In san rafael and one in morocco would love to see you there. We like books. We are happy you are here tonight. My first memory of john lithgow is seeing him as a paranoid passenger in a 1983 remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode nightmare at 20,000 feet. Absolutely terrifying. Its impossible to list all the films plays and Television Series featuring john lithgow but heres a sampling. On television he played dyck sullivan in the sitcom third rock from the sun. Arthur mitchell and dexter and Sir Winston Churchill and the crown. Wonderful. His credits include harry in the hendersons, shrek, love is strange, the world according to dark and terms of endearment. He played disgrace late fox news ceo roger ailes in the upcoming film bombshell. I understand thats coming out in time for christmas. And hanukkah, excuse me. On the stage he has appeared in Sweet Success and dirty Rotten Scoundrels and he made his wellsite Shakespeare Company debut as mel bodio in 12 tonight. Last year he started on broadway opposite Laurie Metcalf in hillary and clinton. And here are a couple things you dont know about john lithgow. He spent his childhood years in Yellow Springs ohio where Coretta Scott king babysat him. He attended Harvard College and graduated with an ab magna cum laude in history and literature. In 2005 he became the first actor ever to deliver commencement speech at harvard and received an honorary doctor of arts from his alma mater. [applause] he is smart. Hes also written a number of books for children and number are marsupials who, ab john lithgow is here tonight with his shifty or copoetry collection chronically Donald Trumps presidency. If we are lucky he might sing a couple of them for us. He appears in conversation with marins own Michael Crosby hosted kqed forum and professor of english and language and literature at San Francisco state university. Please join me and give a warm welcome to john lithgow and michael caskey. [applause] not only is one of our finest and clearly most respected and appropriately activist. He is also a man whos written a book thats very funny political satire. He is also someone whos done drawings in the books. He plays the banjo. I thought i would begin the conversation talking about having you find out something about him before or talk about the roles hes played not only in the Silver Screen but also television and broadway as well. Lets talk about your background. Barbara mentioned he also played mel bodio, also revere. Some extraordinary experience on the stage in shakespearean productions. How much of this has to do your whole acting career. How much of it had to do with your dad . A huge amount. I dont think i wouldve become an actor if it wasnt for my dad. He was a protean producer of shakespeare when i was growing up. He founded and ran for shakespeare festival. More or less the same festival but they reconstituted in four different places in ohio. Starting with the antioch festival which ran about eight years and produced every single one of shakespeares plays. That was up until i was about 12 years old. He produced. You didnt know you were an aspiring actor until you goggled applause i alluded to. Growing up i didnt really think about being an actor. I wanted to be an artist. As a matter of fact, my mentor as a child is in the audience tonight. [applause] bud and his father who was a great watercolor is and they were my idols as a child. I was quite fixed on being a painter. I was thrilled to be able to show the cover of my book tonight which is painted in watercolor. Ended up at harvard after barry check her childhood. I fell in with the theater gang almost immediately. I was a trained actor in spite of myself and became the campus star. If you start anything in harvard, thats what you better do. I heard lots of laughter and lots of applause and i decided to accede to my destiny. And what a destiny its been. I was thinking about how he evolved as an actor. He began to take on so many different roles in such a versatility of acting. I remember the first time i was struck by your performance. This is the moment you are on that trajectory when you are headed toward what eventually would be your stardom. Thats when he played Roberta Muldoon in the world according to god. It was a breakthrough for you. It was a major breakthrough. I had done some films before that. It was a real eyecatching performance. Roberta muldoon was already a star from the novel john irving wrote. I read that novel about two years before Film Production started. I never dreamed the book could be made into a film. George roy hill summoned me to read for the part i asked my agent id love to read to be in a movie but for what role in my agents assistant said i dont know. Theres a typo on the cast list. It says roberta but obviously thats not right. I suddenly saw the whole thing that i was the perfect Roberta Muldoon. What a role to play. Especially when you think about the fact that at that time the whole idea of transsexuality is. Now to come especially out here in the west coast in california commonplace but but at that time you are breaking barriers. Was very disarming a for sure. To see a deeply sympathetic kind role, character in the friend of the lead who is a character like roberta who was bizarre and comical and like a joke, and one or two scenes was a deeply moving character. It startled people and as far as transsexual compels, i got the most poignant and heartbreaking letters from change gender people. Saying you have no idea