Transcripts For CSPAN2 Julian Zelizer Burning Down The House 20240712

Hello once again everyone and welcome to our event tonight. I decide in the comments all the different places. Watching from. Thank you so much. My name is andrew and to work on the Marketing Team at the strand victory happy to adorn here tonight but before lunch into our discussion with julie and i would like to share a loop lite about the history of the stream. The strand was founded in 1927, stretching from union square to astro place, but were gradually bundled until after three years, the strand is the sole survivor. Now run by thirdgeneration owner. We want to thank all of you for your support, its about our loyalty with booklovers and also an update on the store in case youre curious it is a physical store. Weve been open for about two weeks so wear a a mask, stop bf youre in the area. Tonight what said that without Julian Zelizer celebrate the release of his book burning down the house. Julian is a class of a professor of history of public affairs, Princeton University and the cnn political analyst. His most recent book, the history of the estates from 1974 coauthored by our moderator kevin kruse and the fierce urgency of now was a johnson and the battle for the Great Society which is the winner of the prize for best book on congress. He has been awarded fellowships with the New York Historical society, the russell sage foundation, the guggenheim foundation, and new america. Tonight, julian will be joined by kevin kruse. Kevin kruse studies political social and urban suburban history in the 20s century america. Focus on conflict of arrays, riots riots and religion, his particularly interested in segregation and the Civil Rights Movement as was the rights [inaudible] religious nationalism in the making of modern conservatism. His books include white flight, a land and the making of modern conservatism, one nation under god, how Corporate America and the recently published hotline. Professor is on at one of americas top young innovators by arts and sciences by the Smithsonian Magazine and was listed one of the top historians in history by the history news network. He has recently been named distinguished lecturer by the organization of american historians and by John Guggenheim fellowship. Tongue twisters today. Without further ado Julian Zelizer and kevin kruse. Hi, there. Hey there, everybody. So will have a chat here and pretend hundreds of people are not looking in the background. Its good to see you. As we just heard we worked together on a book called fault lines which covered use history since 19 same four to the present. Newt gingrich was a big part of that so im excited to dive into his career and your terrific book about it. A lot of people, a lot of americans, a lot of the audience which is used worldwide probably only knew gingrich was signed as speaker. Kind of for a lot of americans burst on the scene in 1994 but, of course, he had a few decades of political activism and a career in congress before that. Tell everyone about young Newt Gingrich, when he started in congress, that first run for office, what he was like him when he was all about and where he was coming from. First, welcome to everyone and thanks for joining us. It is nice to see people from all over, but gingrich was quite a character. Been an army brat, grew up living in different parts of europe, his family was originally from right outside harrisburg, pennsylvania, workingclass area that was republican, and ended up in georgia. He went to annemarie. He married his High School Math teacher, and he then went to tulane where he got a phd in history and studied colonialism. Colonial policy. And then he moved to his first job, just as we did two w. Georgia college and it never really liked academia. Within your wants to be the president of the college and head of the department, and he runs for congress. He was one of the first republicans in the area you study, antidemocratic area and is part of that cohort of republicans who want to make the south red instead of blue, to use a modern color scheme. He is elected in 1978. Its his third try at the contacts a pretty Vicious Campaign that gives a taste of what is going to do. His opponents, at one point he says in a statement, if she when she is going to move to d. C. , her husband, her family will still live in the district so they can have lights, he can have their business and gingrich jumps on it says look, she wants to break up her family, she is a radical, which everything about moral values and usually a low blow. Hes in congress and we can talk about it, but by the early 1980s he is basically saying republicans need to do whatever is necessary to finally regain power after being the Minority Party since 1954. He starts to do these outlandish and pretty vicious things as part of his partisanship and he catches peoples attention. One of the ways he does that is through this group come hes a ringleader of come the conservative opportunity society. Tell us about that. He organizes, hes not really an organizer. Its funny, he doesnt care about legislation. He doesnt want to be a committee. He just wants to get his message out but is strategic enough to organize, it is basically a caucus likeminded conservatives who thought he was a visionary and you were willing to do what he did, like someone named rapper was another republican who was pretty eager to take on the democrats and stop listening to all these calls for civility and bipartisanship. He has this the small cohort, e numbers change over time and start at about 12 people and it would grow and