theres more going on. In any case by need to hold in mind that multiple things could be true at whuns evaluating a group of voters or even individual voter in a particular choice in a specific election. In the end, i think that frustration and alienation with politics is the overarching reason that Electoral College win. So on this basis, my assessment is that a year ago trump had an opportunity to address the phenomenon in ways that would have served had him well politically and that might actually have helped the country. But he and his administration followed a different course that is not the fall of the congressional republicans, but a thought of the democrats. It is on the president. How did i get to this in from my essay to first year project, of course. As bill mentioned i wrote about Lyndon Johnsons role in the passage of medicare and medicaid in 1965, whom which i derived six generals not universal guidelines and new president in advance a legislative agenda. You can find them all in the volume out in the lobby. [laughter] and all of you. The the specifics, though, of johnsons particular tactics are less important than the overall point is that political scale policy and michael message and l vision could be critical factor in how Congress Reacts to a firstyear legislative agenda. U now the legislative contrast between johnsons first year record and had two first years we tbaif him a pass on that and trump is o. C. , of course, strikes that reflects a lot about trumps limitation also those of his administration specifically. And enable to develop a coherent policy frame qork designed to achieve a set of broader goals. And then to guide and when necessary push towards those ends. Start with trumps personal lack of policy knowledge. Something like touch dog. Goes yongd that even interest in the nuances of policy. This diseflt deficit made this develop and vision difficult, the president compounded by failing to surround himself with people who could make up for his own deficit. Selfknowledge matters a lot in any administrator and no or less in staffing executive office of the president. Said three result, i think, one was the decision to open the administrations agenda with the ill advised travel ban inflailed opposition and immediately became tied up in the courts. The second result it was that trump deferred to Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan on legislative priorities. Out of this difference came to pursue obamacare or repeal rather than to focus on infrastructure. I see this as a critical first year mistack because it shifted the administrations focus permanently away from a serious effort to meet the substantive needs of its core votessers and to address that underlying crisis of our politics that i talked about a few moments ago. Infrastructure is the key. It would have been popular. It would have made trump seem like the strong, vigorous, can do president that he claimed on campaign trail that he would be. It would have shown that he was falling through on his promise to help those who had been left behind by conventional politics but it would have divided democrats of that im pretty well convinced but trump was unwilling or able to challenge ryan and mcconnell on the agenda. And this pulled him into a situation where he was pursuing their priorities rather than his own vision or best interest. Once the repeal push was launched, we saw the third consequence of trumps lack of a coherent agenda and vision. Even within the framework of health care repeal, trump could only fall. Lacking even basics comprehension of the policy issue or who knew Health Care Policy could be so complicated, remember . [laughter] lacking that basic comprehension he could not save the republicans from a situation which they had not developedded a viable replacement for the Affordable Care ability in which they had badly misread politics of the issue. Heres a thing, i long argued that the Affordable Care act is a fundamentally conservative solution the dilemma of our health care system. We can argue the details. But at its core, the aca, is a structure that increases coverage by bringing more customers to private insurers that is private companies, private businesses. And by expanding a 50yearold legacy federal Program Medicaid that is run through the states these used to be conservative principles once upon a time. In the Bush Administration [laughter] a stronger and more sophisticated version of President Trump might have recognized the ac for what it is and pursued a limited version of repeal. Replace the individual mandate with a strong form of continuous coverage requirement, offer moderate adjustments to frameworks and regulations. Grant more discretion to the state particularly over o cost control and medicaid implementation a point by the way, in first essay by the school also in north center affiliate and at that point unleash trump. Send hmm out to convince his voters, his base that he was repealing the Affordable Care act. Let had him do what he does well. Sell rhetorically claire victory and move on. To a next item on the agenda. Infrastructure and a more moderate form of aca reform rather than repeal would have done much more to address real problems and also the alien with nation that i think drew voters to trump. It would also have begun to build a governing coalition that might have redefined a political moment and even had staying power. Now, aware of a possible contradiction here im arguing that trump has not acted any substantive manner to address the core problem of alienation. The politics was not working for his voters, of course, those voters his base remain mostly supportive but this is not a contradiction when we look at the full record. It is the tragic aspect of this missed opportunity of the first year. Trump has offered his base something. A form of identity projection that they believe he represents