Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About The Trump Administration 20240712

No right. Whats your sense of whats driving this in the Mainstream Media that you are part of . First of all theres a bias against republicans in general. With reagan he is portrayed as stupid or dangerous, the same thing with trump, hes stupid and dangerous according to the media. They feel if they did there would be ostracized by the colleagues. For example, from for people wn the white house correspondents, cobol, among themselves they laugh at him, they mock him. That is the overriding theme. Many people just inherently cant think independently. Thats one reason i left college after two years like a few of the people, michael dell and gates. I did want to be told how to think. I did want to be told what to write. I wanted to get firsthand what actually happened and thats the way ive operated. I dont have blinders on. I like to penetrate secrets and thats what ive done in this book with all these details about the real donald. Its really a fun read. Explain what happened with Reince Priebus and paul wright D Chris Christie during the access hollywood important weekend for the campaign. What did they do and was any repercussions from what they did later . Keep in mind Reince Priebus still went to the debate. He still supported trump to the rnc. He actually didnt, would not withdraw any support. What did he say . What did he say . Lets see. He said you can get out of race and lose any huge landslide. You mention this in your book. Im just reading. But he was made chief of staff. But at the same time trump never forgave him for saying that, which is unfortunate because prince reavis really presided over many of these successes including the deregulation that led ceos to realize they can expand and hire more workers. They would not be restricted and constricted. A lot of other achievements occurred under Reince Priebus. But one point on the access Hollywood Tape is that hillary had said it shows trump is a coercive marauder. But actually what he is saying in the tape is women are after him all the time and he takes advantage of that. When youre a star they want you to do that. Its not nonconsensual activity. It is consensual activity that he describes. Wow. It wasnt anything there really has happened in politics in my lifetime, in your lifetime. So we saw something that doesnt usually happen. Usually it would be the the def a president ial campaign, and paul ryan the speaker seem to act that way. Looking back what is it that they didnt understand what it was Reince Priebus paul ryan about the trump voter and the trump base, about these things about donald trump . I think reince did understand, but its very hard for people in certain circles in the east and the west to understand the way the average voter thinks. My home contractor, workingclass person, said to me i dont care what trump says, i just care about what he does. That sums up the way people in the socalled workingclass think. They have to be judged by results. If our carpenter nails and mail into a stud and his crooked, he may be fired. A hired professor can spout off about all kinds of things come hes never accountable. These people understand results and thats what you see with donald trump. I see your point and that was great in your book. Lets talk about palm beach. It was alien to me but youre right that behind the heads of the games that palm beach is play, there are affairs, murder, jealousy, pretenses, occasional generosity make cmos tv show look like nursery tales. Talk about donald trump came in to maralago and distal personality, how we took the place and how it is resulted today. Trump first heard about maralago from his limousine driver, and this is typical. He will go about asking people their opinions, with their Chamber Maids or secret service agents. He has his advisers but he also has a white canvas of people will give him opinions. As well as about 12 friends that he consults. I named them into book. Most of them are billionaires but that is the way he works. When i was at maralago recently with the psp what i thought about israeli settlements. I know as much about the middle east as he knows about the taliban but i gave you my opinion and thats the way operates. But he was enthralled by maralago and he bought it at Bargain Basement price. It was a white elephant. First used it as his home but then he decided turn it into a club, and that was the idea of his lawyer in florida who is jewish and said, jews and blacks come these other clubs dont do that. They can be profitmaking. And sure enough now it is worth 700 million. Donalds second wife was against turning it into a club. She just wanted it for herself, but he went ahead with it. The one thing she did contribute was he should have a spa and so we could trump spa at maralag maralago. But it is paradise. As he says, its the closest thing to paradise he will ever get to. Simply unbelievable it overlooks both sides of the island which is only about half a mile wide at the widest point, and this culture is unique. Its the richest place in the world. It has these traditions, red cross ball, spend all the time at charities, developing these balls. In the end they dont actually produce that much money. One club member was married to a very wealthy real estate guy from italy, and eventually he died and left her about 300 million. She stored his body at a local funeral home for 40 days under ice because she said i wanted to enjoy the season, as the caller, the season. I was faithful to him, and now i want to enjoy myself and go to the parties, go to the party on the yacht with ivanka. In fact, she said shes going to do the same thing to her second husband if he dies as well. This is palm beach. Wow. I dont think many spouses would go for that come but maybe in palm beach. Its incredible. Talk about the flag that he had a battle with palm beach people about down there. Donald erected this huge, huge flag, just towering over a longer, towering over the street, and the towns that this is against zoning regulations. But he went to battle it said it was a free speech issue. He sued the town and they started fining him a huge amount of money every day. Eventually they settled and he agreed to move the flagpole further away from the street and to reduce the length of the flagpole. But guess what . He erected it on a mound that is workman created so that in the info is just as as hot as it was before. This is typical donald trump and as he says, he always wins. Not quite but usually does. The way he finagled to get the club approved by the tenth is sort of typical of how he operates. On the one hand, paul rampal his lawyer sent copies of gentlemen to agreement and another similar movie to the Town Council Members who were trying to prevent him from turning this into a club, implying they were all bigots and thats why they were against approving the club. At the same time he sued the town, and he invited his Town Council Members to parties at maralago. He said work when it is a glamorous girls and he also played golf with them into this. He uses the care and the stick and eventually it worked. Maralago brings in about, almost 40 million a year. And what he wants to go there now. That sort of sums up the way trump operates. Another recent book about President Trump is bob woodward fear. The author and pulitzer prizewinning journalist discusses some of his conclusions about the Trump Administration. He spoke at George Washington university in september 2018. Im sure everyone here has seen the book on enormous amount of attention and the thing that struck me the most about the book was that i thought you drew conclusions in the way you may not have in previous books. You were very critical of how comey handles his interactions with the president when he briefed him on the dossier. Your largest conclusion was can you imagine your two weeks away from becoming president and the fbi director comes in and theres no way the ghost of j. Edgar hoover is not far behind and says, by the way, we had the secret dossier about you being with prostitutes in moscow three years earlier. How would you feel . How should comey have handled this . [laughing] not that way. Trump has legitimate beef in my view, and i say in the book, and being the presenter of too much history and writing too much about president s in the case of bill clinton when he came in to office in 1993 and has white House Counsel was Bernie Nussbaum burst of like six. Thats right, but the first. As you imagine, clinton had some baggage, too, and theyre all kinds of things that the fbi got about clintons Extracurricular Activities which were abundant, and so they sent all this instead of briefing clinton on it, they sent it to burning his bomb, the white House Counsel. And he looked at it and said put in the burn bag and said, okay, lets see what happens. Lets see how these things and im not sure the burn bag is, i wish he called me, and he didnt, but the idea of the fbi director getting in the face of somebody like trump who has