what its like to go into a Movie Theater and see a character, a transsexual who is not a serial killer or a freak or a comic figure but to see someone who is genuine and real and i played the part exactly that way. Theres nothing kant about it, i played it as much like me as if i were a woman. Thats what many appreciate about your work. Your humanity and bring a lot of empathy and humanity were two roles. And you play a serial killer in dexter and youre about to appear and a movie playing roger ailes no less. [laughter] which means of course you had to increase your body size to about the size Russell Crowe had a movie with the hbo or showtime . He played roger ailes and then you played as Winston Churchill on one academy awards. Is there any thing that goes on in your mind or influence by the roles that these others occupy. I did not watch Russell Crowe and i did not watch gary oldman until the crown was all done. What can you do, lots of actors have played hamlet, i had the curious fortune, i went over to play knobby all which you market to mention when stephen fry and derek jacobi were all playing him. I played Winston Churchill when gary oldman and brian cox in two or three other people were plain Winston Churchill and now it happens, i play roger ailes and proceeded by Russell Crowe. But more power to them, my intention is to burde burn theml off the screen. [laughter] [cheering] and you can extend your humanity to roger ailes. Actually, i did all that i could to extend my humanity to roger ailes. Of course hes a billionair vil. Its about the women of fox in gretchen color son, susan estrich, several others played, nicole kidman, allison janney, connie britton, kate mckinnon, incredible ensemble of smart and committed actresses and it is their movie. Everything that they do is in reaction to the reality of roger ailes and what he created up fox. To me that was a great asset, poor Russell Crowe had to be the major player in eight part series about roger ailes. I did not watch because i do not want my mind modeled as i played the part. But i also do not want to because i did not want to see eight hours of roger ailes. [laughter] i really do feel he had a terrible burden to carry. I did have a fat suit that made me look 300 pounds, i carry that burden. [laughter] but i was nearly the inciting incident of the story and its very important and urgent story about and for women. [applause] heres what we call in my trade, and appropriate attempt that and think about fox news watchers and how they would respond to your book. [laughter] im wondering if you have some thoughts on that. This is a difficult thing for you to give to come out of your profession as an actor and be open to the public and it took some nerve encourage. I give you kudos for that. But im wondering to what extent youre thinking about what Hillary Clinton called the deplorables reading this book. I gave it some thought and i knew there would be feedback, that would be very negative. But i felt probably serious thought or rightwing supporters of donald trump would want to burn my book but if they were going to burn it, they would have to buy it first. [laughter] and sure enough, its a number three bestseller on the New York Times nonfiction list as of yesterday. [applause] they must want to burn a lot of books. [laughter] theres a photo of john earlier signing books and again, a testament to his grit as opposed there was about 400 people who wanted a book signing. Also the publicist sent a note that said make sure you mention on the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations. The book has hit a nerve, popular nerve, not just among the antitroopers, and the never trumpers but you certainly have the whole cast of characters and you have everybody and i just want to mention that gail collins, some mightve seen in todays near time said who in terms cabinet is the most detested and the most vilified and a landslide for our attorney general bill barr. A landslide. So going to ask you, who do you find, you have the whole cast of characters, who defined you play villains and you know villains, not what trump himself, who is the villain at the top of the food chain. Stephen miller. [applause] to me he is so hidden in like a ghoul hidden away in the white house. I think on two occasions he has actually come out and done ahead appearance and interview on sunday morning and made crazy insane fool of himself, its like they hustle him back into the white house because he dominates a substantial amount of our domestic policy. Ive written a poem about him called the little man who is not all there. [laughter] just based on the Edward Hughes poem. Yesterday on the stair i met a man who was not there. He was not there today, i wish i wish he would go away. [laughter] so it wasnt that long with Kellyanne Conway who does not seem to be fireball. Is very peculiar, the only ones left are like at the alamo, kelly yan, stephen miller, jared and ivanka and trump. Thats all thats left. It is so weird. Except now he has recruited bill barr but he was not there at the beginning, if you go through my book there are 33 poems that means there are roughly 30 different subjects who might be secure. 