them and politics with grievance against leads, against minorities against immigration, against protesters, against Hillary Clinton, james comey and Andrew Mccabe against all that they do not like. We saw this most belay tangtly in a shameful remark after event in charlottesville on august 11th, and 12th. We saw it reconfirmed two weeks ago about haiti and africa. And where immigrants should come from. This is the tragedy, the choice to act as a president of the faction. To lead in anger but not to traces the real and substantive issues that led to his election. Trump has governed as he ran deploying a leadership style that fed off of and encouraged division among the public. The result is a base that remains mostly loyal and angry but also a determined motivated and i think, very likely permanent opposition that simply cant be won over. And perhaps most notably the political localization of women which i think may be the biggest outcome in the end of the first year. We will see in november. [laughter] at that point. In the strategic choice perhaps by his very nature, trump and his first year is further divided rather than healed the nation. Can he correct perhaps in part, that are rumble a shift to infrastructure in early month of year or trade and highly problematic and on the same grounds that mel identified. Do suggest possibly a refocusing on economic issues. But the chance for trump to be a transformative president , to change the nature of our politics likely depended on the first year as Lyndon Johnson said. And it is now like that first year almost certainly gone. Thank you. [applause] finally well turn over to kate and i have to remark on her way up there, i have to give the shameless plug here. For her new podcast. I listen to the First Episode had this morning ands its fantastic and it is now available on itunes. So check it out. Which i arrived as a fellow as a first year prowas launching and it has been an absolute joy and i want to thank bill for including me in all of this, and its really been great in the experience. So i thought what i would do is i would start with my essay that i wrote in august of 2016 about the changing media landscape in political news and how the next white house could capitalize on that. And then talk about so how thats unfolded over o the course of the first year. So so what i found in august of 2016 was that much of our news content in politics now comes to us through news feeds that are referred to us by friends, by our social streams, filtered preferences, algorithms, browsers, and often just personal relationships, an that is very different than how news was coming to us even five years ago. So my recommendation amongst many if you want to read it now is sort of a somewhat naive but optimistic set of recommendations looking become on it now, for example, one of my recommendations was at the next white house should prioritize influencing traditional news outlet it is in its first year. [laughter] but Margaret Brennan who was great graduate of the university of virginia and is now cbss White House Correspondent said that we should emphasize traditional news outlets because that would emphasize the need for nuance analytical coverage of policies and initiatives because youtube and snapchat did not say twitter but might as well have could be generating interest but not deep it thals. And that you need traditional media for deep analysis and i said say thats been true this e year. So i i had recommended that the smart move qowb for the white house to increase not decrease the number of president ial press conferences as you might recall the obama towards its end was having fewer and fewer press conferences i thought that was a mistake for this reason of cultivating traditional news outlets one of the first things that Trump White House press team did was expand the number of seats in the White House Press office and include skype seats for local media. To be able to participate on a rotating basis as White House Press conferences which was very smart because more and more americans turn to their it local media as a more trusted news source for their, for their political news. I also thought that Administration Officials whoever won the election needed to provide content that matches all of these new Digital Media plat form forms so for example videos that go on to youtube long form writing could go on to linkedin now and they read articles an essays i by people names right now next to their work. And so you can immediately check their credential so see if something that is swressed to be trustworthy opposed to going to there to find a job. There was a lot of people posting behind the scenes photos for example, on instagram, and Live Streaming things on facebook live, and all of those things you know you have to match your content to that particular medium you wouldnt say do a long, a long form essay youre reading loud 45 minutes along no one will watch that. So you have to match the medium to the message, and then the last thing i recommended was that spontaneity and unscripted moments anything other than o moments delivered on a teleprompter are widely popular so now they are more widely popular. That was back a year and a half ago. Trusting government is on was then extremely low. And so i i think thats best thing a white house can do is try to reach as Many Americans as possible who are not they isly visitors to white house. Gov and never will be. And so how do you find people not signing up on to the white house website to get your message . How u do you get your supporters to share your message to people whose mind might be changed . In many ways, white house communication strategy is really Old Fashioned Public Outreach in Coalition Building but now its in peoples handle on their tones. As ian said white house strategy in communications is not traditional under this president by its very