Joining us from new york John Dickerson, his newest book, the hardest job in the world the american presidency. Hes also a correspondent on cbs news. Thank you for being with us. Thank you, steve. What surprised you the most in researching this book . And working on the book over the last, its hard to know when i started pit i either started 30 years ago or ten years ago or three years ago but in the intensive interviews that started three years ago when people including former president s and those who served in the white house ceos of start to question or start all the interviews with the same question. If you were interviewing a candidate for the presidency like you were doing a Job Interview what questions would you ask and what with the first question be and i assumed the traditional answers i would get would be id ask about character or id ask about decisionmaking in the one i got that surprises me that kept coming up again and again was what is their ability to build a team and to manage people because everybody i talked to while almost everybody anyway, was focused on the idea of how a president puts together a Management Team because the job is, that we talk about it in campaigns as a single figure n the presidency it is really an organization that president is building and all the people leaders who i talked to said that in any job of complexity and highstakes decisionmaking you need to make sure you have a team that you built and that you worked with and then that you tended to over theh, time you worked with them because building and operating a wellfunctioning teamh requires ongoing maintenance. And so that was a surprise to the extent to which people focused on the management part of the scale partrt of the job because we dont talk about it that much in campaigns. In the book you write the following, quote, the american presidency is the most powerful and overburdened office on the planet full of demands, possibility and frustration and its occupant is the most famous person in the world with the power to inspire generations and the president can launch invasions or by standing aside other countries launch there is but the president also has very little power to make progress in the domestic sphere on major challenges of a generation. Can you explain. Sure, obviously in the National Security realm a president has tremendous powerom and as i said it, not just to launch covert operations or to launch military launch overt military operations but also when President Trump said he and allowd aside turkey to move against the kurds that was a decision that affected u. S. Allies in the president made according to his aides and those advising him basically made on a phone call in a impulsive fashion and so in that sense the winds of a president or the impulses or instinct or whatever you call it of a president can operate quickly with very high and powerful consequences. Sn the other hand when it comes to trying to pass legislation think about healthcare for example but president is going all the way back to harry truman trying to pass healthcare legislation and universal healthcare for the United States and it took generations before obamacare could pass and then when it did it passed in a lumpy fashionat with no republican oro publicans at the signing ceremony and n, you know, it hs been the project of the republic and party to try to dismantle it ever since it was enacted. In that sense you see a way in which a president is captive to the separation of powers system with captive in just the way well, not just the way but in the way the system was supposed to be designed which is to say to give power to the minority in making legislation. Then you think of all the other ways in which the president s are hamstrung by the media and by the sheer number of duties in the office which we talk about later but the number of things on the president ial to do list has ballooned and by the way the complexity and all the realms of president ial life, for example, if you look at the economy. The economy was faster now and with greater consequence because of Global Connectivity then 40 years ago when transactions moved at a slower pace. Now, the markets can buckle the Global Economy in the space of a couple of weeks. We will share it with our audience and review some recent interviews we have seen with past president s but this one sentence jumped off the book. I want to share with our audience. Quote, a modern president must now be able to jolt the economy like franklin d roosevelt, tame Congress Like lyndon b. Johnson and lift the nation like Ronald Reagan. Those are sort of the star president s associated with each of those realms of the president ial power. Each one, of course, people can debate and one of the things of trying to do with history because im not a historian though i am deeply affectionate of the work they do is study what historians have studied, interview historians and spend time with the original materials of those administrations to use president s to illustrate portions of the job and when you look at fdr t the measures of te fdr took when he came into office in 1933 the general consensus is now those were useful and good was done but really the economic repair was done by the Second World War paid america it brought back to prosperity by building the armaments and preparing and fighting in the Second World War. So that is obviously not a remedy for economic success but available to all president s but fdrs persisted experimentation on behalf of a damaged economy has set the tone fory what we expect from president s, Ronald Reagans speech on the challenger does a similar thing and a moment of National Crisis being able to do the sort of Component Parts of what makes such a speech powerful is to pay homage to those who have died in two with their cause into the story of america and the narrative of america and in so doing give and uplift those who have been left behind. A and to do it all at the right moment with a sense of sufficient talent and skill for delivering such a speech that it captures the american simagination and leaves the country less wounded than they were before the speech was giv given. John dickerson, since Richard Nixon we had the chance