a big ego. I quote in the book, clinton told his lawyer when, after this briefing, he said, melania can never find out about this. Of course it was about two minutes or two days later she did, as did the world. And you draw a conclusion that the administration is in a very dangerous spot pick nfl that is is at the first of you have ever gone and why did you go so far . Evelyn duffy was my assistant are you here, evelyn . Raise your hand. Evelyn, standup, because [applause] George Washington university graduate, class of [applause] and the year 2007, shes worked for me since actually at that time, and we have done five books, four president s, and she knows all the secrets. [laughing] and she knows how to keep secrets, and she knows how to kick me in the ass. [laughing] and for that i salute her and gw. [applause] but evelyn and my wife, elsa walsh, very much involved, this was a family affair, and they both said you cannot step away from the obvious conclusions of what you found in the book, that there are a group of people which i illustrate very vividly who stand up to trump, steel documents office desk, on south korean trade because its connected to lots of very sensitive intelligence operations, documents on nafta, documents on Climate Change and so forth. Its a regular procedure. Get it off the resolute desk and he will not remember or not think about it. And as i say, and youve got all of the other things, john dowd, his lawyer for the wretched investigation for eight months russia investigation. Can you imagine being trumps lawyer for eight months . [laughing] he goes through and he finally does a practice session with trump. And in the white house and they are overlooking the monuments, and the lawyer plays mueller questions of trump. Its kind a dry run, and trump makes things up, lies, loses emotional control and finally john dowd says you cannot testify. If you testify it will be as he elegantly puts it, and orange jumpsuit, and you dont have to know a lot about Law Enforcement to not recognize what that is. And so you connect all of these things, and my conclusion in the book is that it is an administration and white house thats going to a nervous breakdown. So lets go through a nervous breakdown. How could it go wrong . What would a manifestation of that look like, if it something on the traitor economic side . Did us an example of okay, its a dangerous spot. What could happen . Just on trade, and it sounds satiric but the trade war with china. 99. 9 of the economists say terrorists make no sense. They hurt consumers terra. We buy things in this country because it cheaper, better quality. Trump somehow has in his head theyre taking that money from us, stealing it. And he will not get that out of his head. One of the conclusions i make is that theres a war on truth, and part of it is not just what trump says, but where trump gets these ideas. The experts go in. Gary cohn is chief economic advisor, kind of slaps him gently in an affectionate, perhaps way, and says if you would shut the f up you would learn something. [laughing] [applause] are look at recent books on the trumpet administration continues with historian and author victor davis hanson. His book the case for trump deals with how the president has followed through on his campaign promises. He appeared on her Author Interview program afterwards in 2018 and spoke with former republican congressman dave brat of virginia. I think the deep state is a permanent class of federal also state and local workers who feels that they are exempt from public accountability either through Civil Service or union. And yet they have the resources of the state so if they want to regulate a farmer or the want to sue a coal company may have the means to bankrupt that person or if they are a federal prosecutor and they say were going to bring in front of a liberal washington d. C. Jury and were going to type for years unless you admit to this this this as a so with the mueller, thats what the deep state, and they tend to be progressive only in the sense that the ideology of making them bigger and giving them more power is democratic and left us. Thats one of the reasons that the hated trump. You mentioned some of the names but but i feel like im in alternate universe. James clapper went before a Congressional Committee and under oath he swore that the United States was not accepting communications of private citizens. Vinny said id like but i gave the least there were no uncut aggressive. John brennan went before a Congressional Committee and said i can tell you weve not had any Collateral Damage and told attacks in afghanistan. Thats a lie and he admitted. He went before another committee and he said we do not at the cia tap into sin staffers. That was a lie. There are been no ramifications. James comey said i think to to your Congressional Committees onto a 45 occasions, i can remember, i dont know. If you or i set the to an irs investigator will be in jail. There are people having an assumption that they have a right to overturn an election or the will of the people because they are exempt and powerful. When Andrew Mccabe said he thought paul trump wasnt acting right anyway to Rod Rosensteins, the Deputy Attorney general, and to discuss whether they should tap the president of the United States with a wire, and then those two would decide whether they should pull cabinet officers to remove and elected a president under the 25th amendment, which was never designed for the, that was the affair to meet up with a deep state thought of itself and his power and his morality. Throughout history at first i or in the spanish empire or the byzantine empire, in constantinople, its always a problem. It always grows and is as pretensions of supremacy. I dont how we stop it but we had to speak out against it. Constituents and conservatives, even liberals i get the chance, i met Bernie Sanders and hes an agreement with a lot of what you just said about the deep state and the concentration of wealth and power et cetera on the less. Its interesting. Everybody knows this and people would ask them what can we do . You are really laughed in a toughminded, that major politicians know that if you mess with the deep state, cia, they told trump, i think it was schumer made the comment with respect, if you mess many of this quote in the book when schumer said they have six ways and send it to get you. I think when john brennan tweeted an attack on trump, said not a good idea to get john, like off. I had a lot of evidence of what they thought of themselves come brennan, clapper, call me the cave out there are exempt, and they are right. They have not been exposed to criminal prosecution. Anyone of us have done it we would been leveraged and yet ago after all of these minor characters, we found carter page, go after papadopoulos and threatened them with years of imprisonment and financial ruin unless they give particular test when we find useful that weve all of this other asymmetrical criminality that we dont touch. Its because part of it is our own fault. We give unto prestige and abeyance the people that have alphabet titles after the name, j. D. , phd, ma, md, the council of Foreign Relations or the hoover institution. Rather than just examining people, that was part of a revolution of the 30s, 40s and 50s with the managerial society, we feel theres a professional class because they work at the right place and, therefore, that equates with wisdom and sobriety. Thats yet another reason people hated donald trump because, if you walked into a room with donald trump, and i havent done it but if you said mr. Trump, you cant do because the council on Foreign Relations thinks its a bad idea. He was a tell you what good they had lately. Was it the north korea sixparty agreement . Was it it hasnt worked. Was it afghanistan . We have not one. Thats one of the reasons they dont like him. Its interesting when youre called the names linked to nazis, et , et cetera, that reqs a big state. Our philosophy is exact opposite. We want a to reduce role of the federal government, madisonian logic want to be the separation between federal, state and local. The federal their separation of powers. Do you see any President Trump is fighting this war daily in trying to fight goliath on. Do you see leviathan. Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel we are able to reduce the power that is being wielded, or is it continually growing from the problem is with your donald trump has not filled federal offices, fatty the regulates thats all good but at the same time the cost of government and the deficit has been rising. You want to know if he is some person engaged in helpless, a don quixote type character because of very hard to see that he has expertise and experience and the Health Assessment could go through that Administrative State and city does this person pulling needed . Is a person want . Can we cut money here . Isnt that person to powerful . Im really worried about the role of the federal prosecutors and to lesser state state prosecutor to get you a federal prosecutor can decide which completely which case to try and into leverage witnesses with the part of the state behind them to extract a confession is really scary because its predicated on the idea im going to go to you and i want to convict him. I something in your past and ongoing to try you and is going to cost you a Million Dollars to defend yourself and i have an unlimited budget and i will break you and that you testify against him. I dont think our jurisprudence ever was intended to work that way. Our look at recent books on the Trump Administration continues with author and trump president ial Campaign Advisor stephen moore. His book trumponomics exims economic policies of the Trump Administration. Heres a portion of a stock which he discusses the tax cuts of 2017. Theres always a risk when you say people are probusiness, that they are procronyism at the same time. A couple ideas. First of all look, the government is it a 4 trillion enterprise. Its the biggest enterprise in the world. Bringing business principles to operate that make sense to me. You dont waste money. But the bottom line. You make sure if you only have so much revenue you dont spend way over the revenue amount. Trump has brought some of those principles to washington which i think is well, long overdue. One of the things about barack obama is, look, brock long did know anything about this is he knew nothing that business so how could he possibly know it economic policies are going to work . There was maybe the biggest difference between president obama and President Trump is one really, i dont know, there was a comment failed like very antibusiness sentiment under obama. I know President Trump, i think companies are relieved because speed we have some charts in the book that show, what people say this is the obama Recovery Works come what of your document. Under obama the last year he was enough the comic or 1. 5 reciprocal sliding to into a recession and look at what happened the business confidence, consumer confidence, vester confidence literally two days after the election. It went through the roof because people realize this guy doesnt so that business. When i talk to businessmen and women, people asked whats the single most boring thing trump has done to unleash its incredible economy . In my pain and wasnt any one thing. Its business as new if there were successful the government wasnt going to come after the with a baseball bat and hit himm over the head with it. Thats just getting together as much out of the way we all want clean air, safe water, you know, financial protections and so on but in ways that are not going to inhibit our businesses. Im probusiness. Im not a cronyism can of jobs without business and the palm if the Democratic Party has become very antibusiness in the outcome come into outlook. Lets talk about the tax cut. Big thing. You and i talking back, its done. I would always say the idea of thinking come in 25 years we will still be calling for the reduction of the Corporate Income tax, which depresses me. I dont have to say this anymore. Tell us about the tax cut, how it came to be and, yeah. In our first meeting he assess the economic advisers so the first thing said to do is can you put, he knew in general cant at the direction he wanted go anyone to lower rates and help businesses succeed. And bring, make america more competitive place so the factories living and come back to the United States and wherefore on board with that. We put some meat on the bones and basically came up with this idea of why dont you do 20 business tax rate because you know this, you can research on this, we were up here and the rest of the world was down here and is a 20 percentage point gap. As he said to trump is like a 20 tariff with putting on her own goods and services, were putting every American Business added 20 disadvantage. And the u. S. Had the highest Corporate Income tax rate of all oecd and almost twice as high as the average. That was speedy when you are higher than the french youre in trouble. The other thing is we had a worldwide tax system. Those things together were really detrimental to companies. The fact talking about the Corporate Income tax by home like keeping the money up front but is not a solution. Like every Investment Decision especially of a size that is dictated by a bad tax system is not conducive first to great business decision or to grade economic outcome. He got that. He was not a tough sell on that. One of my favorite stories in the book is we said we are recommending to you that you want on a 20 business tax rate ill never forget he sat back and said no, im not going to get. He said i want 15 . Whats interesting is that from the date until we was almost exactly a year ago that that bill was signed into law i woud get the post we need, the 50 posts in the city. I remember Mitch Mcconnell coming into the room to see the president and he says im so sorry, i couldnt get you 15 , would you take 20 . Trump said absolutely ill take 20. I convinced, trump is a master negotiator. He understood something larry and i didnt understand. You start at 15 and you negotiated up because if you start at 20, theres no, within 25, 26 . The other thing trump didnt want to mention because its important on the tax bill, every time we would bring this up he would say what about 26. 5 million Small Businesses in this country . I want to make sure every business man and woman in this country who started to get the tax cut. This is the mislabeled, this is a big giant tax cut for the large corporations. Every Small Business have had a Tax Liability has got a tax cut and thats where a lot of the jews to the con is coming and that we did the repatriation so we let businesses that have money overseas to bring back at a low rate and is coming back. We estimate that half the trundles of my thats come back to build factories in the invested here. Theres a minimum tax, one of the change that were made is you have a minimal global tax . I believe there is on the business side. Im a little there so many elements, we got rid of the corporate alternative minimum tax, but for businesses its been a very positive thing. We are seeing a lot of money come back to the United States, seeing a lot of business investment. The most important point and this is something larry kudlow you to safety trump all the time, and trumka says it all the time because its true. When you cut taxes for businesses, its a middleclass tax cut. People say how could that possibly be . When you get businesses investing more in this country they will hire more workers, pay the more, the protected is related. I like the sake of a Truck Company that is 18 trumka then carefully, guess what, they have to hire to work truck drivers. It was only towards getting businesses healthy so they could harbor workers in its duly you know this, today in america we have 7 million more jobs that we had people to fill them. That gives workers a lot of opportunities to bring their wages up. Its the point that is worth repeating, that the Corporate Income tax rate is not just a giveaway to businesses. The Economic Research shows very clearly that it leads to more capital investment, which leads to more increased productivity and that leads to higher wages. And more jobs but also the jobs that exist are also going to be it something that is counterintuitive i think for people and that was really, really got during the fight for the speedy when liberals say this was a tax cut for rich people and the text of the corporation they are just wrong. We did instead adhere to 3020 the average american has gained 2000. Average middleclass workers have seen 2000 aftertax increase in income and when you include the increase in the sour spaghetti western its up 3000. If you are making come if your family making 50 80,000 and you get an extra 2500 a year in your paycheck, thats a big deal. I dont care if nancy pelosi says that crumbs. It isnt crumbs. One story, i was in dallas a couple months ago walking down the street and this latina woman walked by which he grabbed by the arm and said are you the one who talked to economics and work with all trump . I just smiled and said yes, that was me. I wasnt sure if she was like theres something that you said i did not vote for donald trump she set out even like donald trump as she set i just got a 2000 bonus from my employer and she said for the first time in five years i will be able to take a vacation. Thats the kind of thing that really means a lot to middleclass family. Yahoo news Alexander Nazaryan discussed the makeup of the president s cabinet at the National Press club in washington, d. C. Last summer. In this portion reports in a peep less than cabinet members are come up with policy that will last for generations. I think the most consequences are not the cabinet secretaries, its the deputies and the assistant secretaries under them. A lot of them today are Heritage Foundation or American Enterprise institute funkiness. I dont use functionary in a negative way. They are operatives who are minted in sort of in the