nature by the nature of his personality is mike pointed out and so that may not change in 2018. What i wanted to do today, though, that is u new and different from that essay is i i did some research into how things changed just since the election in terms of political news and communications . And so let me share quickly a couple of a couple of statistics in speech writing business when someone has a statistic that is surprising we call it cocktail crasher because it make use drop your drink when you hear it. So unfortunately no cocktails here. But as of august of 2017, 43 of americans report getting their news online now. That is only 7 lower than the 50 who get their news on television. In 2016, it was a 19 point gap between those two news platforms television and online, and that has now decreased to a 7 point gap. So whats happened is, fewer and fewer people are watching television. More and more people are getting on their computers and their phones to get their news. Mobile devices are increasingly preferred nearly twothirds of u. S. Adults who get their news both on a mobile and on a computer prefer increasing u up from 66 . So people get their phones news on laptop and telephones now. Mobile news use tbriew the most between people ages 50 and 64. Young people were already there. But now older people are turning to their phones for more news. Twothirds of americans get at least some of their news on social media. Again, driven by substantial increases among older americans. Twitter saw largest gross in 2017 just since the election. Up 15 percentage point number of americans who are on twitter now. Had the largest share of users of any social media platform who report getting their news from twitter. 74 of people on twitter are getting their news from there. The, so big picture in the United States we have a record high in terms of the people getting their news from social media whether people are trusting that news is a different question. But we are not number one in the world. We are number one in terms of the percentage of our older population that is get their news off social media. And we are number two, excuse me, for getting their news online. Thats all courtesy of pugh. The other thing that struck me in this research was that as i said earlier we are not number one the in world for percentage of people who get their news from social media. Ahead of us in materials of advanced industrialized economies, south korea, canada, australia, and sweden all have higher percentages of their population get their news from social media. South korea, 20 more south koreans than americans are using social media, several times a day. That is shocking to me. Amongst emerging developing countries, the following countries more people are getting their news off social media lebanon, arng tee that. Vietnam, turkey, chile and brazil. So we are at 39 of our populations as i said south korea is at the top. 57 what this shows me is theres a tremendous opportunity in coming year for President Trump to use his global reach because, obviously, there are more people in other countries who have access to President Trumps twitter feed than americans are using. So far, i think, most people would say that his use of twitter has been divisive at times very polarizing but if he were to change the tone of it, he could do tremendous good in terms of changing americas image abroad and i think thats a tremendous opportunity for him in the coming year. As you look at what i would call the difference between tell prompghter trump and twitter trump im a former speech writer for george h. W. Bush and difference is jarring at times i did a Little Research something called Trump Twitter archive. Com on the internet, and it has all of the tweets hes ever done. Since taking office he has issued roughly 2500 tweets oh over the last year and on this Trump Twitter archive you can type in records to see how many tweets had those words. The most that i could find was under talk news 153 times. 8 in second place, russia, and then there are a number of other words that are, you know, various word for fifth place. Numbers three that not sub stand istive but i think is funny because it is a catch phrase in our house is stat and he finds things that as the oscars football playoffs, whether bob should be on fox news. Global warming and the russian investigation. So if you want sort of see lighter side of trumps twitter feed you can google sad flip side is it is affecting Approval Ratings and 26 of 1500 americans poled by the economists said that trumps use of twitter was appropriate. So majority think it is not appropriate bit end of the first year in office, the hill reported that he has spent about 40 hours on twitter if you took the time for those 2500 tweets. A staggering 59 of those polled said they disapproved to 45 million followers. I do think hes not beginning to get off twitter. I think he realizes that this is a direct pipeline that he will not walk away from and its a bigger following on twitter than it is the number of people who watch the nightly news anymore. General kelly his chief of staff was asked last week about this, and you know, last week it was how he has at times undermined his legislative strategy by going on to twitter and contradicting whatever the white house strategy is. General kelly responded he often asked me hey im thinking of reenforcing whatever message is with a tweet, what do you think . General kelly would say absolutely, sometimes he doesnt ask me that. He doesnt have to ask me that hes his own man in this regard and he feels strongly he can reach the American People out in peoria in, central wyoming through his tweets because he does not feel that hes getting completely fair shake from the media. And i think, most observers at least on e my side of the aisle would say, that they can understand why hes not getting fair shake. So my hope