We had have the fortune of having many critical journalists both print and broadcast speak here over the years. The one we head with us tonight had covered six u. S. President s. We will first be introduced to him back in 2002. When they have a handful of other experts to share stories about president reagan and our air force one. Stories we then used to make our experience that much more rich. He is come to other times to discuss copies of his book. Prisoners in the white house. And ultimate insiders. White house photographers. Since he has been covering the white house since 1986 i am sure he has no lack of material for many more books especially since today he continues to provide insight into the white house of donald trump in the world a president ial campaign. Perhaps if her lucky he will share some insight into the upcoming elections. He chose tonight to discuss his latest book. Defining moments of the modern president. Speaking of the book. He wrote ken walsh one of the nations truest observers of president s in the presidency takes readers on a two or of how 14 president s resolve crises that came their way and have a 15th donald trump regards crises as the norm rather than the exception. And has incorporated them into their management style. They will come away enriched by the tales he tells of success and failure at the highest level of american government. Lets hear some tales shall we. Its my honor to introduce ken walsh. Thank you all for coming. I meant to im you to be talking about some challenging times the president s had faced. We have some challenging times getting here tonight. I was just in San Francisco where my daughter lives and i did some programs up there for the book and one thing is being canceled after another. As you will know. I also report that the lift drivers the fellows who were out there making money which was a taxi service. Its hard to hear them and understand what theyre saying but all ive heard is that they dont help you. Sort of a precaution theyre taking. In any case i want to thank melissa for having me and thank you all for coming under these extraordinary circumstances. When i ask asked the correspondent. I had covered six president s. You look at different ways to see the president and to get insight into them. And to find out what they are like as people. I found a number of ways to do that through my book. I wrote a book about air force one. I came out here and helped in putting together the exhibits at least in some small way. To see what they were like on air force one. How president s behaved in art celebrity culture. And how they participate in public popular culture. It also occurred to me since i had covered the bright house for so long every president i had covered and every modern president had to deal with a major crisis of some kind. Maybe it wasnt so true earlier in our history when we didnt have mass media or communications but now we are. All of those things are true. They always had to deal with some kind of a crisis. I will come back to this later. President trump is particularly interesting because he seems to thrive on the idea of crisis. And then he settles the crisis. He likes the idea that he has emerged victorious. Now hes dealing with a crisis unlike any he has ever had to deal with before its completely out of his control to start with. I think and i will talk about this in a few minutes. Basically it is up in the air now. How we evaluate President Trump in dealing with the coronavirus. He still can correct some of the problems that we had had some of the lack of understanding of what the country wants from the present in the situation. They can recover. The cameras are showing the cover of my book. We cant go in much detail. We just want to give you a sense of the some of the things that i discovered in looking at this whole concept at a defining moment for these different presidencies. I did come up with a series of the standards that i developed as sort of a historian in my own right in how the and how the president s deal with crisis. I think basically what the public wants is first of all taking action secondly adapting to changing circumstances balancing principles with what works persevering and having it instinct for achieving success. That is all wrapped up in what im about to talk to you about. This is a summary of those standards that i just gave you. We will be talking about them in the next few minutes as we go through the presentation. You cant talk about president s in crisis without talking to about abraham lincoln. The ultimate crisis ultimately that civil war. They got us through a combination of those standards i talked about. And being something someone that represented and embodied the values that he was trying to convey during the civil war. He did not start out being a particular critical slavery. If he have a keep it to slave the unit save the union he would do that. During the rating of the war the union had terrible setbacks. He had been in military earlier in life. He have a lot to learn. Are they willing to listen and learn in lincoln was willing to do that. This is him visiting mayor mccullen. In talk about adapting to changing circumstances and doing what works he hired mccullen. Hired him again. Fired him again because he was not chasing down the confederate armies the way lincoln was doing. And you saw that very clearly in his dealing with the civil war. Of course he won the civil war abolishing slavery. And i just want to show you one other. That was before he took office. He was giving famous speech. Just keep this in your mind. This is the way he looked when he took over as president. Three weeks before he was killed the ravages of the war have taken such a toll on him that he became to embody the suffering of the country was going through in the civil war and that was very important to people even in the south he became known among the free and enslaved people. As father abraham largely because he have gone through such trauma with all of the deaths that he was ordering himself he also lost a son during the civil war. Just amazing how the toll took on. It was a spectral presence here. He came to really embody for Many Americans in history sort of the best crisis manager weve had as president. More recently this is where the focus of the book. This is that depression or soup kitchen. During the early 1930s we have a terrible economic calamity unemployment today is about 4 . We dont like it when he gets up to eight or 9 . It was 35 during the depression one out of every three people looking for