80 are long gone. Fire, resigned, walked off the job, so they are fair game. Trump himself has turned against all of them. So its one of the phenomenal things about this a ministration, the rate of turnover. In fact, one great surface the book serves a great Minor Service that it serves as a history book. Half of these people were quickly forgotten. That new cycles make them evaporate. You forget tom price, harold bornstein, iranian jackson, all these peculiar scott pruitt, these people who were big, important, alarming news to a half years ago, the virtually forgotten, but not in my book. You provide nice footnotes to remind us of the historical sight of who they were. Each poem if you have not open the book is accompanied by a bio at the end of the poem. Ill ask you the question which is foremost in peoples mind and that is in favor of the impeachment where we see it go . [laughter] i think its rather inevitable that the evidence accumulates so fast and trump is so completel completely he seems to be oblivious about his own propensity for crime. [laughter] it just does not occur to him that hes done anything wrong. But thank god for nancy pelosi. Thats all i can say. [applause] she is there to inform him on the subject. [laughter] is there anything to trump when you think about it, almost ottoman aristotle playbook from the poetics, thinking with this glorious mess and pride i want to get to something that i read about you. He also has a kind of inevitable tragedy about him too. Look, donald trump will be seen by history as the worst american president that weve had, theres no question about that. There is no way he can change the story, thats his legacy, hes doomed to that legacy, he can say all he wants that hes a greatest president but no, its perfectly obvious hell be regarded as the worst president weve ever had, the most corrupt, done the most damage, thats inevitable. That means hes a pitiable figure in my mind. And i am plenty pissed off at him. But i am in the business of empathy as an actor. In some little part of me feels terribly sorry for this man. For one thing i would not be him for all the tea in china and honestly arent that many people i would say that about. He had a pretty good life beforehand as many would say. Mara lago and the rich mans life. But the segway i was going to go to was something i read about you, this is a president who cannot make any admission of having a mistake in his life. You make one big mistake and i want to come to this, it gives you more humility than a president by any stretch. What you said, you turn down playing and betrayal to do a small play for about two or three weeks and then it was go gone, it was a big mistake and turned out to be your good fortune. Yes, it was actually perfectly wonderful, the opposite of a cautionary tale, i dont know what to call the butter story with a wonderful happy ending. I was asked to be in the american premiere of betrayal which has become arguably his masterpiece and at the time, a good friend of mine also wanted me to do his new play down at joe pats Public Theater. I had to choose between the two and my agent said to the downtown play. You been doing all this english stuff in American Play by an American Playwright notwithstanding the fact that the role i was to play was a swede. [laughter] be bold, be bold makeable choice. So i did it, i knew it was a complete flop and i found out on Opening Night that my agent also represented its director. [laughter] and betrayal was a huge hit. Randall your agent . No i did not keep him as an agent. Betrayal was huge, gigantic and i was in despair, for an actor, i dont know how many actors in the audience what you want to slit your wrist when you make a blunder like that. But as a result of that i was available for a little job that rehearsed for three weeks in l. A. In order to be shot in texas. During the three week rehearsal. In l. A. , i was introduced to the women i have now been married to for 38 years. [applause] my wife mary jo it was around that time that i devised my words to live by, the model that i live by. Whenever you have a difficult choice to make like that in my profession, dont worry, whatever choice you make, its sure to be the wrong one. [laughter] you had a wonderful marriage and that prompt me too ask about your marriage if i may because your wife is an academic and it seems to be very harmonious, you both so publicly you cannot do without each other and thats wonderful in itself. But i was struck by the fact that you describe your wife highly intellectual and very constant, vital and you describe yourself as phlegmatic. Thats a word you use. In many ways i think thats perhaps how you see yourself. I consider myself kind of slow moving, slow witted, lazy. Laid back. I am a successful actor which means people asked me too act all the time and once you act, everything is done for you, lines are written for you, close are picked for you, you are told exactly where to stand, where to sit, its the most irresponsible life there is. [laughter] it allows you certain really not responsible for anything. A show flops, its never your fault. [laughter] i remember him saying because the great actors are able to absorb so many other characters other than themselves, it does not allow them to have the intellect and the hit going on this thing youre talking about that your wife has that you feel you do not have. I remember saying that to david and he says is nonsense. Actors are the smartest and most directive motivated people i know. Where do you come in on that . I can tell smart actors, the crowd was absolutely full of highly intelligent actors in really good actors, they knew their craft but they were so engaged with the world, you come in to work with them and we all gathered to rehearsed, they already knew everything there was to know about their