at, you know, as a speech writer is that, his tweets will start to parallel his rhetoric in his speeches and his legislative agenda despite best efforts of his speech writing staff i think are doing a very good job. I think theres a tremendous opportunity in the coming year for him to try to build coalitions as mike noted theres an opportunity not just to solidify his face but expand it to change peoples minds and to broaden the governing majority in this country. So i think this coming year given these numbers polled tremendous opportunity for hill if he chooses to take it. So on that i guess well take questions. Okay, thank you. [applause] throw it out to audience q and a but press mary on one piece of her essay and i need to read this because i fund it so striking. When talking about the changes in technology and the fact that more and more americans are getting are taking news from not just the internet but using their mobile devices increasingly she notes. If it wants to win its first year the next white house must master trenldz from the start in order to build trust to support among vote rs if not new administration risks being left behind by savvy electorate so im curious mary kate, in an excerpt where you note that the white house must master trends that both build trust and support among voters. How do you position trump here . Because in one regard, as you noted hes mastered this. Right hes mastered use of social media. He know what is to say. He knows who hes talking to. But on the other hand, whats the effect on public trust . Yeah, i would have to say, the whole fake news phenomenon is is not surprising to me because the numbers have been there for a long time. Trump is not necessarily the cause of this in some ways hes a symptom of it. E eroding public trust in the media has started a long time ago before he ever came on the scene. This same Pugh Research that i was siting on social media use, does touch on Peoples Trust in traditional news sources and the u. S. , this is fascinating to me that the u. S. Is one of the u few countries now where the governing Party Supporters are less satisfied with the news media than are nonsupporters so in this country that would mean, republicans only 21 of republicans feel that news media covers politics fairly. 355 of democrats believe that the media covers issues fairly. That is the largest partisan gap 44 percentage difference in the world. Two other country where is the governing party mistrust more than the nongoverning party so the second country that does is israel is understandable to me. Australia is the third and those are only three. The striking number of news sources that are trusted local media is the highest. National news covered second. Friends and family third. Social media those are all in the 70s and 80s percentage to people who trust them. Social media only 5 of those polled trust the information from social media. Last year it was 4 . And leap from 4 to 5 , so that is shockingly low web and i think that explains why he thinks its okay to continually pound the fake newses naming reporters by name and naming networks by name. I thought the fake news awards was ill advised im glad it came from the Republican Party instead of from the white house. But i did not think that was helping things for either of them to be doing it but certainly for the president and middle of the Government Shutdown to be worrying about that. I thought it was misplaced. So in the interest of time, well open up to audience q and a, so alfred has a mic in his hand. And if you have a question for the panel, please raise your hand and lets take, well take two questions at a time. And wait please for alfred to come with the mic. So well start up here. This is a question for mr. Key which i totally agree that trumps failure to deliver on his promise of doing something about infrastructure is deplorable and for all of us not just trumps space i think frankly deferred maintenance of bridge and roads is a ticking time bomb and another bridge collapse one of these day. But in terms of the base just the other night i heard a union boss on television, he might have been from illinois. He began by talking about the promise on carrier that there was a very you know, ostentatious of Trump Success in persuading carrier to stay or o note to fire all of these people. He said since then, of course, that particular company has gone, and you know fire put Something Like 500 people out of work. But what was interesting to me in lite of your comment it he didnt talk about trumps failure to come u through on infrastructure. He talked about trumps failure to keep American Companies at home and keep them from going abroad so i wonder in is that comment do you think outliar or o represent feelings because he was specifically being asked whether the trumple trump voters we are disappointed by that respect . I dont think it is jots an outis liar i wrote about the carrier episode when it happen haded. I guess a year and a half ago. I guess definitely 2016. And my sense then is now that it was an effective shortterm strategy in the sense of you woe actually jawboned this company into keeping these job hes really delivering for us us. But thats not something that can be sustained for one company let alone across the economy. And the other aspect is particularly and we talk about manufacturing jobs. Theirs to is here and bigger than think president. And to put that much focus on your capacity to retain a particular sec or tore of employment that faces huge headwinds is a very risky move and you can, upside i guess is that he can claim every good job decision that happens. But in terms of that specific, you know, apparently low to medium scale manufacturing, it is guck to be really hard to sustain that in the United States regardless of who the president is. And even many a position where i think for people like, you know, union