there like a team on the house. When gingrich has an idea and as a new ploy is going to introduce, they are part of that team. In some ways they are foot soldiers for the reagan revolution. They are the most aggressive bunch and theyre trying to shake up their own party who say we have to do things in ways that are of the washington box before going to win. There only two things a state and we, and republicans . Thats right. In much of his time is write about, House Minority leader was this guy name bob Michael Slager illinois, hes a get along kind of republican. Hes been there for a while. Doesnt like to shake the vote. He believes and worked with democrats and he Still Believes in bipartisanship. Gingrich hated him as much as he hated speaker tip oneill and then speaker jim wright. Gingrich gets around the Party Leadership that is blocking him to get the message out. All features of is the media. Talk about how he use to learn the media in the 1980s to get that new message out. Thats a big part of the book, and this is really before the conservative media world that we know exists. There is conservative talk radio and this expanding during my story, fox news does exist yet. Theres no internet websites like breitbart. He used the Mainstream Media as its called today, networks, newspapers, Cable Television as a tool. One of the stories i tell in the book which i used to tell for it when listening, kevin and i taught this class that became fault line and i would always tell this story and its when i would tell the story realize its probably a good book here. It was in 1984 and he and his group, conservative opportunity society, the realist at the end that anyone is allowed to go to the front of the house, the chamber and make a speech. They are called one minute speeches, special order speeches. They are not reserved for people just with power and anyone can do it. They started going to the floor and the navy speeches and they were blistering. They started said democrats are weak on defense, democrats dont support reagans war against communism. And with the tv cameras rolling with this new station cspan covering the proceedings, they even name specific democrats like eddie bolin of massachusetts and said how you respond to this . What your answer . The chamber was silent and if you were watching on cspan, it looked like the democrats had no response. But what people couldnt see was no one was in the chamber because the rules only let you put the camera on the speaker. It was political theater at its finest, or worse, depending on your penis. Tip oneill get so mad, the speaker of the house, he burst in and orders the cameras to and the chamber and show no one is there. But even gingrich turns it gets in the says look, tempo kneels breaks the rule. Hes part of this corrupt democratic establishment. It gives he gets his blistering speech any says its the lowest thing you see in his career like gingrich was doing to the democrats. And then the republicans have his word struck from the record saying the speaker spoken properly and its an embarrassment to tip oneill. The story culminates with the media angle, meaning all three Networks Cover this. Nbc, cbs and abc on the nightly news all that stories about gingrich, about can scam, about what these general mavericks were doing and that was what gingrich old we wanted. He couldnt be more pleased. Theres many stories reuses the institutions of the media as a way around his own Party Leaders and to really smear what the democrats are about. Excellent. You mentioned tip oneill was of course, a figure who looms large as reagan starring partner in the 80s. Theres somewhat of a myth, the relationship there. They would get bourbon together, two two old irish politicians who got along after hours. Gingrich blows all that up. So how does gingrich and the people around them really impact the relationship the reagan and oneill had in both and fiction . Theres a lot of fiction to that. Oneill really didnt like reagan was doing to the country and thought he was much too far to the right in terms of Economic Policy and social policy. But it was true that i think leaders in both parties, the bob michaels, tip oneill, they balance the partisanship with the needs of governance and they were always making this tradeoff, and that help them understand when are you going too far. They didnt want to go so far that they start to destroy the institutions and the procedures and the relationships that were simply necessary to govern. Gingrich said through all that out the window. He would write memos to other republicans say enough with bipartisanship, enough with civility. All let me just will keep losing a democrats will keep touting their power. He writes bob michael you to teach republicans he says to be more aggressive, to be more confrontational. To stop negotiating with the republican. It starts as, he is seen as a mccarthyite really. Thats a people talk about him here but what happens in the 80s its interesting, gradually more and more republicans start listening to him. The more success he has with these tactics, the more intrigue they are by him because they want to have power. They start to think about tradeoff which can be costly in american politics, do i want power so much i enter into alliances with people i know can be dangerous to the institution . Parallels between gingrich rise and the parallel of lee atwater in 88. Whats the relationship like . Its very important relationship and they directly come in contact. The heart of the book, i hope everyone buys and enjoys on the strand, but part of the book revolves