to sit down with every president and a cspans brian in a q a program after he left the white house this conversation with president george w. Bush in which they talked about the role of the media is something you talk about in your book. The process, i also made it clear that i studied a lot of history and i read for example a lot of link and print they did the same thing to lincoln and to truman and i just finished a book on roosevelt and there hasa always been namecalling in the political process. I also made the point that a president should never feel sorry for himself. Its an honor to serve in selfpity is a pathetic quality for someone trying to lead an organization but yeah, politics isle harsh. Later on the death spiral of decency during my time in office and that was the advent of 24 hour cable and hyper part is sized politics but not enough cspan. Not enough sober analysis where people can, on your show and im pandering of course but people can come on your show but people can come on and discuss things in a way that is not highly emotional and doesnt have an edge to it but politics are edgy and part of the problem is with the 247 news cycle in order for people to gain market share they have to scream loudly and make a case in an exaggerated way to be noticed and so one way the 247 news cycle is great because it gives consumers a choice but another way it creates a pretty hostile atmosphere at times. John dickerson, the media, you write about it in the book and your reaction to what former president bush told brian lamb. Hes right about everythinges he said good i interviewed andy card who was chief of staff for george w. Bush and he had that particular perspective having worked both for george w. Bush and George Herbert walker bush and in the section of the book i talk about what to me feels like a vice on the president ial head which, by the way, has been the job since its beginning and the pressure of the job, president bush said, to whine and be self pitying is unattractive and he is no doubt right about that but nevertheless, president from the beginning have felt the pressure of the job and one of the parts of the modern Pressure Cooker of the job is what andy card described which was during George Herbert walker bushs presidency they knew the press would bring some big story every day that they would have to scramble to manage and they would scramble to do so in at least either knock down the story or confirm the story or give their shape to the story by 6 30 p. M. Which is when the evening news broadcast started and what they had done that they had some time before the morning papers hit and before the morning News Television program. He said happened in between the time he worked for George Herbert walker bush and the sun is that two things happened with the 24 hour news cycle became a much bigger driver of the news environment and then secondly, the standards of the News Organizations started to lower and when you needed two sources to run with something by the time george w. Bush was in office you could run with one source and its not the right way toe do it but ultimately wy the standard dropping made their day worse but someone would run with the rumor and then they would get someone to react to it on capitol hill and then suddenly it was a story, whether there was anything to the story or not. Then the white house would respond to the rumor and now the white house and now theres a second story based on the first story which was a rumor where in the old days a rumor could get knocked down or a journalist would not go with the rumor because they only had one source but may be the source they had was not so solid. It is not only the amount of coverage and the constant 24 hour nature of it but the quality is also not so good and whw we have social media age where headlines on individual stories on the web and those stories may or may not be produced by a reputable News Organization are changed in real time based on their emotional appeal to the people that are reading them, not based on quality, not based on Critical Thinking but based on whether people get excited and frustrated and angry and whatever emotion while as eisenhower said its beginning of the book when i quote him is anger cant even think clearly. If everyone is emotionally enraged it is not a posture for good decisionmaking or good conversation in a public square. We have an excerpt from the farewell address which we will get yours reaction to later in the program but let me remind our audience were talking with John Dickerson from m cbs news d is joining us from his home in new york in the book is titled, the hardest job in the world the american presidency. In it he writes the following quote, it is difficult to consider the presidency as an office distinct from its occupancy because donald trumph is its occupant and to a degree greater than any of his other predecessors trump sees the office as an extension of himself. He does not believe that many of the jobs obligations and his supporters love him for it. Overview of the offices work by the partisanship the trump has exasperated and exacerbated with the presidency has become the venue for all highstakes political combat. Lets get to your phone calls grade jan is up from california. Youre on with John Dickerson, good morning. N caller good morning. I am an africanamerican woman who lives in california and i know what im talking about. I support donald trump from the border and Everything Else that hes ever put in place. He is and has been a president that is made promises and kept them. Unlike the donothing democrats who for centurieske and decades have continued to give us lipservice. I am so tired of people ragging on our president and bringing him down when this man has done e. Re for this country than any president in my lifetime and that includes barack obama. The rhetoric, the rise, the continual racist comments about him and his socalled ego, who doesnt have an ego . . I dont see where obama [laughter] he did not lack ego. At the end of the day donald trump is a president who gets results. I like that. Host janet, thank you. John dickerson, what did you hear from that collar . Guest well, you know, a lot of passion for President