members, theres an expectation that he would deliver on that. At least to a degree and that will hurt him. Has hurt him. Right up front. You say that trurp has mastered social media. The only thing ive seen him do a lot of is tweets. That was intentional im sorry. But i dont see him doing much in the other social media certainly not facebook or o well i dont know what all of the other os are but i know i havent seen him on any other so could you speak to that . A great question lets take another question before we im sorry go to barbra and then well go to phil. Thanks to all of you for your amazing comments today. They say the old that you never get a Second Chance to make a First Impression to president s unless they have these where they come in carry out a an expresident s term i dont get a Second Chance to have a first year so my question is this. We know we have the the state of the Union Address coming up soon to our four presenters today if this president called you into the oval office and mary kate who have had this experience like this but this president calls you and asked you a question what should i say to the American People . What one thing would you tell me to say to themen people in this upcoming state of the union . What would you tell him . [laughter] start with the twitter question. I completely agree with you it has been overwhelmingly on twitter that hes active on social media and again a missed opportunity to use these other platforms to reach people who would never be to white house. Gov, and that to me i understand himmenting to do things differently than obama and rolling back some of the obama agenda but there were there were tactics that obama used that i think trump would be wise to follow up on, for example, on the white house website the Obama Administration had a videographer who followed the president everywhere and behind the scenes videos and photos and things that they would post on this white house blog. And there were all kinds of people who would write on the white house blog who were various surrogate for policy or Labor Department writing about unemployment or whatever and that gave Reporters People places to go and share with friends and people who were interested in those things and that seems to have stotted i went on white house website other day tip couldnt find i think the white house blog has stopped. And i i wanted for this presentation to talk about the speeches that the president had given to talk about the difference between the number of speeches hes given and number of tweets hes issued for example, and on the white house speeches are no longer separate as a thing to click and scroll through. Its simply it says paper and statements you click on it speeches are mixed in. It is 160 pages long and you have to go page by page looking for a speech. I said theres got to be a fast or way i shoot my friend an email i say can you tell me how many speeches he gave in the first year and he immediately wrote back said sorry we dont have that. And i thought, how can the nobody be taking, you know, count of that . So they do things dichght fry from the Obama Administration and if i certainly, you know, disagree with many of the Obama Policies but i also think there were some tactics that they used that got stopped and i think theres an opportunity to bring those back and try to reach some of the people outside of the space and as i said start changing minds and broadening the coalition. Mike what would you say about the state of the union . Well as far as, trumple trump relying on two advantages opposed to doing facebook and white house. Gov and all of the other things that one could do that is first of all you know where to look. To find out what donald trump thinks you dont have to go from one to another twitter is the way hes going to hes tboipg to express his thought and the short punchy 140 character, 280 character whatever it is is short and that seems to be a medium in which hes or very comfortable is that the quick punch or counter punch. So i dont, i dont blame him for doing what hes most comfortable doing and making it simple for people to find out where he is. As far as state of the union, the great question barbra perry, last year he give a state of the union which most people thought was like a regular state of the Union Address that a regular president would give and people were comengding him for that. And then in coming days, as if, you know, he just got bored with being praised for that sort of quality it was bang, bang, bang, tweet about this. Tweet about that, tweets about the orr thing so i think the advice i would give is what is your agenda for the coming year. Right this is an annual speech it is meant to kind of set the agenda for congress and the rest of the government for an extended period so know what youre going to accomplish for the coming yore and dont just give the speech but give the speech as part of a coordinated strategy of of articulating the message and then reenforcing message but i just that takes a kind of rairning in of ones own tendencies to do a donald trump apparently does every day and that is, get up in the morning. Turn on the cable news talk. React to it and a reaction goes straight is from here to his right index i thinker to his phone to us. Because it is reactive. Because its what he sees or hears on fox and friend or or morning joe or whatever. Its not part of a coordinated effort to not only o articulate a message but to reenforce that message and subsequent days. Something else, and the praise that donald trump gave for a state of the Union Address was kind of the praise you give for like your eightyearold grandson who draws a picture and you say thats so beautiful. [laughter] when donald trump gives speech from a tell prompter it is so obvious hes reading from a teleprompter this is not something hes comfortable doing so in addition to