conservative spirit and they have incredible power and unlike the Scott Pruitts of the world, scott pruitt gets incredible attention because i guy who looks for used matches them trump hotel, how can that be in the news . But who knows the name of building where or nancy back, both of whom bill wareham just left, he was the assistant administrator i think in charge of clean air. Nancy back was a major sort of official in charge of toxic. These people are not known and theyre the ones making the consequential decisions. That government at all points. The fact that trump has filled relatively small number of patients incumbent relative to what is legally authorized to do, they filled very few of the schedule c positions and a lot of the appointed, they are acting as an maybe theyll someday get a confirmation, a beatable. Maybe well just appointed again at something else. They all worked in this very contingent field where they know that the bubble can pop any moment. A lot of them are out there basically with no adult supervision. Theres no white house function. Mick mulvaney is a smart guy but he is not truly down epa on coal policy. Hes just not. A lot of these folks are fairly young, fairly ideological and they are out there. Theyre going to punch as hard as he can inside the government to do some things that are on their pet list. These are not necessarily trump policies. These are things that you like, the Heritage Foundation for your setup position on acts. Recorded it. Im curious how you knew the book was done. This is story that though be another tweet tonight, the president is in asia. How did you figure out when you are ready to put an exclamation point on the story and publish the book . Ill just reference his book. His paperback said with new material. I should get new material from i just because so much happens everyday. Ill give you an answer that will sound glib what is not. One of my editors and said youre done. It was we wanted trump was, for all that is been set up Sarah Sanders i i asked if i could interview trump. I made it clear it would be critical and she made it happen. That was the last thing that was in february and editors said just, you cant do anymore. Otherwise it becomes like some sort of magic realism or in writing the book as every day something new happens and wilbur ross, no, do something crazy or Steven Mnuchin lies on the plane of some billionaire. It would never end. It had to end a church with a hard deadline. I want you more about the trump interview. News organizations have published transcript of interviews that than with president to show the rambling answers i have a phrase the question, a lot of transparency about times they said that with the president. What was your interview like . Or was it . How long did it last . What kinds of things to do, besides what we see in the book . Oval Office Figure 19 about 27 minutes. I dont know if theres any difference between trump and realized and trump on television. He was charming in the way that i could imagine myself im new yorker, i lived there for many years and i would say has an outer borough charmed. Ive watched him from the crowd in the south and elsewhere. I think its a charm the works of people even if theyre not from new york, sort of recognize theres something quirky new yorkish about him. Look, he just as cory did know anything about his own cabinet here clearly did know who was working for them and what they were doing. I just think the thought that what he sees the presidency. The presidency everything is trump. I think, i mean, the Trump Organization sounds like a big thing but it was always donald trump, a a couple of sectors ad whoever his chief hoodlums were at the time. But i think he looks at the white house the same way. Emerson once said an institution is the length and shadow of a man. And that all presidencies would influence the people who work for them. But with trump he is in his own mind such a singular figure that the people who try to imitate him always fail because not all of us had a Reality Tv Show for 15 years or a deeply ingrained part of the popular culture. I think youre right. I dont think he sees it as more than how do i look on tv . Whats on my twitter feed. No, he talked, he spoke, for example, inevitably the interview went into russia, collusion, no collusion. No collusion, no obstruction, full exoneration. Some people are saying. He couldnt come he didnt want to talk but anyone but himself. That was very clear and he kept coming back to himself. He didnt want to think about the complex operations of the federal government the way that you can imagine another president doing that. I think youre right on that. I dont think he has the sort of cognitive landscape to look at super complex multi variable problems. He is a man driven by his needs and his emotions, not to sit donald trump is a policy person is not accurate. I think his instincts and instincts are really strong, sometimes they serve them really well and sometimes they serve them really poorly. When it comes to his own image. Look, if you talk to steve bannon he will say he will acknowledge something you and i think steve bannon understands very well. I think Michael Wolff has said the reason he relied on band so much is because he felt like bannon was at best of trump. And will say that somewhat more kindly, trump is not an intellectual but that he has and intelligence that is almost impossible to teach can which is a sort of selfpreservation, selfpromotion. I dont know how it serves a president and executive but it seems to serve him. You are watching booktv on cspan2. We have open archives to take a look at some recent books about the Trump Administration. Next pillage prizewinning journalist James Stewart talks about his research into the allegations of russian interference in the 2016 president ial election. He talked about his book deep state at politics and prose bookstore in washington, d. C. In october 2019. Trump decides impulsively hes going to fire komi. He calls people in the white house this is im going to fire comey and dont try to talk me out of it. He brings sessions and rosen sent in this is what you think of the firing . Sessions says its fine with me. Rosensteins i do think they mishandled the clinton administration. Trump perks up and says can you write me a memo to that effect . Rosenstein writes a memo critical of comey and clinton and he has a back to white house. All of a sudden trump who remember had our decide on his own to fire comey for reasons completely unrelated to the claims grabs them and says yes, this is the reason he must be fired and the White House Press corps went out and said the Justice Department insisted comey be fired because of the way they handled, that held the clinton investigation. Trump hold up rosensteins i want you to go out and do a press conference and say you were the one who insisted that comey be fired because of the handling of the clinton thing. At this point rosenstein is in total shock because he knew, this is completely false. It is not because of the clintons that trump wanted to fire comey, and it was not his idea to fire comey. To his credit he refused to do that. Trump try to get sessions to pressure. Sessions says no, that is a false narrative and were not going to put it out. Days later rosenstein calls andrew Andrew Mccabe over. Andrew mccabe has become the acting fbi director since, was fired and the want to read just a brief passage. It were talking about something relatively innocuous and i report as follows, rosenstein gaze shifted towards a closeddoor to the room somewhere off in the distance. His eyes looked classy his voice wavering, his eyes teared up. He said he couldnt believe what was happening. The white house was trying to make it look as it it were his i do to fire comey. That wasnt true. The president asked him to write the memo only after announcing he was firing comey. Rosenstein was struggling to keep his emotions in check. Mccabe was shocked rosenstein was confined in an essentially calling the president of life. They barely knew each other. But he wanted to be compassionate. Are you okay . Now. Are you getting any sleep . No. Hfm okay . Rosensteins there were news trucks parked outside his house that be his wife and family were upset. There was pause and rosensteins, theres no one here i can talk to about this. Theres no one i can trust. Rosenstein seemed again to be struggling to hold his emotions in check. After a pause he asked if mccabe thought he should appoint a special counsel and mccabe said yes, it would be a good idea. Rosensteins he always considered jim comey of print and a mentor, so looked up to. The one person i wish i could talk to his jim comey. Good luck with that, mccabe thought. This this is the guide features. Theres a sequence of events were rosenstein offers to wear a wire secretary cohen the president , and both the 20th of the men, of which is true. But by the end of the Mueller Investigation he is a new person. He has survived. There are two occasions when the Justice Department drafting