Trump. It is not unfamiliar, the passion of President Trump supporters. But obviously he excites a great deal of passion on the other side as well. We are headed towards an election in which there will be a great deal of that passion on a kind of trajectory we have seen in politics, not a Straight Line but a crooked line that looks like a Straight Line if you even out as he averages and that trajectory weve been on is to engage in harsher and more emotional campaigns. That has a couple of challenges. One, it questions the country which means that any of these debates about opportunity in america, freedom tend to take on highly emotional aspects. With the political scientists have discovered and what also thee psychologists who discoverd or who analyze Political Behavior have discovered is that when those messages are delivered through t medium eithr television or social media that it has a psychological effect on us and that we react to challenges on our positions as if we are being chased by a snake or a leopard and that we react in such a fundamentally human way that it leaves, again, no room for the kind of consideration you need compromise that is required to solve some of our biggest problems for this election is taking place in the context of three enormous problems that perhaps but with respect to covid and the economic downturn and then obviously the racial unrest and protests and sense of national disunitys that is continuing to take place which is larger than the crucial question of the relationship between the police and the black community which is what kicked it off. It is much larger than that. These are debates that will take place in this highly emotionally charged atmosphere with the passionate response we heard from the last caller. Host leo is next joining us from franklin, New Hampshire bread thank you for waiting. Good morning. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Yes, john you can keep drinking the koolaid reviewer face down in it. I like 2 feet see pictures of the president and when he leaves office because these men aged incredibly fast. Im not sure if the stress or the hourly days but we will not tell what donald trump because hes orange all the time. I cant tell if hes aging or just putting on more makeup. Thank you very much and have a happy fathers day. Byebye. Host thank you, leo. You do talk about the aging process of president s over the years with lyndon johnson, fdr and others. Guest in one of the chapters which i call the expectation is my attempt to write a little bit about that. It is squeezing the president ial head and it is nonstop in terms of the pressure and the decisionmaking required in a presidency. The decision of the president has to make are often not between a good outcome and a bad outcome but often a decision between two bad outcomes because the world does not serve up neat and tidy problems to a president. Also the timeline on which decisions have to be made to t sometimes just cant wait fora sufficient amount of information to make a decision. That repeated decisionmaking that has to be made in the presidency and then its hard enough on its own but then to be in a culture where every decision you make is secondguessed by your age and your allies and your enemies and and the press and then its the constant watch that you are under and a president can do almost nothing without it being seen and having wave after wave of responses to it. All of that creates the conditions of a, very unreal conditions for president s and you can see why they might age when they areca on office. Host one question we asked president barack obama and a 2009 white house interview was whether or not he is time to think or time to look ahead at problems, not shortterm but longterm, here is that exchan exchange. When in your day or in your schedule to have time to think . Well, i try to make time during the course of the day. Usually ive gotten desk time during the course of the day when i can review material that are important for decisions i will have to make later in the day. I tend to be a night owl so after i have dinner with the family and talk the girls and then i have a big stack of stuff that ivee taken up to the residence. I will typically stay up until midnight just going over stuff and sometimes push the stack aside and just try to do writing and focus on, not the immediate issue in front of me but the issues that areso coming down te pipe that we need to be thinking about and there are a whole host of those but let me give you a good example. We dont have, i think, the comprehensive plan to deal with cybersecurity that the country needs. There is not a cyber attack right now and they are not some emergency virus right now but that is a big critical system to our economy and vital to our Public Health infrastructure. John dickerson, that was nine years ago from the white house library. What are you hearing from president obama . Guest it is interesting he mentions cyber attack there and i spent a fair amount of time in the book talking about the surprises that we will face as a president and theou reason i do that is i started to focus on the surprising nature of the job and the Team Building is so important in the presidency is two things. Teambuilding and prioritization and the reason theyre both so important is for what barack obama was talking about there taand you dont know when a w challenge will hits and by the time it hits it is too late to get up to speed on it as one disaster official told me in the New York Times recently, a disaster is a bad time to be exchanging business cards. But that meant was if you dont have a team build in a Management Structure in place abd habits of working with your team when the disaster hits they dont suddenly click in place. And, a lot of these challenges that are very important but arent on the front burner right away required putting some things in place so you need to have those things in place so you can face them. When i was writing about that in the book, heres a good example, george w. Bush and al gore had three debates in the 2000 campaign and the word terrorism came up once and only in passing. It was or you would have missed it if you had blinked. That issue became the one that