around gingrich after this can scan incident and after some of the conflicts with the democrats, in 1987 tip oneill has retired and theres a new speaker intent, jim wright had been the majority leader. He was from texas. He was an oldschool democrat and he was a liberal and he believed he was defending against this reagan revolution, the house was a last fashion of Democratic Politics but he was a good target for gingrich who wanted to focus on this theme the democrats were a corrupt establishment. That was his consistent theme. Jim wright had stories about in the press about question relations with people in the district, and he sold this book that he published that speech invokes the groups he spoke to and there were these, a big story or didnt sit quite right. Gingrich use all of these antiwhips washington up into a frenzy saying that jim wright is the most corrupt speaker ever in american history. It was really pretty small story about misbehavior or questionable behavior. Thats the heart of the story. In 1998 this is another time at the Party Establishment sees the value of gingrich, who was running for president george h. W. Bush, reagans Vice President , and in may his opponent, mike dukakis, the governor of massachusetts, is attacking bush and saying that hes sleazy, hes part of the reagan administration, irancontra scandal after scandal and that bush was part of this. He called it the sleaze factor. His campaign person was lee atwater and lee atwater was putting together a pretty Vicious Campaign that played on racial backlash and was very much a character assassination kind of campaign. And in may when bush is struggling in the polls he picks up on this story and he convinces bush to talk about jim right all the time and to take the story that it really spoken on the fringes and mainstream into the campaign. Atwater saw politics just like gingrich. It was a blood sport, character assassination was totally fine and it was about storytelling. Gingrich was historian who understood what storytelling was about. Lee atwater was a standup professional wrestling and he thought politics should be run accordingly. Absolutely. Back up a little bit because jim wright looms large in this effort people who dont follow the story, i thought in the late 80s that there was a House Speaker who is a liberal texan democrat is going to seem like an acronym. Tell people more about jim wright and how he came into this story. Hes this texan, older, born in 1922. Hes a very much a democrat who subscribed to what the new deal represented. Pretty much on board with the Great Society. He did have spotty moments on civil rights issues. Votes against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he believes its going to cost him his seat. Later apologetic about this and thought is one of the great mistakes of his career. But by the 70s and 80s hes pretty liberal. Although hawkish on Foreign Policy id accepts most of what fdr through Lyndon Johnson had put together. Its hard to imagine a Texas Democrat like that but thats who he was. He very much saw Ronald Reagan as a danger. This is a counterpoint to some of the mythology of the 1980s. He thought reagan was pretty rightwing and really taking steps that were dangers to the fabric of the country and overseas. He thought reagan supported the nicaraguan contras for example, is really misguided and that there was opportunity to negotiate peace, that he pursued on its own that reagan didnt care about. He wanted someone wellliked personally, even democrats didnt like him. He was cold, removed, and that hurting. He was old school prewatergate politics, meaning he didnt cank about some of the things he did might look in the eyes of the media and in the eyes of washington. He wasnt corrupt but he prayed in that area of gray that many politicians did which could be used against them. Of course the irony of Newt Gingrich of all people lobbied ethics charges at somebody is his own life was shall we say riddled with some of his own problems. Talk about that. How did his own character issues serve as here . He had lots of character issues that not only did he have them come they were public, the written in the media. There are two strains of problems that by the time he goes after jim wright are no problems. One, his relationships. He had, for example, a pretty difficult divorce with his High School Math teacher, and there was a story about in mother jones in 1984 which was trying to capture what gingrich was like personally, and one thing in the story that caught peoples eye that was when his wife was in the hospital for cancer surgery he came to discuss divorce with her. In the article actually kind of left out the papers which wasnt exactly true, although we did have these discussions in the hospital. He also was known to be someone with a roving eye and who had an affair, and this was no in washington. It mattered, given he was part of the two conservative movement with the moral majority as its base, and he also had ethics problems. At the time he is going after speaker right for the charge of an ethically selling his books to make money, he himself is being charged with having raise money from Interest Group grouo promote a book that he wrote. This story actually is in the papers at the climactic moments of this story worries bringing jim right down, might he doesnt care. Its a remarkable part of his psychology. When these emerge, he bulldoze his right to them and he says its different, its not the same, and to keep moving forward. We where you see with the democs its much more damaging. Back to the democratic character