press releases saying trump was going to fire him. He goes to the white house and meet with trump and comes out, his job is intact. As soon as the Mueller Report is delivered he at the new attorney general barr rush to state trump is been exonerated. That there is no crime, no obstruction of justice case to be made. This is not with the Mueller Report said. Mueller wrote a letter to that effect as you probably know the Mueller Report was far more damning than anything that barr and rosenstein was willing to say. This is a classic example i believe of wellintentioned bureaucrats who get into the trump orbit who are drawn into this web falsehoods, of irresponsible if not illegal behavior, and then asked to protect the president and the present again levers being a teen who, rosenstein lied about the wire and the 25th america trump had leverage over him to fire him whenever he wanted. Finally i just want to say, dressy issue of the deep state. Trump has again just this week accused the whistleblower of being part of the deep state, a people who have helped the whistleblower being part of the deep state, of people in the white house who told the whistleblower what was happening as being part of the deep state. But not on the part of the deep state, i could read the end of this book, he sang the same thing he ever said many times. Theyre part of the deep state and they are traitors. He hasnt said explicitly but he has implied that the punishment for traders should be as it has been a sometimes in the past the death penalty. I want to say this about the deep state. Its origins is from the middle east, turkey, egypt where entrenched military industrial bureaucratic complexes time to time would step in and overthrow sometimes the elected leader, often the dictator who was running a a country in order to preserve their own powers and privileges. In the United States the deep state concept has been more recently used in another variation on the military industrial complex. The deep state was traditionally considered to be primarily people on wall street, the big banks, goldman sachs, the lobbyists in washington the large corporations, the Big Technology companies which wielded enormous influence. That is how it was translated and the United States context. Trump has to weaponized the concept to apply it to the federal bureaucracy and specifically the fbi and the Justice Department and the intelligence communities. I never thought i would see the day where a republican president turned on the Law Enforcement communities and branded them along with journalists like me as enemies of the people, but that is what has happened. Comey said something very important and profound to me, which i quote in the book, that is he never heard the phrase the state until trump started using it but if what he means is that men and women of the fbi and the Justice Department who devoted their lives to survey the American People were taken an oath of allegiance to uphold the United States constitution and who do not work for the president s of the United States and specifically this president , then thank god we have deep state. These are important checks on the powers of the executive branch. We are a nation of checks and balances, and one of those checks are bureaucrats are appointed people come career civil servants. Doesnt matter whether theyre republicans or democrats, everyone has a political view by their duty is uphold the law, support the constitution and serve the people of the United States. When you have whistleblower coming forward, when you have a james comey standing up to the president telling him he cant do Something Like that, then you have the essence of what the constitution system calls upon them to do. I think the deep state in this context is something we can all sleep easier knowing is in place, and i say good for them. A reminder you can watch all of our programs in their entirety at booktv. Org. Next, National Security analyst peter bergen looks about military officials have appeared in the Trump Administration in his book trump and his generals. And the with President Trump handles ongoing military operations. Go back to the surgeon 2007 and its a fascinating story about how outside advisors can really make a difference. There was a debate with the nationals could counsel what to do in iraq and were people who favored the search, for instance, brett mcgurk which will later in the story, and steve hadley to some degree. But he went in the oval office until trump, you got to put David Petraeus in charge have surge. Its that the first time hes had a lot of misinformed. That i think was one of the reasons we had the search and insurgency strategy and David Petraeus in charge similar to this he was able to go into the oval office and say, the context is december 2018 when trump announced unilaterally pulling out a super suppress everybody. He when and basically said trump is a visual not a briefing kennicott and roles other methods is look, this speech he called and looks a yesterday on an index card. Send some suggested tweets. That the lot shorter. But so he should wear with l fields are in syria and how iran would control them if we just pulled out. Mckie said trump was in the if youre giving them new information. If you give him the same old argument he will tune you out. That was persuasive. The thing about trump is his consistently inconsistent. December 2010 lets pull out. Then decide to stay. Then a few months later well pull out, no, were going to stay. I think this consistent inconsistency might be helpful in the real estate deal but is less helpful if your conducting a Foreign Policy for the United States. When discussing the book which is true is trump have been very lucky. If you go back to fdr, every president since fdr, argue before, had some major policy form crisis, the rise of the nazis or the return of the iron curtain going to injure. Saddam invading kwei, 9 11, Global Financial crisis, clinton had two of our embassies blown up killing two other people. Trump hasnt had this kind of crises. The interesting question is how would he react . Based on his past behavior i would say that what we know about him, that doesnt mean to be a a totally accurate predicr but i think hes been somewhat driven score and use of american power. He hasnt had a major Foreign Policy crisis. Impulsive. Yes. I think the consistent inconsistency is not helpful to our allies of our enemies. Our enemies and want to know what our red light are. And our allies want to know we are with them when it matters. He made it clear they cant count on that. Such such a great seat in the book, i a publicist to talk about this when were doing book tours, so im going to talk about it. A great scene in the book when Angela Merkel come from firsttime to washington to meet trump and trump, trump is in since the germans ormiston 1 of of the gdp on defense spending wednesday and could every country should spend 2 , up to 2 by 2020. The staff did up an invoice to give Angela Merkel. Judge of this is a real . Germans dont always 600 billion. This is not the way nato works but either trump woefully willfy misunderstand it or misunderstand of whatever but our allies ripping us off is a very consistent theme of his. He took out a fullpage ad in the New York Times think the japanese are ripping us off and free ride on this. The saudi ripping off, they need to pay down our fellowship which at the time was only 200 billion, would have been a bargain. Its a kind of obsession with them that allies, our friends are ripping us off and her enemies in some way need to be embraced. This is the course ultimately one of the things is a generals didnt share this view at all. Its a look at h. R. Mcmaster speech at the u. N. U. N. Securiy council were some asthma question mark just indicted 12 Russian Military officers who were involved in the sabotaging of the president ial election in 2016, mcmaster to Something Like trump tweets wrong, mistake. Madison did a speech at the Reagan Library in california a few months before he resigned and said you cant trust putin. They do have a view of the world which trump doesnt share. I i opened the book with this amazing meeting in the pentagon which is where the pentecostal fanatic in 1943 and so the tank is the most secure conference or in the pen country for classified discussions occur. This is fdi and George Marshall plan to end of world war ii. The reason i opened the book with this meeting to be its also important meeting of the presidency in all the ways. Trump doesnt know much about what were doing in the world obviously, and why do we have 100,000 troops posted around the world . What are our Nuclear Weapons posturings . Where our aircraft carriers . How many do we have, et cetera . Did i do is basically lay down of what the world looks like, and jim mattis and Rex Tillerson rescinded, secretary cohen about our about our trade agreements. They were present in never to persuade trump that the International Order that the United States was largely critical and large it work in our favor