dominated george w. Bush eight years in office. It was interesting that cyber attack is what the president was talking about because in the book when trying to conjure for readers the kind of prize event that could be devastating and highstakes i mention pandemic in the book was done before covid19 and i mentioned pandemic but the one i focus on more was cyber attacks. It is that kind of thing for which an administration has to prepare well ahead of time. And so that is part of what the book is about is how a president has to prioritize which is the basis of your question there which is you cant always be thinking about the thing that is immediately in front of you because there are very important things that you will only be able to take care of if you have focused on them beforehand. Host to take that one step further, John Dickerson here isj how you frame it in your book. A quote, in the fourth quadrant system the horizontal axis is in items urgency. Is it on fire or merely smoldering . And itemsal axis importance is the smoke coming from a burning family heirloom or last weeks funny papers . Defining the problem is the key to solving it and figured out which quadrant the problem belongs in and then you know the ext step to take. Pick the long quadrant and you waste precious president ial time or worse when you miss an opportunity to avert catastrop catastrophe. Guest that system, that quadrant system which may be familiar to people from if they read steven coveys seven habits of highly effective people or any selfimprovement in their lives that matrix which is sometimes called the eisenhower matrix is based on the statement that eisenhower said which is never let the urgent crowd out the important and he was talking about, eisenhower thought about how leaders do what they do and that maxim was talking about what you are asking president obama about which is how do you find a space to think about those important things in a job which offers you no space and what i found in doing my work is sort of i house it in eisenhower but every presidency is concerned with this that it is not only do you have the right priorities in your day but everi priority you pick you are not tending to Something Else every time a president is doing something or seemed obsessed or something we need to evaluate whether the thing about which the president w success fits in the priority matrix in the right part and then secondly what about all those other things that are not being tended to while the president and the administration are so focused on that one thing. There is an opportunity cost to all president ial priority decisionmaking so once you Pay Attention to one thank you are not paying attention to Something Else. There are two things to be measured whenever a president chooses to spend the time on something and president ial time is some of the most important and valuable times really on the planet. Host the cover of the book really is an iconic photograph of Lyndon Baines johnson and i believe it was during the height of the vietnam war bread is that correct . Guest thats correct. 1968 and the tet offensive have happened and Martin Luther king d d been assassinated and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated and what he is doing in that picture what we know we wont know all of it and we dont know what is on his mind but hes listening to as tape recording from his soninlaw who then went on to be the governor of virginia and then senator from virginia and heo was a marine lieutenant in vietnam sending audiocassettes to his a father in what was happening in vietnam where johnson wanted a battlefield perspective and he was worried she was not getting a straight story from his general and so he was listening to the tape in that picture and that is the background for that picture and you cant see that the tape recorder on the cover because the book would have been too long. But it is the kind of agony or conjures the agony and weight of the office then when you open the book theres a picture of president johnson andnd republin leader in the senate in which johnson is much more assertive in the balls on his feet engaging in what is the johnson treatment in negotiations with every [inaudible] so those two pictures represented to us and to me the idea of the weight of the office when you are being mastered by events and then the picture with dirksen is when you are the master of events when you are able to use the powers of the office to get things do done. Lyndon johnson succeeding the John Dickerson, in his final press conference october 31, 1963 there was this question to present kennedy. Just shortly after the bay of pigs i asked you how you like [inaudible] and remember you said [inaudible] and now youve had a chance so [inaudible] whether i will stay or what my intentions are everything is many moves away but as far as the president goes we have given them before this group of the definition of happiness and i will define it again or use our powers along in the present will provide happiness. John dickerson, three weeks later he was assassinated. Ated. Guest he was, of course, already thinking about his next term, so keeping the tradition of being coy about reelection and next term and all of that. The quoting of the greeks is very john kennedyesque, when you go back and look at his campaign literature, and in his presidency, he was somebody who had studied and thought about leadership, about history. Presidency, um, you know, i mean, it is a fascinating thinit is afascinatt john kennedy. Ug presidencym the and is a part of accelerating the celebrity status to the roosevelt feels more like the real beginner of this celebrity president at the heart of the office. And the mastery of the medium yohepreferred the foreign polico domestic policy. Foreign policy can get us killed and he fought off the job at those moments ithis moment in tn with the soviets which he had several times and also in confrontations with the crush of. But by the domestic matter the skills in television and all of his charisma and glamour, wasnt that helpful to hi them in passg any of the domestic legislation. This has been proven throughout the presidency that even a charismatic one who even Ronald Reagan