issues. One of the greatest gifts he ever got was finally not having a a republican president in office and being able to run against basically a democratic president in bill clinton. How does gingrich make hay out of the early years of the Clinton Presidency . Thats a good, i think its a good connection with a few decades. In some ways jim wright comes first and bill clinton comes second. And again one of the most remarkable parts of the book, just move backwards even, was to realize how consistent and strategic gingrich was in how he is going to attack the democrats. He really doesnt focus that much of liberal versus conservative all the time, left versus right. Why he really loves is in this postwatergate america with a lot of distrust in government and a lot of just anger in the electorate, he turns the watergate story against democrats. He makes in the establishment and he keeps coming back to this because he thinks that will resonate and it will be his populist message. Jim wright is his first takedown, jim wright becomes the embodiment of everything is been saying since 1974. He draws the picture, createsa character and then brings him down. And i think fast forward to after bill clinton is elected, he very much does our or attemo do the same with bill clinton. He made bill clinton the embodiment not so much of a corrupt democratic establishment. He had moved on to a morally corrupt establishment or culturally too far left establishment, whatever he wanted to focus on, i think you then tries to do the same. Im sure his experience with jim wright embolden him to saint we can move forward with an impeachment and it might very well work. That the move for gingrich was in 1994, right . Talk about how that Campaign Takes shape. Was it really a national election. How big a a role does the contt with america play . How does gingrich spend that massive to . It is an important election, and one of the things that gingrich does is he nationalizes the midterm campaigns very effectively and he uses the things he learned in the 80s about why the media is useful to his advantage. And so the most famous element of that campaign for everyone who remembers it or studied it as a contract in america which is really something of immediate gimmick. It was a set of promises the republicans were making, that if they won they would then enact them. That was the first 100 days, so to speak, as a legislative body. Its published as a terra sheet in readers guide meant to be on peoples refrigerators. He has a route on the steps of the capitol with republicans to talk about the contract of america. About the language they were going to use and its successful, when republicans take over and 94 its a big deal in washington, its the First Time Since 1954 since eisenhower is in office that democrats control both chambers of republican control both chambers of congress. Some of the second step of the reagan revolution in their mind, for conservatives its a big moment and finally thats when they can bring all the tools and strategies and all the rhetorical weapons hes been working on into the very top places the political power as speaker of the house. He mentioned language in the 1984 campaign, that is a really important thing, talk a little bit about the memo, the language of key mechanism by control. That is 1994 because the Republican Party, that is a fascinating memo to seek and you can still google it and that memo comes out in 1990, its been pretty remarkable and called democrats the loony left and accused them of unpatriotic behavior, kim rice was. Because he said later in life, he may be a criminal, he basically presented me by someone who should go to jail and one thing how people saw the democrats in a particular way. In using language like that, the media cannot resist covering what he had to say. And i think you really believe that in words were the way that he gave them Indiana Jones and the adventure in the thrill and the memo comes out 1990, he controlled something called gopac which he took over 1984, it was a Political Action committee essentially, he rebuilt it and used it to distribute, teaching them what to do and memos. This mama 1990 that was written and said to republican candidates, if you want to speak, these are the kinds of words you need to use when talking about democrats, its like sick, trader, slime, radical, words today you step back and it was very important and through group green grades and the use of his words, not as a bomb thrower but as a leader, it legitimated the form of talking about your components and just look at a certain twitter feed, you will see his style still resonates. So he legitimizes that language and also legitimizes George W Bush as well and his manipulations and in the 90s when he had his peak and his relationship with the new conservative. Very close, the right scandal taken place when conservatives talk radio is forcing an 87, 88, 89 after the fairness doctrine is dismantled, he relies on what host are saying about jim rice and theyre very tough on him and they amplify his message, and an effort to raise congressional salary 1989 and so he is in the middle of this and concerned with talk radio, they call it a party by the like and all over the country lashing out and it helps green rage in this cause, he is very tight into conservative talk radio, he was a guest host on a local d. C. Radio show called confrontation. Which was the origin of crossfire on cnn but then as a speaker, he is very close to people like rush, they coordinate messages towards a day, he depends on conservative talk radio and fox on the tail end of