Presidency over the past 3 and a half years. He is making it very partisan, he came out a few hours ago talking about the democratic mayors not doing enough and how important the National Guard is and i think hes making it a partisan issue where i think in the past a president reach out and try to be compassionate and to bring people together instead of divide them, so i think thats thats been something we have seen with both the pandemic and with the recent protests. How did your book come about . Whats the genesis of it . I had seen a couple of books about the white house. Ive always been fascinated on what happened behind the scenes on Inauguration Day. Thats a dramatic day in our history when one family moves in and another family looks out and the public is looking at is west front of the capital, the swearingin ceremony that we all we all watch, but really behind the scenes theres control chaos at the white house and then the last inauguration i was just fascinated by the obamas taking off in the helicopter as right after President Trump was sworn in and flew over the white house to look down at the house they lived for 8 years as every former president and first lady do to start their new lives as semiprivate citizens, and so i wanted to dig in to what happens when you suddenly go from being the most powerful person in the world to to really being on the sidelines. Host and that includes an interview that you conducted with the president which you recount in the book and here are some of the details, quote, now a man who has been called a carnival barker and a blowhard by predecessors was sitting behind looking at me intently. I was surprised that the interview had come together at all especially since the occasionally seemed unsure of what i was writing about. I guess youre writing about first ladies, referring to the budget i had written on the subject, no, i told him, this is about the former president s. He asked me what i was working on more than once and trump was subdued and thoughtful. Diet coke with ice and the room was so bright that felt like there was television lights shooting down from the ceiling which would have been appropriate for the first president to have been reality tv star. 3 u. S. Flags and 3 times as many as each of the predecessors office. That just speaks a lot to how President Trump views the presidency, he loves the power and hes the most powerful person in the world, right, but he does in the respect his predecessors and so i thought that i had to dig into that in the book. I couldnt just be the story of, you know, george h. W. Bush and bill clinton and their friendship, you get in the book, the remarkable friendships between the former president s and you learn to get over rivalries which has been the case for decades. But i have to look at how donald trump would change the President Trumps club. Clinton and george w. Bush are closer now than they would have been had donald trump not been elected. They have more on common with each other than they do with President Trump. So thats what i wanted to look into, is where does he fit in this club and, you know, at one point i asked him that and he laughed. He was very honest in the interview. Hes certainly very honest and he said, you know, i dont think im going to fit in very well. What do you think . You know, hes under no illusions of where he fits in history. I think he sees that for himself after he leaves office. Host we asked him about the very issue in july in an interview last summer. Here is that exchange. John kennedy relied eisenhower, bill clinton relied on richard nixon, have you reached out to former president s who and why . Not too much. I speak with george bush. Ive spoke a little bit to the father but really not too much. Its hard when people were against you. I very mucht disagreed with the war in iraq so its hard to say that, you know, im all of a sudden i can forget that. Im in a situation where we are in the middle east where weve defeated as you know the caliphate and syria, i did that because i did that, i wanted to do that and we did 100 of the caliphate, when i was at 99 , people said you cant pull out, you cant pull out. When i took it over was a mess, i defeated 100 caliphate. That doesnt mean isis doesnt going around bombing a store and doingg what they do because they are stonecold crazy and we have done a great job and we are in there now for more than 7 trillion, thousands of lives, millions of lives, you to count both side because i actually count both sides. Millions of lives and they went into a country that did not knock down the world trade center, okay, they didnt knock down. It was not iraq and it was not saddam hussein, he had plenty of problems, he was not a good person but he didnt knock down the world trade center. We got stuck in this quicksand that we are getting out. I call them the endless wars. The endless wars have to end. Does that mirror what he told you . Little bit softer when it came to the bushes because he had just been invite today George George stephanopoulos george h. W. Bushs funeral, his relationship with bush which is very strained and according to my recording i have talked to lots of people including george w. Bushs family and friends say that was used as civil war. Trumps presidency was like the civil war. The only conversation that is trump has had with george w. Bush around Brett Kavanaugh who had worked for bush and bush called senators to try to get kavanaugh confirmed during the controversial hearing. They have only spoken twice on the phone and that was a long time and i know during pandemic former president s want to be of service and help but they feel like they cant do anything right now because they would look as they are teaming against him. The story will be is why they are uniting and donald trump is not part of this and they feel like their hands are tied. There is one story in the book involving former president jimmy carter as we know many saturday evenings he would would be down the