since world war ii. This is this is a world of both republicans and democrats had agreed made sense. Steve bannon was a backbencher and then trumps chief strategist at a different goal for this meeting which is basically show trump how overextended had overcommitted we were to have this International Base order how it worked against us. The meeting did not go well for the socalled globalists. Trump basically used a bunch of swear words i can use on cspan, and started shouting and saying were getting screwed by our allies and the chinese deficits really mean something. Why do we continue never winning wars . The general was sitting there and in within meeting was five regard as being a total fiasco. In the car back to the white house steve bannon said do Jared Kushner and Reince Priebus in the chief of staff, this was lincoln and his generals. But that he meant, theres an overall comparison, but lincoln during the civil war when were was not being one he would fire varies generals. Trump was laying down the market but what his presidency is going to be about. Why we hear in afghanistan years later, these are the most difficult questions. These are not unusual questions and of course we live in part of the swamp and we sometimes dont consider them or at least theres not a lot of consensus about republicans and democrats on the National Security side so the fact that these impressions are not bad but the answer isnt always our allies are ripping us off. One thing ive been thinking about this trump is kind of conflated with endless wars, theres a big difference between an endless war and a consistent presence our look at books on President Trump continues with carol limit whose book a very stable genius was released in january. At the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco they talked about how trump argued for the firing of james comey and the firing of white house staffers. We were careful about how we wrote about different sources, people who reactedin the room because we understood how somebody reacted and was thinking about the way the president was mistreating them does not mean they were necessarily direct sources for this book. We talked to a lot of people who were briefed about things at the time who were familiar with how some of their principles. And one of the most important things we did in reporting this book was protect the people were talking to us. They took great risk to tell us what happened behind the scenes, to tell us what is the president said, to show ushow it was so much worse than we do in real time and they did so because they trusted us that we would protect them so we tried to do that with the book and thats why were being a little vague. Itswhat we do as journalists. Obviously trump is not a fan of the book. You missed his good line by the way. He called us third rate reporters which isbetter than fourth rate reporters but he also called us stone cold losers from the amazon awp. Did you guys want to suggest any theme music west and mark were looking for stone cold losers thememusic. [laughter] we going to do an audio version of this book . Maybe in musical. The next hamilton. The book is very tough on trump and i feel like very matteroffact about his shortcomings. You guys frame it as you are objective journalists wanting to show the truth of the public but you also dont pull any punches i think when it comes to calling things as you see them in terms of what youve witnessed aswashington reporters prior to this. One example of many is talking about a speech Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein was giving to the dea and you said he spoke with reverence for the rule of law, that framework of principles that promised accountability and basic fairness which trump was undermining daily. Talk about how the calculation of that pretty i think blunt statement in terms of the umbrella of objectivity because i think theres often a misunderstanding that objectivity is just letting each side have their say and not making the call. Keep in mind that moment, im delighted you brought that moment up because a lot of, you have been interviewed a lot and no one has singled that out so props to you. That moment is a scene in which Rod Rosenstein is the Deputy Attorney general in the Justice Department is personally, his reputation of three decades hangs in the balance. He has written a memo that is being cited by the president as the reason to fire jim comey and he doesnt believe he at least to the sources that we spoke to, he does not believe that he argued for firing jim comey and he doesnt believe his memo, its all being served up as justification for this. People are thinking hes a tool of the president and their questioning whether their old friend and the prosecutor is a kiss up, essentially so in this moment when hes getting this speech is a really vulnerable time for him. Hes really emotional and the reason we chose those words was because donald trump as by this point called the Justice Department the trump Justice Department. He had threatened jeff sessions, the attorney general multiple times and rated him for recusinghimself from that investigation. Argued he should on recusing himself which would be ethically impossible. You cant say i have a conflict and say guess what, i dont. And all of these ways in which he was breaking this norm and these two things come together. Rod rosenstein being like all mygosh, i care about the rule of law. I look like a schmuck and the president very much not caring about that. My impressions and i thought the two top lines were one, just how much trumps mood swings seem to really sort of encompass not just the way the white house operates but really the way our government has been operating under him and two, this undermining of the intelligence, National Security apparatus but i want to get into that first part which is hes incredibly abusive as you guys tell it to his staff, even people who are longterm allies, who are close to him. It seems like the kids as everyone calls ivanka and jared are the only people who escape that. Are they the only ones west and mark. Pretty much. This is not a New Discovery about donald trump. Weve known for some time that hes abusive to people and that the loyalty goes one way. He expects loyalty and fealty from the people who work for him but does not get in return but what carolyn and i found in the reporting is the abusive management style is so much worse and weknew in real time. He would call kiersten nielsen, his secretary of Homeland Security at five in the morning to bark orders at her, call her late at night after watching lou dobbs to say lou had a great idea for the border, go do it andcall her at 5 am the next morning to wonder why it hadnt been done and she had to tell him sir, people are asleep. The staff of your own Security Department are sleeping right now. He would break his staff the way he handled Rex Tillerson at the end when he fired him when tillerson was on a Diplomatic Mission to africa to clean up the relationship with African Companies because trump had called them as whole nations. There are a lot of these episodes in the book that paint a portrait of what hes like as a manager and what hes like leading the government andits not us being hard on him or critical of him or taking a side. Were just telling you what happened behindthescenesand a lot of readers draw conclusions about that. One of the treats i got from somebody whos obviously pretty liberal is how you managed to make me feel bad for Rex Tillerson. I think a lot of people who might disagree with the policies of this administration will feel some sympathy or empathy or even some of the most hardline jeff sessions, kristin nielsen. You guys right at one point nielsen is signing with trump as he signs this executive order to end the separation of children of the border and at the same time his administration was circulating a completely different eo than what she thought was being signed why . Why did you even do that . There are two different points that come to mind from your question or rather too good questions and the thing you just said. I find it really interesting about this presidency. Its something phil and i learned in an eyeopening way. Even we who had been there from day one were sort of taken aback by this but these grownups that were in the room so to speak at the beginning, you may not agree with them politically or philosophically. You may think their personality style isnt so great. Rex tillerson was reviled in many parts of the state department for wanting to cut the bureaucracy and reorganize and not being very approachable he and johnkelly , secretary of Homeland Security then chief of staff, defense secretary jim mattis, these were people that kept telling the president you dont want to do this, let me tell you why and here is the National Security implications if you do this and the president in his abusive management style you highlight drove those people out of the room and the result was now he is increasingly surrounded by people who view their mission