wasnt able to kind of sweet talk the nation into doing things they didnt want to do. The hardest job in the world, the american presidency. By our guest joining us from new york. Keith is on the phone in florida. Good morning. The president or the presidency should have a and b. Declaration of independence. What i am seeing taking place in america right now it seems we are the democratic republic one man one vote and that is also the thing about america. We expect to have the opposing views. That is the essence of democracy. I dont want to be in a country where a i want to be in a country where there is a mix of people who talk aboutry their ideas and we decide on some kind of resolution and to say i think the interest was well served. Not everything he does is wrong. The. The president host we will give you a chance to respond. K lot there. Itss interesting to think about what one quality is needed because they have to sing that at times. Us i think understanding it as an organization we need those moments so you better be prepared for them. That is a basic rule inin the office of some of the other parts of the job required skills that are based on what hits you. If you are a caretaker presidency but faces no more than that is different if you are 18 years of two different wars and covert operations and that requires it requires a diff institution making but on the question of the maintenance values it wasnt based on where you were born or to whom. There is a stewardship function at the heart of the american experiment and each president is interested with those ideas in two different ways. One is to measure the decisions the president and the Administration Takes and make sure they are in keeping with those fundamental underlying ideas because president s are to prairie occupants of the job and havhave to operate within the confines of the job that was built with those ideas. You cant just reengineer the job once you get into it. You can try to change part if you have to stay withinut the fundamental values and we want a president to be guided by those values and ideas. Theres also a public reason to do that and that i think we see with respect to the outcry in agony in america and overwhelming public support for those who see themselves outside particularly in the way that they are treated by the police and calling out for repair. To hear those voices, the only person that represents the entire country for everybody, those who voted for him and those who didnt enter this is a country dedicated and they were denied equal of every command even the founding document of the country asks for a hearing, asks for more than just a tiny response is that theyve heard before it is incumbent upon the president in those values have e. Quality and whose job means the president is a steward of those values must then answer in the way that those are crying out for the hearing in the way that they can feel hurt so what attribute do you want but will preserve the country thats one of the fundamental connections is the values not just the ability of something the president feels when they are making decisions and also when they are talkingbo to the natio. Host dimensioned president eisenhower on a number of occasions in norfolk. His january 17, 1961 farewell address famous for his reference to the militaryindustrial complex, but he also had this to say. During the wave that america knows this world of ours, every growing scholar must avoid becoming [inaudible] they must have the same confidence to the effect that as we are in our economic and military strengths. From january 1961 with expected phone calls. Im surprised how many still blame obama. I was watching meet the press do you think it has anything to do with thesese religious groups . I think its explicitly why some people support him on the amendment. How much that really matters i dont know. Im not doubting, i just dont have the reporting. In response to the great procession this is one of the reasons they usually wait 20 or 30 or more years to evaluate the presidency is because t. A. R. P. Is part of the process in responding to the great recession. But the question o is whether president obama has dealt with spacing, even t. A. R. P. Finally passed. That was all taking place when the president obama was running against john mccain many of them are in that process and incredibly difficult things where we are just coming in there is no playbook for you. Youve done nothing even remotely close toto that end are asked to perform well on the number one. So to use a cliche but its useful,in while hes at the same time he had to respond to this economic challenge to america. With a Historical Perspective there is great debate he should have pushed harder then the response to that is its fine and good but he never could have gotten it through congress. By the way they are almost not a part of our conversation and politics anymore which is one of these extraordinary things. I spent years and years covering people absence of our political conversation or not completely absent but it seems completely absent a. Many people give him credit under these circumstances that set the conditions for the Economic Prosperity that ultimately followed. Some of the critics argue the responses to the devastation of the recession that was dictated by people that were from or familiar with wall street and one argument is of course they had to be because it was taking place in the finance sector so you need people with expertise for new how to quickly solve those problems. They only follow a certain set of Solutions Operating in the way that it has been. Perhaps there would haveha been more widespread recovery from the economic recession. These need to be adjudicated with expertise and time needs to play out to be able to kind of adjudicate those questions. But there are, it is a fascinating question. Again it goes back to building your team. They affect generations and the economic challenges but also the ability to respond to those challenges and again its why gethrough a president brings wih thehim to the office is so cruc. Here is how you frame it in your book. Theres the partisanship in this town. I do believe that there is a chance we can do something. I