street in plains georgia to meet with family and friends. Quote, on a quiet saturday evening as former president carter was about to serve himself at the buffet table at a friends house a call came in from the white house operator announcing that President Trump we wanted to talk to him about china and trade. Jimmy carter sat down plait and picked up the phone, some spoke for most of the call, but carter was able to ask about the status of talks with north korea and he advised the president to, quote, be flexible with the north Korean Leader. Carter got in a dig about trumps then National Security adviser john bolton, staunch supporter of the war in iraq to which the president replied, i call the shots according to person in the room, the tenminute call left President Trump unmoved and after they hung up he went back to the table piled with platters of food and quietly filled his plate as though nothing had happened. Thats classic jimmy carter, right . I dont know if youve had an opportunity to go down to plains, but incredible sunday service that he does and he and wife carter lived in modest ranchstyle home that i went to visit with my friend last june and we went down there and an incredible meeting because he is so very modest and different from trump. Trump used carter as fellow outsider from the president s club. Over the years carter has done things including criticizing george w. Bush about the war in iraq, criticizing bushs handling of Hurricane Katrina and being very outspoken, you know, he went to haiti, north korea, he went all over the world on behalf of this country but in the process delivering messages on behalf of president clinton, he went to haiti, he brought cnn crew with him and did an interview with cnn before he briefed to clinton about what happened in the trip which is just not done. He does things his own way and i think trump sees kinship with jimmy carter, that has changed recently when jimmy carter, you know, questioned whether or not trump was legitimate president. But when i interviewed trump he indicated that carter was the only former president that he felt he really had an affinity for because he was a fellow outsider. Host and one photograph that captured a lot of the former president s after barack obama was elected president during the transition period as you can see, george w. Bush, his father george h. W. Bush, president elect barack obama and jimmy carter. Good morning. Good morning, steve, love cspan. Good morning, ms. Brower. I have been voting straight democrat since 1972. Im on south side of chicago, small city. I actually got a photograph of my late wife with mr. Obama when he ran against bobby in a fundraiser at the hilton. Im a little discouraged by what im reading in the news obamagate, i hope it doesnt come back to the president. I agree there are some bad actors in the top of the fbi, im just hoping it doesnt come back to president obama, but if it does, is there any author out there that will write about it obama and even when trump is out, write a book about trump unbiased . Because theres so much bias in the news today that cspan is terrific. We all love cspan, but im afraid history will bend a little bit both in Different Directions for both different president s, thanks a lot. Host bob, thanks for the call. There are historians who will look at the Trump Presidency fairly. I think there is certainly, you know, a degree of liberal bias in the news and i do think that sometimes when youre just saying things that are kind of known, you know, i think trump is such a disruptor. For instance, in my interview with the president i asked if he would go to president obamas president ial Library Opening which is something every president has done in modern history to celebrate the legacy of the president s before him and he said no, why would why would he even invite me. Now we know he will not invite obamas to president ial portrait unveiling in the white house. Theres just a break of tradition that i dont think its bias in sort of just marking that at the break. I think the bigger question is does that matter, do these traditions matter . When Melania Trump decided not to move into the white house immediately because she wanted barron trump, their son to finish school in new york, that was something no modern first lady has done. But i think it was an interesting move because why should you not be able to make those decisions for yourself and your family, so in some ways they disruptors and very different but also forced us to question the traditions. Caller mentioned former president obama, his comments earlier this year, the graduating class of the historically black colleges and universities, he did not mention President Trump, but clearly he was on his mind. Lets watch. More than anything this pandemic has pulled back curtain that so many of the folks in charge know what they are doing, a lot of them arent even pretend b to be in charge, if the world is going to get better its going to be up to you. With everything suddenly feeling like its up for grabs, this is your time to seize the initiative. Nobody can tell you anymore that you should be waiting your turn. Nobody can tell you anymore this is how its always been done. More than ever, this is your moment, your generations world to shape. Host Kate Andersen brower, when you heard that, what was your reaction . I was surprised because president obama has really been quiet on the sidelines. Hes been criticized for that and i have reported in the book about how he feels, you know, somewhat like hes in a bind, you know. He feels if he does come out and criticize President Trump and he immediately provides a a way to galvanize trump voters because i think trump wants an enemy and obama makes good clearly good enemy, weve heard him talk about this obamagate Conspiracy Theory thatsen proven. Thats unproven. I was surprised. The pandemic has pushed president obama and president bush out into speaking. They feel like this is just a bridge too far. It has not