as telling the president yes , here we are in an impeachment phase of his administration , not many people get here as quickly as he did. And many people will ask me how in the world have these people served donald trump . They have a conservative ideology, they hoped to serve this agenda and they hoped they would guide the novice donald trump but what they found out wasthey got a lion roar in their face every day and many of them either were driven out or left. Were looking at books that have been written about the Trump Administration since 2016. Katie mcfarland detailed her time in the National Security council. In this segment she talked about what drives the president. At the beginning of the trumpet ministration one of the things i did as deputy National Security adviser was to take a review of american foreignpolicy in the first couple of weeks. Where are we now . Whats the status report . One of the things that was clear was that the russians had been cheating for years. On this class of weaponry called intermediate weapons. It was also clear that the chinese were developing them and they werent part of any deal so my advice was get to where we need to get to and call a state estate. If we cheat, every reporter will say were cheating but if the russians treat nobody calls them out so i think it was the right thing to do and what i did learn with reagan and what i relearned with trump is youve got to have some chips to play in the game. Youve got to have leverage and where is your leverage if you dont even have that class of weapons . Reagan was able to go to the soviet union and say lets cancel that and we had a lot of leverage. We had technological leverage and the Defense Missile system, this was the Defense System they knew they couldnt build and they thought we might be able to so i think trump has gone to the right place. It doesnt mean you never have these agreements but you have them and you negotiate them from a position of strength. So moving on and the Nuclear Sphere to korea. We have had this sort of cycle and you explain this beautifully in your book, this cycle of committal and noncommittal and promises and carrots andsticks with north korea since the early 1990s when they were building a Nuclear Weapons program. What are your views on whether this is even a solvable problem . Are wegoing to have to live with the idea that north korea will have Nuclear Weapons . Again i would say priority. The priority is china so what do you do differently . Weve tried republicans, democrats, sticks over the carrot. We picked out a stick and you have sanctions, you have economic problems so then the north koreans come to the negotiating table and we say we will let up on the pressure. Why are you arguing with that twoyearold . I think trump has done the right thing and the review that again, we had a review of american foreignpolicy in the beginning of the Trump Administration in the situation room and i called the deputies of all the areas of government, intelligence, military and i said what are we going to do about north korea . And they basically had the same old policy which to me was basically doing nothing and i said go back to your agencies, come back to me in a weeks time. I want to hear all your ideas. Thank way outside the box so i said on one hand and in good tv style, i said on this and i want you to think of maybe accepting the north koreansas a Nuclear Weapons state and member of the international community. On the other hand i want you to think about regime change and what we might do militarily. Lets think about economic pressure, covert things we can do but come back and lets shake this tree again because we havent done a reassessment of north koreas position in the last couple of years so lets come back so they all come back about a week later and i spent the time in between learning, relearning a lot about korea. I had early in my career done a paper on north and south korea but it was probably about a decade before you were born so they come back and i have these ideas and there was no clear easy thing but there was a little bit of economic stuff, a little bit of covert stuff, a little military stuff and if you put them together you could have instead of thinking of a dial thats a switch on or off, carrot and stick you could have a dial and you could start turning up the dial of pressure in all these ways so that you could affect the north koreans. The other part was understanding the role china plays in north korea. 75 percent of north koreas food, transportation, oil comes as gifts from china so you get the chinese to help you . We have other things going on with china which was traded so the chinese may have had said nice stuff but they never did and trump has said they triedand they couldnt do it the other thing is that trump , hes done this all on his own so all those experts he wasgetting advice from , they didnt understand as a negotiator understands that with trump and with kim jong un it would be personal. Kim doesnt care about his people, he would let them starve. He doesnt care about generals, he feeds them to dogs. Eagle cares only about him and his egoand maybe he cares about being a greater leader than his father or grandfather was so trump has found that third way, carrot , stick and hes played to kims ego. Hes welcomed him in. Hes said ill meet you in singapore. Very carefully chosen. I was gone from the administration by then but i think it was a brilliant choice. Singapore is the most modern city in the world and theyve done in three years time so thats a demonstration to kim and the next meeting they had was at hanoi. The United States fought the vietnam war and we were moral enemies sothe other example was to say kim , this is vietnam america used to hate vietnam , we were at war with one another look how close we are now so i think those are carefully calibrated to show kim these are the possibilities and the other thing trump did which i thought was actually brilliant, most people thought it was corny and not sophisticatedenough but he did this trailer, a movie trailersaying kim, this could be you. A real leader. The video showing him what modernization and a modern economy could look like and what pyongyang could do. Its the most intractable problem in the world. How do you solve a problem like north korea. Anyway, i think that was the right thing to do. If you have a different relationship with china , north korea might be in a different position. That broader point that everything is related, you have geopolitics, trade, sovereignty and a domestic politics , all of these things are leading both domestically and internationally. You said about the president what he does and not what he says. Im interested in your thoughts about how that has borne out, things that hes done that you think are important and id also like to ask you about one thing on the border wall but lets start with what he does, not what he says. I was trying to figure out what drives trump. Most president s have a lot of analysis of what makes them tick, some more than others. So theres a shelf and theres a library about what made janet john kennedy. I think that having worked closely with him i think what makes him tick is he wants to win. Its all about winning and hes from the new York Real Estate world where youve either made money thatyear or youve lost and healso it is from the tv world. He created a whole genre of reality television. You either had good ratings or you had bad ratings. Washington is much baser than that. So i think for him , it was all about winning. How you get there, how you get the good ratings, how you make the money when you sell a building doesnt matter. Its just getting to where you can win so i think trump looks at negotiating positions, trash talking opponents, he just looks at those as things you have to do to get to the point where you win. Its a tactic. When he comes in and says every time he proposes a negotiation with somebody, lets say on terrorists with the chinese. The media goes, the political establishment goes thats just absurd. Trump probably thinks its absurd to but thats his opening bid. Thats not where he expects to settle so i think to a certain extent he says a lot of strange things so he will say to kim jong un for example. One week he trash talk him on twitter, my diggers missiles are bigger than yours and the next week he says theyre sending each other love letters. To trump it doesnt matter. He doesnt care who is humiliated, sometimes even himself. He doesnt worry about having two contradictory thoughts in the same place. He doesnt worry about over will ruling himself, he just wants to win and its been pretty effective. We conclude our look at recent books on the Trump Administration with turning point usa founder charlie kirk. His new book the maga doctrine weighs in on the new conservative agenda. Its important to recount those and focus on how hes been able to succeed but im equally anxious because i dont want to see the Republican Party go back to Big Government management, appeasement of our enemiesand analyst