characters, characters they had done all their work, it was simply they were journeymen, they were artistthey were an ant that had all gone to the same academies and not only very intelligent but very interested in many, many things. And im not just saying this to compare english actors with american actors, i think its true of the very best american actors to. Did you ever study not in that field, i studied in the english system. I went over going to college i went to landrum. Was it useful . It was wonderful, it was a fantastic time to be in london, the late 60s, the beatles were still together and it was a great time for theater with peter hall and trevor, the younger structure over at the rac, and the academic training was fantastic, i may not have needed it, i was certainly ready to go in the workforce that i never been to england, and you shakespeare well but i never spent any time in his nation and the beautiful english countryside. So i dont know how indispensable it was but it was a wonderful year, to your. Ive heard actors complain about the rigor and the demanding more from nature of memorizing so many lines, how does that work for you . That is the easiest part. Ive always said, the really hard part of acting is dealing with bad writing. The work is done for you. The table is set. You just have to come and bring your own discipline and your own experience and perhaps your own native talent and instincts for it. You bring Something Else witted did third rock from the sun, i know it was really fun for you and it was comic acting really. Its all the same, is motivating things keeping it real even when youre doing very extravagant work, the nice thing about third rock, the reality of those four characters were aliens. [laughter] so you are not confined by the strictures behaving like a human being. They were trying to figure out how to do it, how do you become a human being. How do i get this right, highly intelligent in every way except the most necessary ways. No sense of what is right and wrong. And yet weve had to do it, we have great rigor, any joke, any laugh you get has to be authentically motivated or its a cheap laugh. And its not a good solid loss. When you are doing Rudy Giuliani on stephen colbert. [laughter] in addition to doing a great impression of giuliani, very comic and indepth if i may say so impression. You did take the lid off. Yeah. [laughter] i can barely discuss that in a serious way. [laughter] we rehearsed it for about three and half minutes about the length of time it took to perform the sketch. I absolutely heard myself into it. The teleprompter was running right in front of me so when you saw me looking like that, it was me reading my lines. So honestly, there was no time to think about that. To talk about all in. And they knew the big payoff would be splashing wine into my face, but i cannot do that because i still had my clothes on. I did not have my question, i could only do it once. Since i brought up that it, and were in a join jewish commuy center im thinking of a line of my favorite novelist. Who said i want to put the it back in it and oingo goi. And the reason im thinking of that, you said you would love to play nikki sabbath and the sabbath theater, thats another billing, a complicated one but really a villain. What drew you to the desire to play him . I love the book and that character was so an extremist, i loved playing very broadly drawn characters in trying to bring some sort of dimension to him or her and just crazy runaway passions, reading it jumped off the page. Dont you love the book, its at his most is written and appalling. Of course i would love to play the part but ive completely missed cast for. I interviewed an actor who will remain unnamed, he said many in hollywood are nikki sabbath and that stayed in my consciousness. [laughter] but we will not go there. I want to draw more from you about the influence, is not shakespeare, its more somebody like bud, calvin, its the use of what we called our group poultry but its really an art in itself, coming thick of winnie the pooh, those are idols of years i suspect. I remember them vividly from my childhood, my dad used to read edward lear and Lewis Carroll and we had a wonderful set of bright orange books, maybe this rings a bell called child craft and there was volumes six and seven for young kids and one of the two was all poetry. And it had things like i never saw a purple cow, i never hope to see one but i tell you anyhow id rather see them be one. [laughter] to me, to us we had those favorite poems and among them, that i will in the pussycat. When i first set out to write the book, i backed into the entire project, i have told the story so many times, i feel like youve all heard it. But ill tell it anyway for the people who have not. Just be patient. I was asked to sing, i am the very model of the modern general at the new york Public Theater gala and i said yes but i thought id put a spin on and come out and stage in a navy suit and red tie and Michael Flynn makeup and saying i am the model of a attorney general, due in the park in the person of Michael Flynn and changed the lyrics to the last verse. When president obama made me head of all things, he realized he had brought to life the governmental frankenstein. [laughter] but then i made a killing in the case of public hillary by shouting lock her up. [laughter] et cetera et cetera. It absolutely killed, it was the hit of the evening, people were so surprised after hearing two verses of incomprehensible