his speakership, especially in 1998 during his battle against bill clinton, what is interesting, he comes first and i think we often think of the conservative media as the origin as a smash mouth form of rhetoric, but i think roger and some of the founders were already looking at what republicans had done before they came on the scene and mimic some of them, they mimic the memo and how they broadcast the news. Tell me a little bit about what happens with clintons impeachment and green grades sees the whale and the way in which it backfires. Talk a little bit about his own downfall. Is a shakespearean story at some level and that here he is a speaker, here is bringing together all these tactics and now you have a cohort of republicans, much greater in the congressional opportunity, the conservative opportunity society, its now behind him and he thinks he has a president and he goes after him, we know what the impeachment is about, is stems from the affair that the president has with Monica Lewinsky and then he purges himself, and speaking about it, in the end itll bring him down then bill clinton. At one level a lot of the politics and the bottles explode the how do you fierce temper not a likable person. But in 1998 in the middle of the impeachment, republicans did poorly in the Midterm Election and a lot of them are unhappy with gingrich and hes in another romance and another affair as the republicans are going after bill clinton for the same sort of issue. So republicans get rid of him, on the one hand its a downfall in the other hand its fitting, he was the one that showed that leaders are not going to have their power very long and leaders can be brought down. It was a most predictable that at some point he would have the same faith. Sewer range of speakers, we talk about right, green rage and the ones that come after him, where do you rank gingrich in the postworld war ii speakers . I dont think as speaker in that particular position hes not one of the most influential speakers. I think if you compare him with democrats like sam rayburn who is a speaker for much of the late new deal or the early 1960s, he was much more consequential in terms of legislation and in terms of some of the big debates of the. And you can argue nancy pelosi was more consequentially, and john weiner transforming was pretty important checking what obama was doing, i dont think that was his high point, i really think that. Before the coming speaker is when his legacy is set, he has already transformed the party before he becomes speaker, hes already popularized with the foremost republican partisanship and on the case of what he had already done in the most important part is that he and two sterilizers all these ideas and speaker himself is what put them at a high place, because it signals there was not a Republican Party in town and gingrich was the voice, the new establishment himself, so more for that when i say he was very consequential in the legislative battle that he fought with clinton. One more question will open it up to the q a. If you have a question, please type it in and ill ask julie to play. In the preamp some of the questions and i know what you get and its on everybodys mind, what is gingrich connection to the Republican Party and the Trump Administration today, his wife is the ambassador to the vatican, he is certainly a surrogate for trump on fox news and conservative radio. How much of a connection do you see between that, is this really the result of what he did . I think the latter. I do think a broad level, President Trump in this Republican Party because its a great party, i think a lot of the way trump approaches the politics and the verbal record that we have seen from this president and his willingness to totally break institutions and break procedures and use things that were normal and pretty aggressively abnormal ways, that comes from the logic party that gingrich help to build. At that level theres a lot of connection between them and even this whole focus constantly you hear from the president on an establishment that is out against conservatives and against him, it is something that gingrich really centered his rhetoric on but then theres personal connection such as his wife, gingrich was one of the final possible selections for Vice President , you start to book without story where hes being considered, hes in indiana with all the top trump people, family members and advisors and in the end ring grades goes on Fox Television while he still being considered and to tell sean hannity in an interview he says i dont know for going to get picked because im a pirate President Trump is a pirate into tickets on a private might be too much, he almost is too much which is gingrich which is not in his own interest to say. So theres that connection, Kellyanne Conway was one of his top advisers when he ran for president 2012. And she tried to sell gingrich but he was actually harder to contain into state discipline then trump turned out to be. Finally. Whats discipline from donald trump,. Hes on Fox Television all the time speaking in favor of the president and trying to articulate why this president is important, hes written five books about trump and understanding trump ny Trump America is great for the nation and now a book why his election is so important to our future and he was praising the monument speech on fox is a milestone speech of the countrys history, so the two are very, very close, i am not surprised and i will explain why is this connection goes. Awesome lets get to the questions, we have a chat in a q a, the first comes from miley