been handled well and i talked to one top former trump official who said, well, it is ironic that the president feels calling up strong men autocrats like erdogan and putin than he does to pick up the phone to talk to obama and bush and is there a problem with that, you know, would it be helpful for us to see the former president s now, they a lot of people disagree with the war, a lot of people have problems with clinton, bush and obama but they do carry a certain moral authority, certainly jimmy carter does and i think people would like to see that especially during the time out of inprecedented pandemic in modern history and then terrible whats going on around the country, the unrest in protests. It would be very nice for us to see president s come together, i think. Dorothy is next from raleigh, north carolina, good morning. Good morning, i would like to address a couple of things really quick but thats not the question i want to ask. I want to make a couple of statements, a couple of the callers brought this thing up. Number one, theres no obamagate, the reason why the fbi was was investigating Trumps Campaign members was because they the fbi was listening to russia. They listen to russia calls coming to the u. S. Trumps Campaign People were talking to russia. Thats how they got involved with that because the fbi surveilling russia, not the Trump Campaign but there were 150 contacts. President trump met them in helsinki. He didnt say trumps name. How many times has trump offended most of the president s . Hes doing it, so when history is written, you have to write, we have videos, we cant theres no hearsay. You are going to hear it. As to divisiveness of dividing the citizens and one more thing i want to say and you can tell me if thats the reason why the president s we didnt know that we were going to have another emergency. Cspan had two people, trump is not a president who can deal with emergencies and he might not be a strategic thinker, we will have a cyberattack and might still be in office and probably handled terribly and two people on cspan from intelligence, republicans an democrats and they said not enough is being done for us about cyberattack and thats going to be our next emergency, pandemic. Dorothy, thanks for the call from raleigh, north carolina. Im reminded when former president bush released video praising frontline workers, President Trump was where was he during impeachment . Guest that was remarkable to me and to her point i do wonder if theres strategy behind some of that because it doesnt make a whole lot of sense because most president s would see bushs video and say this is wonderful, lets all come together but instead President Trump use it to divide and that worked for him in 2016 and we are going into an election and thats the cynical thinking. As he said to me, he honestly has serious disagreements with the president s that came before him. He really does think that the war in iraq was the worst decision in u. S. History and thats something, like him or not, he has stuck by the conditions that he had for years. You can go back 20 years and look at what he said about america paying for countries and Everyone Needs to pay their own fair share when he has not changed and i think the presidency if anything has cost him to become more of who he is. Hes dug in. But i think he wants to be accepted by the former president s. I really do, but i think he feels like hes an outsider and so it has worked for him. Gary, good morning, from birmingham, alabama, youre next. Caller how are you doing, thanks for accepting me call. I have a thought about the 5 president s and what president obama had just recently stated about basically handling the torture over to this future generation. Here is something that i think speaking with hundreds of people, the president s, those 5 president s, if they were to come together and truly want to hand that torch over, with the federal congressional staffers we have right now that have for 20 or 30 years really havent worked for the people, bring in their payroll and their insurance into the same system that the states have. If you think about it its the same thing that we live under as a people, systems within our states, yet they have their own system. We understand with corporate and companies that there are ways of incentivizing peoples payrolls to create some type of productivity. Our congress staffers could do the same and they would produce if their payrolls and insurance were back home. Host gary, thank you for the call from alabama. Kate andersen brower, comment . Guest well, i do think to a larger point and i have ive always been struck by the former president s cashing in on the presidency and how its become situation where, you know, the obamas could become the first billionaire former president and first lady because ms. Obama is incredibly powerful in her own right and jimmy carter, someone who did not profit from the presidency to the same extent at all. And then, you know, harry truman, someone so word about looking like he was endorsing companies that he wouldnt even sign his memoirs with a pen that had a brand name on it because he was concerned that it would look like he was endorsing that brand of pens. So i think since gerald ford who famously joined the corporate boards to make money, weve seen the presidency earn these men enormous amount of money, right, and so theres a sense of profiting off of the presidency that i think is really unseemly and i talk about that in the book but at the same time, you know, they have given lots of money to charity and in the obama and the bushes and the clintons have done a loot good with the money as well but something getting paid 500,000 for an hourlong speech is ridiculous, right . Our guest Kate Andersen brower, team of 5, the best sellers, the residents, a look at the white house and first women, shes contributed to the new york times, vanity fair, the washington post, Bloomberg Business week and al is joining from st. Petersburg, florida. Good