work. They basically meant to at the time. They couldnt find it so they have to go to the soup kitchen. This is what they have to go through. This was considered humiliation. People thought it was their fault that they could not find work and so people were tremendously upset by the whole circumstance i have a couple of images here i just wanted to get to this one a people lined up to get epic cup of coffee and donuts. Reflecting optimism. Every president since roosevelt has adopted this technique including president reagan who admired present roosevelt all his life. He had been a democrat and came a republican of course. Reagan did. Particularly because of the optimism he could convey to the country. This is a picture of Franklin Roosevelt giving a fireside chats. This is what he did his he is the media of his time, radio, which every american could have access to with her own radio or neighbors or whatever. He scheduled what he called fireside chats talking directly to the country about problems in the community entering country, whatever he was doing this is when he was talking about the banks at a very clever way of doing what he was doing have the federal Government Act and to approve the economy instead of talk about shutting down banks or making sure banks were solid, he calls it a bank holiday. Pretty clever term much lighter and nonthreatening idea, he was closing banks. So he went out and give the fireside chats, he did that throughout his administration you could walk through the city or town or hamlets, or around the country people had their windows open. You could hear Franklin Roosevelts words because he had such incredible Market Penetration as they call it now. Where people wanted to listen to the president you could hear him just about wherever you went, it was a tremendously effective thing he did with these fireside chats. This is an example of the roosevelt optimism, the presence of many people of a certain age remembered. Again i cant talk too long about each one course president roosevelt dies, harry truman becomes president. Truman had a lot to prove they felt we had president roosevelt for four term, he was elected to a fourth term just before he died how would we survive without Franklin Roosevelt purged in the truman time we had more. Its an example of what they soldiers had to go through during the korean war. Difficult conditions, were started to get better, so many admired douglas macarthur. So i suggested to illustrate harry truman was firing General Macarthur a lot of them will do defining moments of conflict or war and peace i have chosen to illustrate this book not just war peace but other things that were defining moments for president s. This is what inspired macarthur. This took a great deal of political courage for truman to fire mccarthy he is one of the most popular people in the country during the pacific he promised return to the philippines and he became the Supreme Leader of japan as the American General who was in command there in the occupied forces. He marched a brilliant move to do an invasion of the north at a place called inchon, very risky but successful operation. He started off, after the war was going badly started off in the wars going well you might remember the history of it, the American Forces in the southern push the North Koreans of back. They got too close to the chinese border and the chinese entered hundreds of thousands of chinese troops. Almost forcing them off the korean peninsula. Then, the americans and allies had to push their way back up again. During this time, when the chinese entered macarthur started to say this is a different war now i need to do things differently produced talk about using nuclear weapons. Sondland bombing chinese mainland teams talk about bringing the nationalist chinese from taiwan and which was an outrage to the chinese. Harry truman kept telling them, publicly, we are not doing that. Well bring the soviets into that this is a cold war we dont have a wider war so for truman it became a concept of civilian control of the military. Is he going to let this very popular general run the war the way he wanted or is the president who was supposed to be a commanderinchief going to run the war. So truman went and met macarthur on wake island in the pacific to get a sense of really what the general is up to. The meeting went okay. They did not get along very well. But then macarthur started to make these very aggressive comments and truman fired him. It was a huge firestorm. Historians basically feel it was the right thing to do, he was defending the constitution the principle of civilian control of the military. Its very unpopular the time it cost truman a lot of support. The people who write the history books feel it was the right thing to do. At the time it was a tremendous gamble for truman. This is an example of a political military related defining moment that i think this president did in the retrospective did very well. President eisenhower again we have to go rapidly here because i want to be respectful of your time. President eisenhower is considered not just a popular president but a successful one. He had to terms people felt they wanted to return to normalcy and eisenhower gave that. He initially got along well with the russian leader but he was still worried during the cold war with the soviets were up to so he authorized spy planes over the soviet union. These planes split tremendously high altitudes beyond soviet technology being able to shoot them down until the soviets improve their technology, and then he authorized several of these spy flights before International Conference in 1960 which sheet that would be the capstone of his presidency and in a cold war is to me with the leaders of germany, france, the uk and so on in paris. Once the spy mission about three weeks before this International Conference was supposed to happen it wouldnt you note, the soviets shot that went down. It was a tremendous blow to the prestige of the americans that look like were the warmongers and all this type of thing. Initially present eisenhower lied about it. He said it wasnt a spy flight it was a weather mission. He made a bad judgment here and admitted later it was the worst mistake of his presidency that set both sides back in the cold war. His feeling from his advisers that he got was the planes could not survive an attack, first well because theyre rather fragile and secondly the pilot would not survive at the tremendous altitude being shot down and landing down on the ground. The pilot also out of poise it needled to