gilbert and sullivan. [laughter] it had a political and left wing kick to it for this new york liberal audience, they absolutely gloated. Thats all they could talk about after the long evening of Public Theater and musical theater. And i told my agent about this evening when we were casting about what i should do as a book project and hes the one who said theres your idea, he just seized on it, he said i could sell that tomorrow. Even as they sing the song to him, his face went and honestly it had never occurred to me, i had written verses for childrens books for nine books that are written in verse and meter. But i started out thinking, ill do what i did in this case, ill rewrite the lyrics for familiar songs and i tried that for a while until iran out of gas and started writing really forced jokes and besides we begin to worry we have to pay for the rights and royalties and again, my agent, david, a wonderful smart man certainly a better agent certainly one that divides you on betrayal. His cousin i think. He said forget about the music, just write poems. I said i cannot write poems. I was too intimidated by that but he said go ahead and liberate yourself. Just try it. And the first thing i did, i had to imitate somebody so i started imitating that i will in the pussycat in the walrus and the carpenter and i must go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and the sun, i have ten big yachts and ill pick my favorite one. [laughter] thats betsy devos. [laughter] and i just hung my own bright ideas on other peoples verses and from there i finally started to get inventive and do my own and pick my own forms and invent my own forms. And as i may say so, one of the poems that i noticed that really stood out for me was a poland of Paul Manafort that so many people in the audience remember Paul Manafort buys himself a jacket and john did a poem from the point of view of the ostrich. [laughter] so you want me too read a poem . That was a good leadin. Michael, you have actually picked my favorite poem in the book, god bless you and its also the most fun to read, its the poem ive been reading to people for the last month when i explain that ive written this book first, the ostriches lament is the title, its a company by my illustration, but can you see that from there . Three ostriches, two were ther there the ostriches lament in the manafort trial was terrible shock to me in my eastern south african flock and for years we had been bread for our feathers and meet in dusty enclosures and godawful heat, ungainly and ugly we suffered such scorn that most of us wish we never been born. A species of civilization forgot, contempt and disgust were the ostriches lost. But when word of Paul Manafort spread to the belt we discarded the hand we had been dealt with one lavish purchase he rescued her pride a sport jacket made from an ostriches hide. [laughter] stupendous week road, how dashing how chic, the priciest garb in the boutique. This high rolling mobile was bound to ensure a glorious future for ostrich or tour. But a basement dishonor and humiliation came close on the heels of our wild jubilation. Manafort showed us his fat feet of clay, a poster boy proving that crime does not pay. Revealed as a monster, fiscal duplicity, his sport jacket spawned catastrophic publicity. With a work as a ostrich fashion bellwether, who would buy sports weather that featured are leather. Where nursing a wound that no surgeon can stanch. Our moment of glory was gone in a flash betrayed by the laundry of the old gun cash. [laughter] the felons in prison and where in disgrace, cursing the wiles of the vile human race. From afar you can picture our unhappy bms, each one of us sticking its head in the sand. [laughter] [applause] msa, someone who is been teaching literature for decades and heard many poets, thats one of the most extraordinary readings [laughter] you should shakespeare read his own material. Let me go back to trump specifically, you kind of a publicist dream, you did an article in the New York Times which was all about trump as an entertainer that helped promote the book, the timing was great and i like you to extend on this a bit because it comes across in your book as if hes led us in to a horror movie that your metaphor. Every leader has to present himself or herself in a sense has to entertain, Winston Churchill was in normal sleep entertaining, both in a comic and dramatic way, fdr when he said the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself or yesterday, december 7, 1941, these were marvelous performers. Obama at the funeral out of nowhere he started singing amazing grace, everyone in this room im sure experienced that and it was deeply deeply moving and healing and calming and it was a great performance. The way an actor can give a great performance and a complete fiction that. Enter people merely buy tickets to see as entertainment. Trump is a disaster at all of these things, a complete disaster. The weird phenomenon is, he is and were mostly entertain team to his hardcore base. Even there, he his people carefully curate his audience to make sure hes performing for the already converted, look what happens when he goes out into a vast audience of uncurated thinking hes become a great military hero with the death of baghdadi. Watching that baseball game and appearing at the stadium and everybody booze and chance lock him up. [laughter] i think that was the moment, the turning point, i think from this moment on, that was the tipping point, i think he is done for