morning. Good morning, in regard to your book cover i really like that 5 politicians, youre absolutely right, the politicians and donald trump is not a politician as we all know and the one thing you said absolutely right earlier when you were interviewing him and he answered one of your questions straight out, no lies, straightforward and that speaks to me and thats the way i would rather have a president act and to the woman who called earlier and said hes the most divisive, no, to me president barack obama was the most divisive president weve ever had. Thank you for the call from st. Petersburg, florida. First reaction to his comment. Well, i think hes right absolutely that that the thing that President Trump his voters like most about him is that he does tell it like it is. He says what he thinks and he speaks very openly and plainly and you feel like theres an intimacy there and i was very impressed when i went into the oval office for the interview he was leaning in on the desk and looking very intently at me as though this was the focus of that time, was very interested as he was with you, steve, in these questions, and he really wanted to get into where he fit and he was very honest that he doesnt fit at all with any of the former living president s, so i think to his point, yes, that is what appeals most to trump voters, absolutely. And one thought about the cover and the body language of that moment, you can see president s bush, bush, obama and clinton relatively close together and then a bit of a distance to former jimmy carter. I know its just a photograph, but what does that tell you . Its funny you mention that because it took me a while to even get that version of the photograph, several taken that day and many of them had jimmy carter further away, sort of awkwardly standing to the side, he is not part of this group in the way that i think he would like to be maybe that theres a sense and i have recording in the book that when he was called the Obama White House he would call president obama to get him advice, he would get a call back from tom, obamas National Security adviser and who had been an intern in the Carter White House and so thats thinking of that if youre a former president calling the sitting president and youre getting a return call from someone who works for you, you expect to be called back by the president , you know, and i think that theres a sense that carter feels like he hasnt been given the proper respect and that photograph says it all to me. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Sorry about how the country is going but i want to ask the lady two questions. When when the riots happened when president obama was in office, what was his comment on the rioting . I know what his comments were. They were the same as President Trumps, and about these people keep calling in about separating children at the border, putting them in cages, there was a very good reason that president obama built those cages to separate families. It was to find out what kids belonged to what families. Ruth, thank you for the call from illinois. Kate brower, any comment . Well, you know,i dont exactly that obama had the same reaction as President Trump has had on twitter and, you know, speaking to the point of immigration, one thing that i found really interesting is when i spoke to a spokesman to the bush family, they said we had they have naturalization ceremonies at the bush center and now when they have them, theres always a concern that President Trump will see that and some way rebuke to him or in some way antagonizing him when really these are just things that they would do anyway, so now even very simple things are kind of seen as attacks on the president. If you speak up about freedom of the press, are you criticizing President Trump, you know, youre not, but President Trump sometimes takes these things very personally, so i dont think that really answers her question, but it made me think of that. A book event on friday you indicated that the Trump Library would be in florida and not in new york city, can you explain . Well, when i asked him it was funny because he hadnt given it much thought. And the point one of your callers made earlier i do have to believe that hes saying, hes consumed by the daytoday there and he does think hes going to win, so hes not giving a ton of thought of where his president ial library will be, but he said, you know, he knows real estate better than anyone and it will be either in florida or in new york. My thoughts are that it would probably make more sense to have it in florida because, you know, new york city especially has not welcomed donald trump. Its the most liberal city in the country probably, so it doesnt make sense for him to have a president ial library there. I could see it absolutely in, you know, palm beach, near maralago, maybe, who knows. Itll be fascinating to see but ive been thinking a lot of what hes going to do as former president one day whether its sooner than later and i think he will write a book, you know, you talk about the art of the deal, i think a memoir written by donald trump in the post presidency will probably be, have a lot of revelations and be much more guarded than other president ial memoirs have been. Dewane is next new york. Donald trump has hijacked the Republican Party. Hes not a conservative. If you listen he grew up in new york. He group up where i live in queens. Hes totally bamboozled the Republican Party and real conservatives are saying you are going to destroy our party for many years, the democrat opportunity right now is to swoop in, get him out of office and bring this country back. Biden is not the perfect, hes not perfect but hes a lot better than trump at this point. Thanks for taking my call. Dewayne, thank you from new york. I interviewed joe biden several times and i cant think of a person who is more different right than donald trump, maybe jimmy carter, but he, you know, he will fit into this President Club in a way