inject himself with so he would kill himself. They not only found the debris they captured the pilots and crews just showed the degree in very well published eyes in moscow and said not only are the americans the warmongers, flying over our country and soviet union but eisenhower is a liar its her tremendous blow because he prides himself on being honest politician. It really did hurt his reputation. The soviets actually played this the Public Relations of it much better than americans thought they would because they canceled the paris meeting crews jeff went immediately and said eisenhower should call if any missions and eisenhower didnt want to see mikey was bullied so he sort of waffled on that, until it was a real Public Relations mastery the knighted states. This is a case for the defining moment did not go well for an american president even though by and large it was considered success. Heres president kennedy, of course crews jeff estill in Office President kennedys and 60 took office and 61, just a few weeks after he takes office we have the bay of pigs invasion where American Forces supported cuban exiles trained to retake cuba from fidel castro is an utter failure. A lot of people thought we did not give them air support, we do not do what we are going to do. Kennedy option the plans of the Eisenhower Administration had come up with for the invasion but didnt work there is a set bexley goes ahead and meets with crews jeff, he goes to this meeting in vienna he proves kennedy is weak, callow and inexperienced to get the better of him. So what happens is we have one of the most dramatic and dangerous moments in the cold war, which was the human missile crisis pinning president kennedy against fidel castro. You see how close cuba is to florida. They were installing offensive missiles that could read and trent reach much of the americans. So president kennedy felt we had rigged cognizance, the youtube getting pictures of the site said we could not let this go see he mightve seen 13 days and other re creations of this as its told in the movie some are very good in movies including 13 days. He goes to many, many arguments within the administration on what to do, invading cuba, bombing cuba one thing came after another came with an announcement to the country of quarantine because of quarantine rather than a blockade. Again the language is important calling of quarantine it was a blockade, softened the impression for the community. Kennedy gives a speech and i was just a boy then but you can see just as little illustration how rooted everyone was with this its people the Department Store in the Television Section watching president kennedy on tv. Got tremendous coverage. It was tremendous coverage when he decided to blockade cuban is very dangerous because we did not have the civets were going to respond, one thing after another. A couple of things kennedy demonstrated here not only perseverance, learning from experience that notion of him changing with circumstances, when he felt they were openings for peaceful resolution and he took them rather than keep pushing them into a corner. His learning from experience. Also, he learned he learned from the bay of pigs some of his military visors, and general was very warlike and fundamental ways, the military was pushing him towards a confrontation should not want to have. So he didnt listen to his generals as much as he had earlier. This would, most historians agree this was a good thing to do. He did not want to be pushed into doing it. Anyway the confrontation ends, kennedy gets a lot of credit for this for steering us through the confrontation couldve ended up in a terrible nuclear war. Later it was revealed we had actually traded missiles in turkey in was to not invade cuba is not disclosed at the time to their simple communication strategy that went on here as well. This is my concluding point here that kennedy unflappable, the guy who was completely misread talk about filling it is owned of buying moments that kennedy understood the wrist to be taken and he pursued in the end of very prudent and sensible way of dealing with this and is given credit for that in history. Lyndon johnson takes over after kennedy is assassinated the vietnam war. Photograph from the tet offensive remember the tet offensive in 1968, january, its a surprise move the north vietnamese and vietcong, communist forces in South Vietnam launched attacks all over the country of South Vietnam took the americans and South Vietnamese by surprise. Basically the United States and South Vietnamese one most of the battles. The problem was, it made clear we were a long ways away from winning in vietnam. The enemy was not going to give up even the president johnson said they were there was light at the end of the tunnel is Public Relations victory if not a military one. This led to even more intense insight were feeling. Remember the protest that johnson had to deal with, youd vietnam veterans, people in vietnam and these protests veterans and others protesting it. I can or member then i was in college and these days johnson could not speak outside of the white house because he had these often violent protests he would have to speak at military bases were he had the respect of the soldiers as commanderinchief otherwise he was basically a prisoner of the white house for much of his time and remember the chance that would go up, hey, hey, lb jake, how many kids that you kill today . That is pretty harsh. Innovate Lyndon Johnson has said then decide what is going to do about this. I think theres a lot of interpretations about what he does this is a political crisis i think in the end he handled well because he goes on television, talking about a bombing pause and hes announcing is not going to run again. He says i will not seek nor will i accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. This cut the country by surprise it was a tremendous shock. People were stunned that johnson would do this he sought this office all of his life and loves being president. I think in reconstructing this is one of his defining moments in his presidency, he really did the right thing because even though he knew he was going to face a real struggle being reelected, and he could have been reelected because he was still a very strong figure and people had about others running for president. He did not want to polaroids the country any new drip that apart so he knew is the right thing for him to do. I think most historians would agree with that these days. Again moving quickly, president nixon wanted to be the