because we finally see how the really bad entertainer is exposed. Do you like any of the Democratic Candidates or see them as a worthy adversary to him . Who is the worthy asked. I think the really splendid people among the democratic. I think whoever gets nominated, someone in this group is going to get nominated unless theres a complete ringer who comes or if barack obama decides wait theres nothing to prevent me from running. Something could happen but its likely to be one of these people in the ranks will close behind the man without woman and i think they would drop donald trump if you still in office. Were going to go to the audience in a moment i know many had questions and then will try to accommodate you in just a moment. I want to ask you about the last film i saw which is called late show, did any of the audience see that with Emma Thompson playing actually john playing her husband in a very sympathetic role if i may say so would you do so well in many of the roles that you play. I was struck by again you occupying a man who has a character, you played somebody largerthanlife characters, churchill, bill clinton, the other day Rudy Giuliani, all these characters who are indeed casting the large shadow across our lives, this is a man who was in many ways very humble and lowkey. His orders described herself. I loved playing that role, i always wanted to work with them and i missed a couple of opportunities. He also had parkinsons disease which i found a very touching aspect of his character and his role in the play and it was muted. There have been two or three performances given of the 150 or so that were actually subtle. [laughter] and that was one of them. I was a lovely experience. You have to wrap down for those roles . No you know what is appropriate. I was in the film for five years ago called love a strange with the offered molina lane two old gaiman who were together 40 years and finally able to get married. What a great experience to work with albert. Kevin, every actor should be lucky enough to work with alford. But i director, he was what fred and i both needed. He believed in no acting and he made no bones about it. Thats what he said on the set, do it again when no acting. And fred and i started the film week apart from each other because we have several roles for several scenes were we were not together and both had the initial experience of saying dont act, what do you think we do. [laughter] but eventually we went on his journey and for both of us after all these years they were real breakthrough performances because you see the film and theres no acting involved, it is so quiet and mutated and touching and funny. The roles that you play with such a sinuous ive been struck by that, you wanted to know churchill for example, comes across in your performance as churchill into some extent you can get in your bloodstream. To the extent hereafter say g, i went home and i was still churchill, it was still clinging to me. I always leave it at the office. People are always intrigued by the, was it terrible for you playing the killer. No. [laughter] there was a scene in dexter, the thanksgiving episode the famous thanksgiving episode, anybody remember that . Were an edgy of family thanksgiving begins by sniping and gets more hostile and angry and before you know it, everybody explodes in the ropes and ends up with dexter, me attacking my son and him smashing a funeral urn against the wall and dashes of his sister flying all over and dexter driving me across the room with the belt cooking meat and has a butcher knife. Terrifying, horrifying scene and the doctor would say cut and we would all rural with laughter. It had the structure of a sitcom scene from third rock from the sun. One thing turning into something wildly different. And it was horrific. Unless it was hilarious. All depending on where you have the dial set. Thats what i was just talking about. [laughter] i think i was answering your question. [laughter] lets bring out the lights and bring out the audience if youd like something you liked asked john, raise your hand. Well get to as many of you as we can. Hello, i have someone right here. Im thinking about the nature of campaigns and how actors and stream writers have such an amplified presence and how in fact we dont know if a democrat who is eventually going to be selected or will be our spokesperson will have a wide enough net to appeal to those groups of voters who in the past voted for truck. I guess my question is, has there been discussion in your profession of how best to speak to those groups of people, the soccer moms, the fieldworkers, how to appeal to them with issues if the candidate which is sure to happen is imperfect. What a good question. I certainly dont think i have not been involved in discussions but i think its a very inverted important thing to think about and to strategize about. I myself the first time i ever got out on the campaign for anybody was for hillary in 2016. Because i just felt if trump by some miracle is elected, i will be so angry at myself if i did nothing. But it was the first time i had a weariness about it because i would be suspicious of myself, there is something about being transported by someones celebrity that worries me, i feel why should my fame such as it is give anymore weight to my political opinions. I just question that constantly. Trump has thrown all those misgivings out the window. Its why i finally gone public with my politics with this book and the book the way can get very savage. Its