really think we could probably do something a lot better. Ththat would be one of the thins im a little bit surprised about. We are accomplishing a lot and tax cuts we got, the regulation but said the biggest of any president in history even if it was a much longerterm of years but with all of the things weve got, you would think that that would make people happy. Do you think that you are united in this . I wouldnt even have to. Its my only form of defense is. If the press covered me fairly, i wouldnt need that, but they dont cover me fairly. Host the view last july lewith expected phone calls. Henry is joining us from michigan. You are on the air. Caller good morning, gentlemen. And happy fathers day to both of you. Steve, before i get to john, i hope that in the last part of todays show you will ask people to queue up from the address last night the dark rhetoric that seems to be hurtling us towards a new civil war when he talks about the Second Amendment and what his peopladvocatespeople could y got angry with black lives matter and trying to incite violence. I think the numbers are dreadf dreadful. B isnt what he wanted it to be. I want you to delve a little bit deeper into how remarkable president Barack Obamas performance was in the achievements of the aca. The total disingenuous nature of the feelings he had to have congress to have done what he did for this country and to tperpetuate and reinvigorate. I want you to talk to how skillful he had to be to navigate those treacherous waters as the first black president. Thank you for the call. Im not sure if you want to comment on that as well. Guest it was guest co. It wf the accomplishments as those that were fans would list them and it depends on how you see things in a hundred or signup foyou sign upfor all of those acaccomplishments. I think that there is no question that the president faced when he came to office previously was a set of circumstances that were highly extraordinarily challenging. I think there is an interesting bridge between the obama years and trump years in terms of the partisanship in washington. They Affordable Care act for a long time was handed over to congress. Presidenpresident obama basicali Want Congress to try to work this out in a bipartisan fashion and it wouldve the supporters of the democratic side said what are you doing, why are you wasting your time doing this and his view was if they were given some body and in the congressional process. Ultimately, he came to the view that the republicans were not going to get him back by him and never really wanted to because the structure of the politics now. And i got into this in some detail in the book. The way that the structure politicswa change includes to these outcomes and the choices of individual actors to be sure. But its now tuesday outlined in the state within the partisan blame is very, very much the structural part its much stronger than say during the Reagan Administration when he and speaker tip oneill were able to get some things done and Ronald Reagan was able to pass things with democrats. It was the structure of the politics at the time that changed and i go into that and where itfr exists and why we are where we are today. So there is a longer story to tell, but we are in a condition now where major legislation that passes with democratic votes and tax cuts to President Trump heralded at his interview passed with only republican votes. The system in which the minori minority. To say during the impeachment to bring some of this forward when that was up for discussion i think is the question if it is clear and possible why the lapse of time in between. There are bombshells that he claims that theres much more in the book that echoes the previous statement of the different people and senior levels that were in the white lhouse. Then it comes back to this teambuilding question into his assessment and what a disaster he was a. So as they were on their way out the door if the teambuilding is crucial, the Brookings Institution has studied the turnover particularly at the most senior levels. President trump set a new record to churn of the highest level and its just not possible to carry on a complicated organization with that much turnover and to do with well. So, whenever you may say about john bolton, hes also an example of a Management Structure that is at odds with the sort of best practice of the presidency but also functioning in the corporate world or the Business World you never think that a company with that kind of turnover at the senior levels with a kind of vitriol, you would not consider that to be a company that was doing well. The final thoughts based on wthe book of the best ways to repair the presidency is to stop focusing on it. We take all of our problems to t e complaint window. On a certain matter, we are going wrong on this entirely. If we look at other institutions, state and local government and looking at the electoral process, those are the institutions we can effectively address many of the national challenges. With about a half a minute left, your final thoughts. The end though, i had a number of ideas and thoughts but recognized immediately that they are humbly different problems. I hope people read the book and feel a little bit more informed about some of the possible changes might be a big happy fathers day. How h many children . Guest two wonderful children who are asleep. [laughter] host joining from new york, the book is called the hardest job in the world the american presidency. We appreciate your time. Guest thank you so much. House ways and Means Committee to provide to women, minorities and families of the data for one coronavirus pandemic. From Georgetown University poverty and inequality center of the American Enterprise institute and Childrens Health watch at boston medical center. We are ready to go now. Thank you for joining us forr te first hearing on the subcommittee on select revenue measures. We find ourselves in challenging times as evidenced by the new method of conducting Committee Business in accordance with Public Health and safety recommendations. The challenges we encounter in congress are small compared to what i hear and see and what i am sure all of youur here nancyn the