wars overseas , silly immigration policy and bowing down to china. And i think that President Trump has positively recalibrated the Republican Party for generations and i think its important to learn from it so that our generation continues the successes of the Trump Administration for the better and so first and foremost i wrote this book partly for that reason but most importantly at is i was watching cable news and i kept on coming across these leftwing prognosticators and pundits telling me what President Trump believed and i said to myself you hate him. You hate us. You hate all of us and im supposed to listen to you . Theyre saying President Trump is doing this because he wants to enrich his businesses. He has no guiding philosophies, and unguided missile and hes shooting off tweets in the middle of the night and i said to myself first of all i spent time with him. I spent time with the first family. Ive seen what hes been able to deliver. Why is no one articulating what the doctrine of the Trump Presidency is . You just dont stumble accidentally into 200 Circuit Court judges, and largest ever tax cut, lowest ever black unemployment, asian unemployment, energy independence. Suleimani and baghdadi are dead, weve been able to put our enemies on defense and thats not an accident. You dont stumble into that because if it was every other president would have had a track record of success and when i was traveling talking to many people in this room, a common question i would get is what have these people been doing the last 20 years . It looks like this guy is running circles around the conventional wisdom so thats where i went out to go write the book so people go who did you interview for this book . I did talk to the president and partly in the book but also i went to rally after rally of people that would wait out hundreds of hours just for a chance to see the president of the United States speak for 30 minutes and i went to kick off rallies in florida where people spend 200 hours outside through tsunami like conditions and i went to minnesota where people waited outside in 10 degree weather and im sure all of you appreciate this, that is not normal. Theres no band. Its not bon jovi, its not beyoncc. Theres nocomedian, sometimes theres a comedian with the president. Hes so much funnier than the latenight comedians ever will be. Do you ever notice that . Seriously. Do you ever notice that latenight comedy shows, theyre applauding in the audience, theyre not laughing because theyre not funny. Its like a political talk show at 11 00 at night. Anyway, i said to myself i asked myself what is it that drives these people to wait so long at these rallies, to take days off of work, to feel as if they are part of something and it hit me and it goes back to something that was talked about in the federalist papers by our Founding Fathers which is citizen government for the first time in many decades that people finally believe theres a vessel that listens to them and that delivers for them and the great irony of the whole thing and you wouldnt have been able to write this in a novel and have people believe it is it took a billionaire businessman who supposed to be as disconnected as anyone from you to actually represent you in the kingdom of washington dc so from the moment he came down the escalator he changed american politics fundamentally for good because when you go to these rallies and you talk to these people, here is the consensus area it was i felt like it was losing my country. I felt like both parties were participating in it. I felt like the Republican Party talked a good game and did nothing to fix it and i was so sick and tired of politics as usual, i wanted something with asledgehammer. A brooklyn brawler to go blow it all up. And thats kind of special area i said it was kind of poetic. And of course people say i dont like his tweets and im going to address this one time and one time only, heres the best way i can address it is america was drowning in the middle of the ocean under the managed client of both Political Parties over the last 20 years and both parties contributed to this too Big Government management and adventurism over on while our country is crumbling and finally in the middle of the night when we are gasping for air and rescue helicopter brings us back to life and were able to breathe again and the first thing you say to that person that rescues us is i dont like your tweet history. We are breathing again. Its completely and totally irrelevant. Its like the heart surgeon that okay, thank you for the triple bypass surgery and by the way, take your tweets but im glad we are breathing again. Not to mention i could make a argument that the twitter feed actually sets the cadence and is a public north star for every Single Person to understand what the president is trying to accomplish and keep people accountable for it because traditionally you hold a press conference and the media wouldnt cover it but now theres a real time standard and accountability measure for everyone to see exactly what the president thinking and what hes doing. I think hes hilarious. I like a politician that is outside the cocktail party, say one thing do another thing consensus of washington dc. I dont care if he offends a couple people occasionally and i feel as if our politicians havent been fighting for our country the last couple of decades and theyve been okay with this managed decline so when i heard this time and again i said thats the thesis of the Trump Presidency. Heres the big picture doctrine. First and foremost when you go into the doctor and you say give me the bad news first. Tell me everythingthats going on thats bad and President Trump basically was pretty brutal. He said were losing. He said our borders are wide open, our trade deal was stupid, china is laughing at us. Our economy is anemic, obamacare is a disaster , the state is corrupt and this was in the first 30 seconds. And it was the first honest assessment our country had received in a very long time and thats the first part of his doctrine and philosophy and im going to tell it straight to the American People. Im not going to sugarcoat it. Im not going to tell you one thing when its the other and the second is what ideas are rooted in a renewal of the nation and to understand the historical significance of what President Trump has done and what hes trying to do and what hes getting opposition to his trying to revitalize and resuscitate a country that was in that managed decline. All these programs are available to watch in their entirety on our website , booktv. Org. Just type trump and book in the search box at the top of the page. Here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to bromans bookstore in pasadena california. Topping the list, former un ambassador in the Obama Administration Samantha Power on her life and career in the education of an idealist. After that Mike Mccarthy examines the Science Behind why we make bad decisions in you are a miracle file followed by glendora doyles memoir untamed and then its the splendid and the vile, historic historian eric larsons study of Winston Churchills leadership during the london blitz and wrapping up our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books according to pasadena californias bromans bookstore is Michelle Obamas memoir becoming the bestselling book of 2018. Some of these authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. The president from public affairs, available now in taper back and ebook. Presents biographies of every president , organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website , cspan. Org the president and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. A canal at books being published this week. Dinesh desousa offers thoughts on the differences between 20thcentury socialism and socialism today and our argues that it must be stopped in the United States with socialism. In the mans war historian eric serving called frank kennedys fight for daylight after beingdismissed from his federal job in 1957 due to his actualorientation. And in the next great migration , author and journalist sonja shaw examines human and animal migrations and how they are beneficial to the environment. Also being published this week David Horowitz claims attacks on President Trump have failed and instead have made him more likely to win the 20 20 election in blitz. And in providing autocracy new yorker staff writer aa gap in draws on their childhood in soviet russia to argue the Trump Presidency is moving towards and autocracy. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv on cspan2. [music] im Dinesh Johnson from Melville House which is a fairly empty place right now. In the eighth week of the coronavirus lockdown here in new york city. And because i skipped the class on how to publish during a pandemic in Publishing School ive been reaching out during that time to friends and colleagues in the independent book world to find out how theyre doing. Also what theyre doing and maybe to pick up a little inspiration on