that donald trump certainly wont because biden is someone who reaches across the aisle. When he was senator hes worked with republicans, he cares very much about the institutions, but i would always think my book is also about these relationships and friendships between republicans and democrats and to the callers point, there has always been respect even grudging admiration there and i have a story in the book about george h. W. Bush and his despite last former president was barack obama and the two of them were close and obama had a lot of respect for bush 41 as hes known and called him my buddy 41, the last of among the last of the greatest generation. He was a world war ii hero and obama respected that and so i think that there will be a time where we can go back to this feeling of respect and admiration that former president s have had to one another to some extent. From the book team of 5, you write the following Kate Andersen brower. I asked President Trump if being faced with difficult decisions that cross the famous desk because only the most difficult decisions reach the president , had given him a new understanding and empathy for the men who had come before him, no, he replied flatly and when our interview was over i was walking out of the oval office he shouted, say hi to president bush for me in a voice latent with sarcasm. You know, he obviously felt like he was handed a big mess but i also found him in our interview very defensive. At one point he summoned his assistant to come in and bring him a list of his accomplishments and it was, you know, a single space list and it literally said at the top trumps accomplishments and, you know, having covered barack obama, i couldnt imagine obama doing Something Like that and handing a journalist a list of what he has accomplished. Theres a certain level of feeling like he is an outsider and he has to convince reporters and historians to give him the credit and i was just really struck by that. He also brought in what he said was a top secret letter from the north Korean Leader and showed that to me in both english and korean and you cant report whats in the letter but look at what im doing in north korea. No one has else has been able to accomplish this. That speaks, i think, to a sense that, you know, he is an outsider and reporters arent being fair to him and i think you saw our interview with a chance to kind of be heard. Marry is next, arlington, virginia, good morning. Good morning, just had a comment and then a question. First of all, i read your other book, the residents, i really liked it, its really interesting and then my question is you talked about norms and traditions and under obama they used something called the steele dossier which was fake foreign source. They supplied it to the fisa court to embed spies and try to bring down a presidency and i was just wondering what other president s have used the fbi to try to spy on and bring down their political opponents . Mary, thank you, let me just also point out that this wednesday the Senate Judiciary committee will hold hearings on the orgenof the investigation, live on cspan networks, Kate Andersen brower, your comments. Thats a really interesting question. I can just think of watergate. Its not a perfect example of that at all but thats the only other example that i can think of that comes to mind and its also interesting that she speaks about my books the residents and it feels like that was 20 years ago and so much has changed and we have become so divided and there was division during obama years but i feel like now its just gotten increasingly worse and worse and people are really taking sides and really in this book what im trying to do is show the way that president s have come together and someone like bill clinton who, you know, in 92 lan against george w. Bush, the bush family did not like him at all. He made bush a oneterm president and how they could come together after the asian tsunami and raise money. Im looking at the presidency through those eyes but also i do have a chapter on cashing in and how these former president s like the clintons have made so much money off of the position, so i think its a pretty bipartisan account. The news cycle moves so quickly, the executive order now, of course, may have sub decided a little bit because of demonstrations we have seen over the weekend. This is a headline from cnet. Com, trump versus twitter, free speech showdown following the executive order. Again, going back to interview that r that we conducted with the president last year, we asked him about use of twitter, lets show you and Kate Andersen brower, lets get your reaction. Did you ever regret sending one out . Not much, you know, honestly not much. I sent the one about wiretapping in quotes and that turned out to be true, remember a big deal that was . I heard a minute after i sent, i was called by my people, sir, did you say yeah, i did, whats the big deal and the reason it was a big deal because it turned out to be true. I guess you could say a lot of the times the bigger problem, the retweets, your retweet something that sounds good but turns out to be from a player thats not the best player of the world. That causes a problem. Overall i would say no. Not at all. Its a modernday form of communication and its not really tweet. Thats a typewriter, what it really is as soon as i do it you put it everybody puts it on. Breaking news. Every time i put out a tweet, even if its good morning, we have breaking news. The president has just said good morning. Its an incredible way of communicating. That from july of last year, you write about this in your book as well. Yeah, i mean, one of the things that infuriated barack obama was the wiretapping allegation which President Trump just mentioned there and he even went to his staff and said that the statement that they had put together that obama did not wire trap office was not Strong Enough and i was surprised by that that obama would actually obama is very careful and does