tough firm leader. When he was faced with the watergate scandal which is the issue i chose to deal with in nixon he has all the saturns engine statuses entrance he doesnt adjust to changing circumstances, he perseveres and trying to save his presidency, but not enjoy with the fundamental problems and abuses that the watergate scandal showed. He did not take action until too late. It goes on and on. So, he stonewalls congress, as the houses moving moving to impeach him, he resigns. So is not impeached. But remember the scenes, conceived the pain and pat nixons face, his wife, as hes announcing hes leaving the white house and the famous photo getting on the helicopters he flies away to go to california. I think this is another case where president does not do wellin a crisis situation. I think initially, if nixon had owned up to what happened in the watergate burglary not try to cover it all up, he probably could have survived it. Because the democrats were not offering alternatives with what the country was going to accept. I think this is a case where he was his own worst enemy in many ways in handling his definitive crisis as president. General ford takes over, he was Vice President. He pardons at nixon thats the case i use for general ford. We dont have to talk about a great deal, i have comprehensive details in the book. For decides if he does not and the nixon controversy somehow, hes going to be bedeviled by it for the rest the news media is going to ask him about it nixons going to be the figure casting a shadow over his whole presidency so does a pardon Richard Nixon another big gamble he took. This probably cost him his own bids people really wanted nixon to pay more of a price. Ford felt that nixon had paid a price terrible humiliation and leaving office. In all of the findings that were made that went on in that administration. And so he pardoned nixon. At the time it was a very unpopular decision but it took a lot of political courage for him to do this. I think he was sort of exonerated by this and even the kennedy family, ted kennedy was very, very critical of ford for parting nixon. Later gave him an award saying i was wrong and ford was right in pardoning nixon. So it has been a historic redemption here for gerry ford. Now we remember this is a jimmy carter with the iranian hostage crisis. We still have irene in the headlines today. This is a case were there is an american illini, the shaw of iran, left the country, zealots took over and took control of iran. America was widely despised in iran for supporting the shaw who is very brutal. He is guilty of oppressing his people. So one day when the shaw had he wanted to have treatment for some terrible physical problems he was having in the United States. The question was where we going to let him in the United States and maybe stir up opposition and iran that we were supporting this hated figure there. This is after he had been deposed. Carter said well, its probably the humane thing to do let him have the treatment here, he was a good illini to the knighted states for long time. But if these people go in and take over our embassy and capture our people, im going to come back to you, advisors, and say what do we do now and thats exactly what happened. Other radicals took over the embassy, they captured about 60 of our people, and they held them for a year, carter was unable to get them out. He tried everything he could possibly do, this is the case that instead of taking action which is one of the standards i have for president s and defining moments, he called for prayer, he said we pray for our captive americans, theres that National Cathedral ceremony he was stricken by it and almost froze his presidency for the whole year. Finally, after the pressure was growing on them, he did launch a mission. This is at the center of my critique of carter for the iranian hostage situation. He launched a mission to get the hostages and of course it was an utter failure. What happened was, the military later said that they told carter this but everything had to go perfectly for this mission to have any chance of succeeding. You had helicopters who had to go into the desert, meet up with other helicopters, find people from the country who knew how to go and get into the embassy, fly them to tehran, hostile city, not a small place, get to the embassy, fight your way through the embassy, find the hostages get them out get them back on the helicopters get the helicopters back to the ship so every phase, something could go wrong. What happened is, it went wrong on the first phase the helicopters ran into each other, eight americans were initially killed, and then it got worse from there. So it was a terrible blow to carters presidency. Of course president reagan got them out. On the day he took office, or member how much was i regular how much they were afraid of him, nevertheless the hostage situation was a terrible bloat to carters pregnancy and he never recovered from. He handled things in a not so good way. This is the case i use in the book for his crisis the ultimate personal crisis because he almost died from this. He was giving a speech in washington it was only a few weeks after he took office in 1981 he is getting into his limousine and as he reached the limousine, John Hinckley junior, starstruck deranged young man wanted to impress the actress jodie foster, shot the president he ended up hitting his press secretary d. C. Policeman, secret Service Agent and one of the rounds bounced off the site of the limousine and hit reagan and the side. This is reagan when he was hit, the exact moment he was hit by the piece of the ebola. You can see his aides and secret service guys looking over at the shooter. This picture what a pulitzer prize, by the way. What happens is they push reagan into the limousine, and he feels tremendous pain. He thanks the secret Service Agent pushed him into card broken one of his ribs and custom, by this time he was bleeding from the mouth and he was frothing. And so the agent said we are not taking it to the white house mr. President were taking each of the emergency room. If they had not done that he most surely wouldve died. Weve got in the situation is the personal courage, the personal grace under pressure, of the president , of an individual person under this tremendous burden of being shot he gets to the hospital any always felt the president should act like the president parts of this happened by instinct of president reagan because he had been a movie actor and im not saying it critically puritys understood there is a