not all fun and games. Because i feel that way. And it turns out im channeling the feelings of a lot of people otherwise people would not buy it, it would not be an amazing success of the last few days. But i feel like i have to constantly monitor myself. I think some actors are passionate and out there and very reckless and not necessarily the best spokespeople. So it is something nobody counsels us, we get a call, will you appear and you just go off to ohio and make a speech, nobody monitored me, nobody told me what to say, i could have said anything and i think i did fine. On the other hand, hillary did not win. [laughter] im wondering do you think of your book as the service by many people i published a book a couple years ago, i got a promotion but i was struck by the fact that he says it is. I was struck by the fact that the book came out right after trumps victory and there were people who wanted desperately to have humor in the escape of humor or whatever you want to call it, you provided this for people to. People are experiencing enormous relief for a change they can laugh about the things they are so angry and afraid about. I think that is true. Thats why were all watching colbert later tonight or trevor noah or john oliver every sunday or bill moran on friday nights. People do need that to take a breath. Once a day at least. Boom good things are happening ensuring things are happening. The great drama in my 20s was the fall of Richard Nixon in the moment when he resigned after not only his presidency but also the 50s when he was the villain in her household during the red scare, the fall of Richard Nixon, really one of the great breaths of relief from a young years and i cannot help but thinking i have another one coming. [laughter] [applause] i certainly dont want to rain on the parade but i said on the air publicly that its occurred to me and i hope will be forgiven for this, there are a lot of analogies between watergate and what is happening now both wanted to get information on find out what information was available about them and information against enemies. But the difference was, nixon had whatever the reason was, he resigned. I dont know that trump will resign read i dont know even if you were convicted, i have to say this publicly, because im really concern that say heat it was fixed, and foreboding. He did that before when he won the election. And im not leaving, im a president and im not going to leave. Heres another book for you john. I am always interested in high drama, and more that he ups the stakes in higher the try to climb the harder he will fall. I have to believe that. I am crossing my fingers. The thing that worries me again not to bring the room down, maybe we should have another question. [laughter] i want to thank you for your body of work. I also wanted to mention my favorite things that youve done and footloose where its an absolutely wonderful story, my question for you, i am hoping youll be recording your book because i dont think anybody else could do it justice. Is that going to happen . Yes. Jamie there is an audiobook already of the book, you can get the audiobook, i do the voice into ingenious sound engineers whom i work with 48 years ago when i was an unemployed actor working at a radio at new york. They did all the sound and music for. Its just delightful. There sound effects they do for the audiobook of what the drawings do for the hardcover. Our next question in the middle. , youve done all this great work, my favorite still buckaroo. [laughter] i have watched that movie so many times, the next time i watch im going to be really stoned. [laughter] but beside from that, it was the best movie ever. [laughter] you have very strange taste. [laughter] but i had a ball doing that. Its by far the most extravagant performance ive ever gave. My teeth in the movie are the teeth that i use tuesday night to play Rudy Giuliani. [laughter] i said they asked me if i would do this and i was in the middle of a press tour, i did not know if i would have time. If i find my buckaroo teeth, i will do it. And i looked and i finally found them. They painted them bright white, so if you liked that and you have not seen you play Rudy Giuliani. Tune in. Would you comment on working with Robin Williams. Would you comment on working with Robin Williams and guard. Just comment on it . On the experience . Yes. He was a beautiful man, his first serious role right at the tail end of mark and mindy when he was known absolutely everywhere, people knew him and acknowledged him as a genius netball comedian and he embraced the role of a serious actor. I thought he was superb and if nobody had ever seen him before, they wouldve hailed him as a great new dramatic actor. I did find him very melon man and person. I think it was a period in his life when he was struggling a lot. That kind of fame is extremely hard to manage. You have to be very much fortified for it. You have to be ready for, and so few people are. That fame does not often happen to people who are defended. He was vulnerable, he was a formable man. It was somehow part of his genius. He was a sweet shy man. Yes i found that among a lot of comedians that have this other self that they put on display and sometimes they have not protected their secret self and i think that was true of robin. The next question to your left. Will we ever be lucky enough to see you tour in your oneman play tales told by her . Have you seen it . I did it on broadway last year which was a combination of ten years