usually does not come out strongly against trump, but the statement wasnt Strong Enough for his liking that he wanted, Even Stronger speaks a lot as to how obama feels pushed into a corner, but, yes, you know, trump is right, every time that he tweets, the media does cover it and so it is a way for him to directly communicate with people and not have to go through the traditional channels of reporters and if you are a News Organization and you dont mention, its controversial tweet, then youre not doing your job, right, because you have to, you to highlight that, so he is found this way of communicating and we now see twitter kind of spewing some of the things he has said. Hes been very shrewd and its amazing use of the power of the presidency. And so the significant of the executive order not only for twitter and other social Media Companies is what . Guest i mean, i think its, you know, its very concerning. I i think its very important that that if you are the most powerful person in the world which the president is, you have to be very thoughtful in what youre communicating and as himself does he says what he thinks and sometimes thats at 4 00 in the morning, you know, which i think is also interesting because i asked him if he had trouble sleeping as so many other president s has and he said, no, hes fine but i think if you look at the time stamp on some some of the tweets, you to wonder hes up all night. I just think the power of those tweets is just its really hard to quantify and he has to understand that that it makes sense that theres some kind of that hes truthful in those twices. Tweets. Rose is next in chicago. Just a couple of places, steve, bear with me. The trump says it like it is comments drive me crazy sometimes but im going to get back to that after i say two things with the woman regarding the steele dossier and you reminding me, steve, that theres hearings this week regarding the russians and ron johnson and, im wondering if the author paid attention to the freedom fest of 2015 and when trump unexpected arrived and took a question from maria, the spy, who pretended to be nra. Shesat in jail for over 18 monts and marie is sentenced to 18 years. Back to trumps accomplishments or his tweets, im reading im reading a tweet, okay, from trump, july 5, 2018. Now he says it like it is. I have broken more elton john records. He seems to have a lot of records and i by the way i dont have a musical instrument. I dont have a guitar or an organ, no organ. Elton has an organ and lots of other people helping. Now, weve broken virtually every record because you know, look, i only need this space, they need much more room for basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room, we dont need it. Rose, i will leave it there and we will get a response from our guest. Thank you for joining us this morning . You know, hes an actor of hyperbole. When i interviewed him he said he would be the most popular person in europe if it wasnt asking them to pay their fair share. This is what people like about him. So i think we are going to continue to see him do it because when you see some of these tweets i gets peoples attention, i he took a long time to answer questions very thoughtfully. I think people wanted somebody who will quickly get to the point and and not, you know, necessarily make things too complicated and thats why i think a lot of people voted for him. David is next from south carolina, good morning. Caller good morning. This slightly different perspective. One of the main things about donald trump is that he was such a long shot during the primaries, in the initial part of the primaries and the fact that he was elected or even he was nominated came as a huge surprise and i want to offer perspective from the point of view one of Many Americans who didnt consider myself racist and never did i guess until i was told i was, i actually felt good for when president obama was elected. It was i just felt good for the other side. It was something they needed, i dont know, maybe, i had a warm feeling and i hope that he would have brought the country together but by the end of the second term, we were a lot of americans like myself are kind of tired of hearing about race, race, race. And i think the election of donald trump was a reactionary movement on the people who meant well but were just tired of hearing about race in almost every issue, so i think its one of the reasons he was elected as a reactionary movement to what we had under president obama. None of this was illmeaning, i mean, this is just a mantra of the Democrat Party to to lift the underserved party or the underserved population due to history, but thats what i think. Dave, thanks, we will get a response. Well, i think back to when i was reporting my book, the residents, mostly africanamerican butlers who served the president and the first lady in the second floor of the white house, one of whom retired butler was 91, passed away from coronavirus recently who i interviewed for the book. I remember talking to wilson and several other butlers and when they saw the obamas there on Inauguration Day they their eyes filled with tears, they had never thought the day would come. Many of them had lived through segregation, you know, and you hear Michelle Obama talk about relative towards slaves and white house built by slaves and i know that george w. Bush was very emotional the night that obama was elected. So i think that there is something very important about that that moment to remember and also what was happening inside the white house at that time and the feeling of pride that the staff had. Iconic photograph on the day of inauguration back in january 2009, as you pointed out Wilson Roosevelt german who passed away earlier this month, he was 91 years old. Good morning, steve, i enjoy you so much as moderator and im finding this conversation very interesting, but i would like ms. Brower, ms. Brower says that the president tells it like it is and thats what people like about him. She