role to play. He got out of the limousine buttoned up his suit jacket, walks into the emergency room on his own power and then he collapses because he did not want people to see vulnerability. He does almost died. The doctors do their best to save him. He benefits from major good fortune. It turns out the day he was at the hospital was a conference were some of the most prestigious specialists and many types of surgery where there for a conference. They were all there when he was shot so they could help them. They left the conference to help with the surgery. So then came the post operative part of it, which was also brilliant and many ways because reagan understood the spotlight he was on and he had to show the country he was capable of handling this and recovering. This is a man in his 70s, remember. At that time now we have two president ial candidates were going to be there 70s now, actually three if you consider bernie sanders. He understands the country needs to see him. He handled that very, very well and his advisers handle it very well. This is well orchestrated i put it as a plus because that was a very important time for the country, for the soviet union to see if our president was so weak that they could take advantage of him. He conveyed the idea that he is up to this and he could rise to the occasion and could recover an almost miraculous way. They arrange for him to meet at the hospital with his senior advisers, which he does. You can see he looks frail to me, doesnt he cheer . Obviously he has had a trauma here. But it works in the country is very respectful of him and believes the president does have this personal courage and grace under pressure we price them much. He perseveres and it passes all the standards ive talked about in dealing with the crisis. He also shows his support around the country. This is a card that the staff arrange to be sent to him, the white house staffers being photographed is a get well card to the president. And he does other things that were very clever. To show he could recover common elderly man, pumping iron and so on rather soon after his being shot. I think it was an amazing and the personal calamity he was going through it helped his agenda. I was covering congress at this time, just before i got to cover the white house. A lot of americans felt that they were going to give him the benefit of the doubt because of how he dealt with this personal crisis and i remember talking to cabdrivers what im summer just to get a sense of what everyday people think. I cant say the number of cabdrivers it said he took a ebola to his chest and he kept coming. I did not like him at first but id like him now. I think thats the way a lot of people felt. This is the image of course hes left with he never had another calamity like that he did have skin cancer, colon cancer and such. He did end up with this image as the leader charging ahead with his agenda, which is the image she wanted all along. President bush takes over, he has as Vice President humans in 1988 election, he launches the persian gulf war hes a master Coalition Building again if you apply my standards to this, he does live up to all of the standards taking action, combining principal with reality, persevering and so on. This assembly visits the troops after his this a Massive International coalition to drive iraq out of kuwait which they had invaded to get their oil for other reasons. He waved, he couldve been awkward and somebody handled the situation very well. We finally went to war, it was a massive success for the americans and for our allies. In all the years ive covered the white house this is when i saw the white house operate better than ive ever seen it before, the National Security staff and so forth with the persian gulf war. We all know of this is, this is the big crisis for bill clinton. The Monica Lewinsky and life scandal he had an affair this young intern, lied about under oath, so he handles it very badly. If he had admitted it, he probably could have been okay, but he did not, he lied about it. This is the case with the famous press conference he had, with hillary there, he said i did not have sexual relations with that woman, ms. Lewinsky, thats exactly what he said but that was a lie he did. He was caught. They were all kinds of that whole year he was investigated and under impeachment proceedings, as a journalist i was covering things i never dreamed i would be covering, ever in my career about the president of the United States and his behavior with this young woman. Just unbelievable and so many felt betrayed, they felt he had taken this fundamental risk and was so selfindulgent to risk his presidency, job he wanted all his life something ending up as salacious and dangerous as what he did. He was impeached, course impeachment is a charge, its what the house at levees and then the senate acquitted him. Thats just what has happened to President Trump by the way. But the blemish remained on clintons record, of the impeachment. By the way i think that blemish will remain on present intent President Trumps record to even they could argue its parts and it certainly was. It still in the history books. But what happens with clinton, is that by the end his presidency he has persuaded the country that has public leadership as president was more important in evaluating him that his private behavior which a lot of people felt he was a scoundrel. So by the end his presidency, he is impeached and acquitted. His popularity goes up. He becomes a popular president again, because people feel, well we guess we can have the president is a role model anymore. So the outcome of his big crisis is a fundamental difference of perception we have in the presidency we separate the public from the private president thats a big change for us we wanted the president to be a role model for the our history most of that what clinton did but it was kept quiet. Now its different. Thats a big change. By the with the point about clinton is if we had the meat to movement today, that we have today back then i dont think he wouldve survived. Charges were not taking it seriously then as they were now at least not so intently. Think if we wouldve had that then we would not of made it through course 911. The destruction of the world trade towers with hijacked aircraft. With terrorists, the pentagon was hit also. This is president bush. Initially he was offbalance when he first handled this a lot of people wondered about if he could be strong in a crisis. This is when he was first told of the second plane hit in the second