twitter is i think his main form of communication with American People is to have these Campaign Style rallies in states that he carried in the election, and i dont know if he has a text but if he has a text it is just there to i dont know why it is there but it is stream of conscienceness and he feeds off the support of his crowd as in twitter. Hes twitter is not his everett to reach to people who dont support him. Nor are his speeches. His communications are to solidify the base he already has in that sense i think you know he started out the with 46 on election day. He had no honeymoon period, which was in part his fault but also in part the democrats foment. And then it sort of got down below 40 and since then it has been pretty flat. So people chose up sides really early in the Trump Presidency. They chose up sides whether they were for him or against him and what hes done so or pa in the absence of crisis and absence of recession who knows what will happen when those kinds of events os cur which theyre bound to. But consolidating that 35 to 39 is something hes been able to do. And thats enough. That is enough to keep the republicans in congress scared enough that they dont do what they would like to do frankly and that is defy him and get mike pence in there but theyre afraid to do that because they know that the voters who will pass judgment them in a primary election are 35 of the whole country. But they are 70 of the people who voted in a republican primary. So as long as he can keep that base solidified which hes doing u through twitter and doing through these stream of conscienceness rally style speeches, hes probably okay for the coming year. But boy these midterm elections in november i think may be the most consequence cial in history. If he loses that Republican Congress if he loses the republican senate, when there are 26 democratic seats on the ballot and 8 republican seats, and still loses, which is conceivable you go state by state, that could happen. I suspect that republicans in congress will smell blood in the water and head for the exits but thats getting away ahead well come back next year. Right trumps second year. [laughter] mel do you have anything to add to barbaras question . I think if he called i would say Something Like mr. President , i know you love the attention of the American People, and i know a quick way for you to honor support among of 0 of 60 of the American People. Tell them youre going to step down immediately. [laughter] seriously, though, if he really can call me lets say he really did call me. [laughter] i would say because i know stephanie you think it is likely that he will. Not that they barbara you wouldnt ask this profound question if you didnt think it was likely to happen. So i would say you should say to American People that i know my first year has been deeply divisive, and i know that americas prestige has been reduced around the world i think those things are very unfortunate. And im dedicated im going to dedicate this new year to readdressing these trends and this is what im going to do. A, b, c, d, and e you know he doesnt like what hes hearing and he ends it immediately. You can get that into a tweet he might see it. [laughter] there you go. So at our panel last week, we asked mark short who is president s legislative director if he had any hints had for us on what the president might say in the state of the union content wise. And he said, yes, it will be infrastructure and immigration would be beg parts of the speech. So as far as my personal advice goes, though, i agree with you, mike, i think hes uncomfortable on a tell prompghter in general his speeches are not the problem. Hes really not gotten in trouble for anything thats been in his speeches unless he ad libs. The u. N. For example, he had rocket man that he ad libbed into the speech. The speech writers are giving him material that is very good and very standard are republican issue rhetoric but you can tell from his delivery hes not crazy about being on teleprompter to those ends i would suggest that speech be as short as possible. His speech last year was one hour on the dot. That was shorter than the trend over the the last few president s has been longer and longer or state of the Union Addresses. And yet as we saw in this research, fewer and fewer people are watching television and so i think in order to meet the audience where it is, i would keep it shorter with a shorter Attention Span of the people who are watching. Second, i would say most speech writers especially for starch state of the Union Addresses is writing shameless applause line seeing how many times you can get people in the room to stand up to give a standing ovation if the partisan side of doing that is to try to get one side to stand up and get other side to sit on their hands. But if you were being public spirited and a unifier, you would want as many times as possible with both sides stood up and so, i would say in these polarized times we would want as many as possible where both sides stand up and agree on something. And then third part is, the fun part also of the state of the union for me is i believe, great speeches are made of great stories. And the only way to get some stories into the state of the union are those people who sit up with the first lady in the gallery. And some president s in the past have used those as an opportunity to score political point and have people in the in those seats that illustrate their agenda. Better onessing i think if youre as old as i am and remember lenny diving into the Potomac River he was had the first one, president reagan ever did, to start this tradition. And lenny was a a civilian who was sort of a First Responder and saved lives diving into the cold Potomac River and pulling people out and i think weve had a tremendous number of National Disaster this is year. I thinks like that where Everyday