of doing it and crafting it and doing it in 35 different cities, i doubt if many people here reach her hand if you saw my solo show . I see three. [laughter] it was a joyous experience, i will probably do it again, at the moment it was a wonderful experience. Thank you for asking and giving attribute to it. A question in the center. This is basically were preaching to the converted in this room. And the people that are elected or possibly not here. In the senate, they will not convict him. So, im just saying, weve got to be a lot more serious. I appreciate you, it was wonderful but this is really a dramatic time in our lives. My question is, i go back to a personal trump said he very well dealing with the press enough mccarthy. Hearing you make a remark, you can imagine ive thought a lot about it, the introduction to the book, i somewhat sufficiently but in fact earnestly address myself to trump supporters, fods, friends of donkey. Dump d. [laughter] but as i say, i turned from the course to address myself as my fellow citizens. I dont know, should i read it . Do you have it . Ill read a little passage from it. This is my dear fellow citizens, though my myself cannot fathom, i acknowledge your sincere devotion to the strange split net a man. I see you on tv laughing, cheering and chanting and you stand in line beforehand before hours on in primed for the time of your lifes it in your eyes dump ds bullying is encouraged, his patriotism and his bull terrier to eat his cruelty and unbridled fund. Your support for him springs from sheer infatuation and like most infatuation its incomprehensible to everyone else. It is certainly income principle to me. But let me ask you a few questions. And promised me, your answer truthfully. Given that dumpty is such a crude, vicious coward liar, con man and crook. [laughter] would you want to work and an office where he was in charge, would you want to join his white house staff or the weird cast of characters in his cabin . Would you want him to invest your life savings for you. [laughter] would you want to sit next to him at a dinner party, picnic or sport event, would you want to cacarpool or drive across county with him. Would you hire him to babysit your toddler or fix him up with your best friends daughter, would you ask him to speak at your own memorial service. [laughter] if you answer no to all of these questions, then why in the world would you entrust your countrys future in the future of this fragile planet to him. Pause for a moment and contemplate your own contradictory leanings. Crazy right hopefully i jostled your state of mind to take a peak of my poem. If you honestly think that my politics sting and i flopped your scriptures then kick off your shoes and mixer favorite drink and screw the words and look at the pictures. [laughter] [applause] should i just read the last couple. Read the last paragraph. This is the last of the book, the way i in the book, a pretty good way to end the session. And thank you michael, you have been wonderful. I so appreciate both of you this morning. [applause] before you read this i like to have the audience express once more not only their appreciation but for this extraordinary career that you have had and will have. [applause] [cheering] thank you. Let me read this last thing which i think will delight you. Its the second half of the last poem called afterward and dumptys response when william barr told him the bob Mueller Report is no problem and is totally exonerated. My deadline to deliver these poems was two days after this happened. Dumpty shouted and leapt up related blatantly guilty he skated. But with dumpty, elation takes curious forms. Curious critics and ravages norms. At such time revert to his usual pensions, anger, hatred and vengeance. So grabbing the trouble in both tiny hands, he feverishly plotted his upcoming plan. He suspended lots of rights to a certain law and order, split up more families and checked on the border. Stiff a few nations weve helped be here before, guatemala, honduras and el salvador. Lena producers to blackball his foes, cut climate protection to ghastly new lows. You put in the past on Campaign Interference and get the caddy security clearance. If all of this fills you with shock and surprise, wake up, smell the coffee and open your eyes. He is done most of these things and a hundred things more and god only knows what he still has in store. Sure, dumpty is a full hardy figure of fun, at last, theres work to be done. Democracy but her spirit is firm, restrict trump d dumpty two only one term. [applause] [cheering] thank you great job. ,. [applause] the house will be in order. For 40 years cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress. The white house, the Supreme Court and publicpolicy events from washington, d. C. And around the country. So you can make up your own mind created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Next on the tv after words. Former speaker of the house of representatives offers his thoughts on the threat that the u. S. Faces from china. Hes interviewed by American Enterprise scholar. After words is a weekly Interview Program with guest host interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. All after words programs are available as podcast. I am happy to be here to discuss the new book donald trump versus china. How are you doing sir . Im doing well and very excited and i want to savor our audience that the book has to do with you the other week, you are brilliant and the amount to no an t