tower. Ive course was covering the presidency at this time. He was in an Elementary School in sarasota, florida. One of his aides that a plane has hit one of the trade towers in new york. And nobody knew why. So the president told me later he set i thought maybe the pilot had a heart attack. Sort of un realistic initial impression, nonetheless hes on camera and his chief of staff whispers in his ear a second plane has hit the second tower, america is under attack. That starts the global war on terrorism that he launches. Hes offbalance, the first day he doesnt come back redwood of washington, which i was critical of initially but think he was right about that because there is such chaos as an example, on air force one, the pilot of the plane was so unsure what was happening, he asked a secret Service Agent who is a friend of his, to stand guard at the cockpit so no one would take over the plane. I always stuff that was amazing. The pilot of air force one asking a secret service guy to protect the pilot from being taken over while the plane is flying. I always thought that was amazing. But thats what happens. So we had an initial period of carious and uncertainty. Then president bush settles in. This was probably the most memorable moment of his presidency. He goes to the site where the trade towers had been, smoldering in the background, he is on the burnedout fire truck, he star said talk in the First Responders say we cant hear you, we cant hear you. He grabs a bullhorn, pulls the guy up from the crowd of the First Responders it turned out to be a retired fireman who volunteered to help that day. He says i hear you, and the people who knocked it down these buildings will hear all of us very soon. Thats exactly what the country wanted to hear from the president. So just past the initial test. As time goes on i think you can reassess how he handled the longterm crisis, the war in afghanistan, the war in iraq, occupying the country which his father did not do because he felt to be too much of an obligation of burden for the United States president bush the son does that we are still living with the consequences today. The initial reaction to the attacks, i think he handled himself very well. President obama and the financial crisis when he took over. This is a clever Time Magazine cover comparing him to Franklin Roosevelt who had to deal with the depression which i talked about a little while ago. President obama had to deal with the real financial meltdown. You remember that era major banking institutions, lending houses were going under and so on he had to decide whether it was best to get over with the soonest possible and alienate some people who thought he was going too far with the federal government or was he going far enough . Far enough in punishing the bankers and so on. A lot of liberals in the Democratic Party felt he did not go far enough that he should have punish the bankers he shouldve put these people in jail, but he did not do that. He does get past the initial meltdown and the economy does recover. We have to give them credit for that. He does persevere, he balances principle of her pragmatism he understands taking action was important and he does have instinct in this. One of the things he did that was particularly controversial sea rescues the Auto Industry, he gives the Auto Industry loans and financial aid. Which was tremendously controversial but a lot of americans felt it was the Auto Industrys own fault that they were going bankrupt. That they werent making cars americans wanted, that was turning out to be true. They were not as fuelefficient and so on but he decides to bail out the Auto Industry, he does save the Auto Industry in some fundamental ways. On so you have to look on that as a case where he took a very risky and unpopular decision and ran with it. I think that was probably a good judgment on his part. Again we can quarrel about my conclusions, but i think laying out the parameters of the discussion today and how he dealt with this fundamental defining moment. Now erect a President Trump. President trump has made a presidency of crisis we had a perpetual series of crisis. We can argue whether he has handled them well or badly, but he seems to thrive in a crisis atmosphere. A lot of president s with think a Government Shutdown would be enough of a crisis for firstterm. Weve had a Government Shutdown, confrontations with north korea, confrontations with iran, i promise iraq, terrorist incidents of had the wall, the border, getting along with congress. One thing after another. The wall is one thing i talk about in the book as what of the crises he dealt with. You build a wall between United States and mexico to stop illegal immigration with criminals coming into the United States and so on. When congress realized they were not going to pay for the wall, after the Mexican Government decided they werent going to pay for the wall, then President Trump declared a National Emergency it crisis at the border so he could move money from other accounts to pay for the wall. Still being tested in court by the way. Taking action here, its against a very resistant congress. The house is resistant to but he is still fighting for the wall, staying with it at a lot of people fields the right thing to do. Its a crisis that he is still dealing with, finish the wall and build the wall. His argument is it has started. This got wrapped up in the whole impeach trump controversy. Its another when i talk about in the book. Thats a fundamental crisis that he is dealing with. Hes impeach, he deals with muller with the special counsel, his report in some ways is inconclusive but the democrats ran with it anyway. Then nancy pelosi of the House Speaker did now into impeach him initially but then decided to do it after this famous phone call came about with trump talking with the leader of ukraine about an investigation of joe biden the leading democratic president ial candidate and corruption involving bidens son, hunter. Now that is still floating around out there, by the way, a lot of republicans dont want to let go of that and they want to investigate hunter biden, joe bidens son. Nonetheless, this is the issue that because the impeachment because the arguments of the Democratic Service abuse of power, the president tried to corner an illini, an adversary by forcing an illini to investigate this guy. The other part of this is trump says Biden Joe Biden was trying to remove a prosecutor from that ukraine, the prosecutor might have been trying to investigate hunter biden, joes son. He gets a little