Americans have done heroic things and those are the kind of people i would put in the gallery this year so everybody in the room can salute them and an opportunity to be unifying and troughing whats great about our country. Thats one thing about you know, when i was a kid, if the president s give a speech on television, well there was nothing else on. [laughter] right three networks theyre all showing the president. Over time think about the coming of cable, so you didnt have to watch broadcast network with a president. You could watch espn or whatever. And then along comes remember video cassette players . You could put in a movie and since then, so the audience but the president has been able to command just by giving that kind of speech. Or any kind of speech has gone down. Which to me is fascinating about donald trump. Because getting our attention has not been his problem. Right, we, cable news essentially went all trump all the time during the campaign not because of any sort of political agenda. But because they saw the ratings going up and therefore their advertise revenue going up and it hasnt stopped so we political scientists or President Trump give a serious speech and reenforce your point. Thats a kind of thing we dont watch. Frankly what we watch is when the day after the speech, you know, we sort of endure the fact that the president gives a long policy speech. And then, what basketball player will he attack through twitter or Something Like that . Then we weve got to make were back on his wavelength but this is a guy who is 71 years old. Im 68 so i kind of know what thats like hes been successful certainly in his own mind but i think by most measures hes been successful at everything hes ever done this the Business World, the entertainment world, and then low and behold he runs for president. First entry level job for him, this is not a buy who is going to change his ways no matter how tbd our advice is. [laughter] hes just not. So i think weve got to accept that the livelihood that hes going to grow the office will make them, or he will learn on the the jour job or something. This is the guy we elected and he hasnt changed one bit. Or is he trying to reach out a little more to broaden it in that speech protects veterans. Thank you all. I think bill has one more thing to add but i want to note please join us in the room outside. Mike, jeff and i believe signing books so free to join us. I want to close by giving a lot of things to a lot of people that were involved in this in addition to all the people here. I think pretty much every scholar at the Muller Center conceded in some way. As did pay much everybody on the indications team, a deployment team, our Administrative Team and this has been truly in all the Muller Center project. It is interesting to see the whole team working together. That extends for governing council, we created a First Year Advisory Council for the project that mary kate was part of it is a Bipartisan Team from both democratic and republican administrations and it was a little like nose art. Every time we found one we had to find another one to partner and pair with them. It really helped donate this and again that was back in the back and stephanie played air traffic control. The last programming notice people have been asking what comes after first year and it is not second year but what we are going to be launching here in two weeks or a week and a half on every five is our new research undertaking which will take us forward for the next three years or so and were calling it presidency at the crossroads and it will look back at president ial history at great moments going back. The founding all across jacksonian in the civil war era and in the 20th century. Like the progressive in world war i and the Great Depression and world war ii and in the 60s house of rights in vietnam and in the current moment where big plastic challenges couple up with Big International challenges that face the president and how different president s have reimagined the office for better or worse and how they have taken the path thereon considered turning right and left or continuing to go straight or maybe making a uturn so calling it presidency at the crossroads and will be kicking it off on february and Barbara Perry and i are delighted to host general is on our governing council and we since he was there when George Washington was president. [laughter] actually, jims service is studying goes back to novembe november 202nd, 1963 when he was a street reporter in dallas and was there when president kennedy planes landed and that began a career where hes covered ever president since and we are delighted to have jim walk through of some of the Big Decisions he seen both in his lifetime and across president ial history so we hope you join us on the Late Afternoon of the very five. With that i want to think the panel and thank all of you and we will see you in the back room signing books. [applause] [inaudible conversations] for nearly 20 years in depth on the tv has feature the nations best known nonfiction writers for life conversations about the books. This year is a special project we are featuring bestselling fiction writers, the program in depth fiction addition. What is life sunday at noon eastern with colson whitehead, author of the 2016 bestselling novel, the underground railroad, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award. His other novels include zone one, sag harbor, and intuition us. Our special series in depth fiction addition with author colson whitehead, sunday, live from noon to 3 00 p. M. Time eastern. Now, on the, tv on cspan2 its the Rancho Mirage writers festival. It is now in its fifth year and less successful future to several others including karl rove, hw brandt, doug brinkley, john meacham, Susan Eisenhower in more. First up, heres New York Times oped communist bret stevens on his book