should mention that he also telling lies and you mentioned that the obamas are profiteering but you didnt mention the fact that not only the trump family but the Kushner Family and anyone associated with them they blew the secret Service Month of the presidency and he continues to profit, so ms. Brower, can you make these statements . That upsets me. Like i said i enjoy listening to you, but i want you to proproud not just for the statement out there like that, but also provide the other side of it, thank you. Liz, thank you. Well, i certainly i am a historian and a journalist and im not trying to take sides on any of this. Its almost impossible now because as you say things have gotten so out of whack and in many ways unethical and immoral and i do in the book point that out. I think the larger point that the book makes is look at the way things used to be, right, look at the way obamas and the clintons and the bushes and jimmy carter came together in the past and again, and again, Ronald Reagan sent several president s, carter in sadats funeral after sadat was killed in 1981 and here is an incredible site of 3 former planes and they are on the plane and jimmy carter and gerald ford, you know, jimmy carter, ford and there was a lot of bad blood between them and they became friends and made them so close that gerald ford asked jimmy carter to give his eulogy and when i asked jimmy carter about it he was emotional because gerald ford is someone who i think about a lot and i treasure our friendship. We would always want to ride together in the car just so we could talk as former president s, we loved long trips to places because it gave us more time to talk. This is about friendships across party lines. It is not about, you know, the steele dossier and whats going on with Michael Flynn and the latest, you know, constant chaos or controversy, its about the past and trying to you cant imagine donald trump becoming friendly with any of these former president s, hes open to friendship with bill clinton. Donald trump invited women who would accused bill clinton of rape to debate with hillary clinton. How can you ever move beyond that . You cant. Things have gotten so vicious and politics has become such a blood sport and i think its changed the way that former president s will interact going forward. We will go to barbara next in oklahoma city, good morning. Hi, steve. She keeps talking about how honest and great this man is, im sorry. You know, i just i have two things. One is the something about the border and hes the one who hired illegals, has for 5 years and last year he had to pay 25 million. Sued by them again, this has happened 2 or 3 times. He hires them, he doesnt pay them, they have to sue him. They do sue him and and it gets kicked under the rug and kushner came out and said, we hired 20 of them after saying they never hired them, they do hire them. Ive watched this man for 5 years and he has lied to us over and over and over again and im just like how i dont know why we dont talk about that and then his the trump university, why does not why would you have a president who says something and steals steals every penny you have for their child to go to college and you dont have a college. What kind of person does that . Host barbara, thank you from oklahoma. Guest well, i am certainly not somebody who is defending donald trump in any way, what i was what i was saying was that he speaks in a very simple way which you cant deny on twitter, in rallies, he gets people incredibly revved up. You cant deny that. You can disagree wit and disagree with what he says, absolutely. But i think that there is an absolute contrast between the kind of thoughtful approach that president obama took or even george w. Bush, the compassionate conservatism that bush talked about and demonstrated so often. Theres just such a contrast with donald trump who is really talking about America First and its just a very different approach and, look, he didnt he didnt win the popular vote but he won the electoral college. It works for him and so im just looking at this through that political lens and historical lens that that is what he is doing now and it is dividing the country in a way that its really sad i think for our democracy. Host the book is titled the team of five, the president s club in the age of trump. Our guest Kate Andersen brower and before we let you go, we have been following the story, g7 summit, determined for the u. S. To host the summit, initially to florida and then camp david and then a Virtual Summit and then here in washington in june, Angela Merkel saying shes unable to attend and now being moved to september whacker does that tell you about a german leader saying right now im not coming to this summit . The fractured relationshipped relationships not only between donald trump and american predecessors. Its between donald trump and the world. He has really created a lot of illwill and i think the relationship between markle and obama was obviously very good, markle and bush was very good, its so strain with donald trump. I interviewed top cabinet officials and said they were shocked about what he said about predecessors and foreign leaders and disrespectful way that he spoke about them privately and so i think its, again, it speaks to the fractured relationships. Kate andersen brower, good luck with the book, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you, steve. He pusher plans to make it whitely available next week. Look nor author in the near future on booktv and cspan. Joining news on booktv is Matthew Whittaker served as the acting attorney general to february 2019 and the author of the book above the law the inside story how the Justice Department tried subvert President Trump. Before we begin with the book, explain how you became the acting attorney general to us. Guest thats a great first question. So i was chief of staff to attorney general Jeff Sessions starting in october of 2017, and i did that for 13 months before general sessions