complicated, basically both sides were not giving up on their interpretation of what joe biden was trying to do while he was Vice President. Fight corruption or get his son off, that sort of thing. Nonetheless, this is joe biden and his son. What happens is the house leaders, adam schiff from california and others push impeachment, trump is impeached but is also acquitted. His impeachment on his record but the acquittal is still going on. How does this come about . I tend to think trump was very hard to avoid impatient because the partisan we have in washington right now i mightve soften the blow a little bit if he had not been as resistant as nixon was to cooperating with the investigation, not allowing testimony and so on. It was never going to be fair he was never going to be treated decently so ill let you decide with the interpretation of that one thing i want to end with we have right now were talking earlier in this discussion the corona virus discussion could be the biggest crisis of his presidency because it affects so many panicking is it worth panicking over thats the question we have how are you treated is there enough tests, that is something, when the president needs to be very careful of this in particular because a lot of people in the Public Health service, very nonpartisan people sit we do have a problem getting tests for this. The government needs to get on the ball here and get the tests out there so we know who has this. It has taken a very long time for that to happen. Now President Trump can still recover from this i think from the initial missteps or slowness of the response, he said is just like the any other flu initially. Out turns out people just really, really scared about it, maybe theyre overdoing it nevertheless its a real problem in peoples minds. So President Trump has to deal this now this is him announcing some of his programs. He is now taking action which is probably what americans wanted to see most of all. He is recognizing the severity of the problem peoples minds. That is a think a step in the right direction so this is a case of course i could not accommodate in my book, which is already been published, but this coronavirus is example of a crisis that could really undermine or propel president its right in plate right now and that is what we are all looking at at this moment. With that i want to thank you for coming and i hope this was helpful in explaining the president s and their defining moments. Thank you. [applause] s we went we have time for a few questions we are going to ask because this is being recorded you do not ask the question until her staff member brings the microphone to you. I think i saw womans hand . Hello. Thank you for the excellent presentation. What would you recommend to President Trump to do next to make this crisis something he comes out is handling well . Guest there are two things recognize reality, tell people what is really happening here and not to minimize this is something no one should worry about which is the oppression he gave initially. It was fair he gave the impression its going to go away, wait until the warmer weather, its the flu. But people are so worried about it i think thats part of the changing circumstances he asked to address. Hes got to recognizing you see signs hes doing this, that this is a big deal for people. They are really worried about it. One is putting up information what people want the second is taking action. People in a crisis want the president to do something pretty is now starting to do that. Now is it too late to create a different impression that is on the case . I dont think so i think he can still do it but hes got to stay with it now. These are or when people are looking at him its a defining moment for him. Whether people are exaggerating or not commies got to recognize it. I think the public wants the president to be decisive in either combing our fears or showing us the way out. Think that is the keion what he needs to do. Could you tell us a little bit about the korean war . Your tongue but vietnam can you tell us a little bit about that . Two the question about the korean war we talked little bit about that. Basically, im one of the few journalists left in washington who were in the army, i was out in the korean war but in the vietnam era. The korean war was one of these immersions that interventions gone into which includes vietnam and other places where americans did not like because it did not have a clean resolution. What happened was North Koreans before this that peninsula was divided between north and south thats a whole other story. Theres a demarcation line, the tmz. In the middle of the country. The North Koreans feel they finally can take over the south so they invade the south. They push the american troops were allies of south korea, almost off the peninsula. We were in a little compartment there at the bottom of south korea where we had been stuck, pushed by these North Koreans. Family pushed troops and supplies in we started to push the North Koreans back. With very clever strategy by governor macarthur and other generals. Difficult fighting. You see the picture of the conditions, the cold weather, very desperate fighting. Americans were outnumbered in many cases where we have the technology was a very, very difficult slog. We just had world war ii ending in 1945. Now we are in the early 50s were back at war again. Its a very difficult situation. With our government, and allies with the south koreans dont understand how perilous it is to get close to that chinese border. So as our troops are moving up closer to the river which is the key place of demarcation. We did hundreds of thousands of chinese storm across the river and push us back again then it becomes even more desperate we have many soldiers dying under terrible conditions. And so then it becomes a real tough slog and it becomes a stalemate. Thats why so Many Americans hated the korean war because we did not win its we were stuck. We still dont have a peace treaty. We have an arm assist. We are still dealing with that whole situation now. Thats it in a nutshell. I hope that was helpful. How do you feel president obama handled benghazi and what was his relationship . On benghazi it was more of a Hillary Clinton thing. Think president obama could have stepped in. This is a situation where did Hillary Clinton allow our diplomats and our americans in this benghazi situation to be stranded and killed without trying to rescue them . Because she didnt move quickly enough. I think it was such a fastmoving situation, maybe Obama Shouldve jumped in personally but he deferred to Hillary Clinton and let her handle and a secretary of state. Still a big criticism of Hillary Clinton she did not take action to save our people when they were under attack and benghazi. There is a lot more to say about it. But in the interest of time, i think president obama just decided he was going to let hillary handle that and he did not intervene he let her as secretary of state deal of it. Still a big criticism of her among conservatives and republicans. Now, president s obama relationship has been very close in chicago when it came up when she compass of political figure she was a friend of his wife, Michele Obama then became a friend of his. She became a senior white house advisor, did not get the attention she should have gotten as a real player heard we all knew she was close to president obama, but she was there for many, many decisions, right at his elbow. Was still not in to the bottom of exactly what role she played in a lot of this, but she was certainly one of the fundamental players in that government. Thats the case where maybe they shouldve paid more attention to that. By and large, shoot very few people in the Obama Administration than valerie jarrett. Thanks again for the informative talk. Two things you mentioned president eisenhower saying is a big mistake was that you two, another story is when he was leaving office and asked if he had he mistakes as president he said yes i made to and theyre both sitting on the supreme court. [laughter] maybe theres another one. Ive heard that story too but i think later on, think he may have written this in memoirs and subsequent interviews. That the single mistake he made, was handling the you too. He really prided himself on being a true attempt to truth teller and he was not in that case it really hurt him that he made that mistake. I think thats part of it he was personally troubled that he was put in that position. That makes up such a good story. [laughter] my real question is your comment if you have any on president clintons words a few days ago and is sexual escapades of living the stress of the presidency . You picked up on that. [laughter] a lot of people did. President clinton, its that case in some ways because he was considered like the best politician of his generation initially. Through the campaign and this he was not the least reasons because he could talk his way out of everything. He was proud of that. There are many, many stories about how clinton would say, when i met a roomful of people i will go to the person who i think hates me the most and i want to convert them. I want to persuade them to support me. He would go right for that notion. Thats what im getting at, when i talk about the me too movement. That does not work that i am under great anxiety and stress so i need to pray on this intern. Monica lewinsky has changed her views on this stupid initially she was much less willing to criticize president clinton, now she saying hes the most powerful work man in the world and i was control these paying attention to me im 22 years old. So he handled that in just about the worst way you could. He was impeached over it. But as i say, those times were different and i dont think it would work today. Anyway i did see that comment and im sure that kind of thing is going to be floating around the politics of her country for a long time. Stomach i want to thank you all for braving the weather and joining us tonight pretty want to thank ken for being here its fascinating. Right behind you were going to keep you all indoors the bookstores right behind us he will be in there and ask any other questions, sign your books, just a little side note we did announce today because of the coronavirus we are closing our doors, so tomorrow is the last day the Reagan Library and museum will be open until further notice for glad you were with us tonight but we were still open. Thank you for being with us. [applause] this weekend on book tv, tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, former fbi director, andy mccabe with his book the threat, how the fbi protects america in the age of terror and trop. So is really concerned by what i felt were corrosive impact that these false narratives about the fbi, the corrosive impacts those were having on the people of the fbi and their ability to do their work. At felt like people understood, really more about the organization, who we are, how we work what kind of people are drawn to the fbi it most importantly how we make the decisions we do is it based on specific legal authorities and priorities and policies given to us by the department of justice . Not based on politics and personal preference that sort of thing. On after words this weekend on book tv cspan2. Smack at the museum of the American Revolution in philadelphia, Harvard University history professor Vincent Brown discuss slavery and translate revolts amongst the colonies. Heres a portion of his talk. So from what observers could glean it was clear many had been soldiers in africa. Perhaps padres of people arrived in the American Military training and discipline with some knowledge of defensive and evasive tactics learned in africa. In deed as some suggest america enslaved the bulls might be in key respects as extensions of african wars. This perspective reveals the complex networks of migration, belonging, trans Regional Power and conflict that gave the political history of the 18h century some of its most distinctive contours. Viewing slavery as a piece of warfare is about the first step to envisioning a mass atlantic slavery. It showed how political military practices travel, take root, and grow in desperate environments. Even as a slave trade force people to remake and negotiate their affiliations, the massive disperse of africans across the atlantic during military conflict throughout the americas. This shows how warfare was reconstituted not as a direct continuation of struggles, but as an outgrowth of immigrant experience. British slaveholders valued them highly. Planters generally said they were best suited for eco cultural labor, but said at the same time, they are of a dangerous and rebellious disposition and promote disturbances. They are dangerous people to keep in bondage, perhaps in part for the same reasons slave traders found the gold coast to be abundance of workers. In the 17th and 18th century the region witnessed the transformation of major empires. On behalf of our organization and its our pleasure to welcome you to our show tonight. As we get underway went to