has a question, is it safe to say from the wedge issues that we recognize today or does not give gingrich too much credit . That is a very fair argument, roger ailes is a republican consultant in the 1980s before he does fox, he is watching very closely, hes very cognitive of the politics that is working for gingrich, he is there throughout everything that i write about and i think this is very much on his mind, hes also interested in producing information that would help the gop but also producing conservative information that would attract viewers. What he understood was the language he has seen from his allies that were functional. I dont think thats a stretch at all, its interesting of the sequence, the politicians come first, the media came second and now get together in the current. Our next question comes from two different people is patty burns and steve asking to compare his policies to the politics. What is the relationship like, are they in the same page were different . The personal relationship i dont know much about but in terms of how mcconnell practices both when he was minority and majority leader, isaac is very gingrich like, the premise of the partisanship is the partisanship that takes precedence over everything. This was a big step, i know today it sounds obvious but the idea of putting aside the concerns of governments and putting aside the institutions, that was a big deal to do, i think mcconnell, if you want to understand anything about him, he takes about partisan power all the time and people are always surprised when he does, whether its not allowing the Supreme Court nominee and as we saw during the Obama Presidency or using government shutdown, its tools for the gop, that is out of the gingrich playbook, that is the logic of what he was saying, i think mcconnell is a perfect example, not with the rhetoric, hes quiet, he doesnt like to be the person blasting the words on the floor but in terms of the procedure, this is the kind of stuff green ridge was calling for. On the flipside, were there any democratic members of a good strategy to combat gingrich, if so what was it. Thats an important question, my book is as much about democrats as gingrich. One of the interesting elements in the book, a lot of democrats in the 80s did not see where this is ongoing including jim wright, he totally understands what hes up to, how far he goes, when gingrich was lobbing bombs at him saying the most corrupt person ever, he would answer technical, legal explanations of what he did in didnt violate any laws and you have to understand reporters are not going to care much about that, they light hearing gingrich. Finally at a moment of the right story, he did not have to resign, what happened, Many Democrats are scared and basically start to pressure him privately to step down and tell the media that maybe he should go and that was a strategy they thought would work, and it did not work. The whole point was, republicans were not going to stop when this was done, they kept going. There were a few democrats urged the party to be tougher, there was one democrat, they wrote off beds which is a high point in the scandal that said we hit back, we have to tell the public what gingrich is about, we dont have to have speaker right resign, he should resign and we have to fight, the parties are different, i dont think theyre willing to do that and i think thats part of the challenge they face. That leads into another question, is it likely the Democratic Party will have a speaker like ring grades or the majority leader like mcconnell in the near future . At some level, no, i think the parties are different and people often ask me why do you have republicans and why are they so much fiercer and what theyre willing to do and i think theres an answer that goes to what the parties are about, democrats believe in government, government is essential to the platform, policies, to the hol whole worldview, partisanship is so fierce, it undermines the ability of government to work, it undermines the ability of politicians to craft all of these, it does not work well for democrats, there always going to be checked by the fear of destroying what is so important to them, republicans have presented themselves with an antigovernment party, in general are much more comfortable with the government that is not growing and even dysfunctional, dysfunctional government makes sense, i think republicans and future republicans are much more willing to go there and to take those risks because are not dependent on washington working and we see that right now in the middle of this pandemic, i do think you can still be tough partisan, it doesnt mean being the destructive partisan, i imagine younger democrats, the arc and even the hundred types for 2018, they have now come of age watching the new Republican Party, i think theyll be more inclined to be tougher and use the media more effectively, to get back when the republicans attack, they will never go to the same place, i think the party is imbalanced that way. That leads into another question from an anonymous attendee, its about gingrich, the person, the politician, can you speak to the structural factors. Theres lots of structural factors, for example, republicans are doing well in the 1980s and starting to gain steam on capitol hill because a lot of the corporate world has set up shop in washington during the 1970s and theyre starting to redirect Campaign Funds to the gop, which is much more sympathetic to what they were looking for, deregulation, supply tax, that money is very important to the Republican Party, the democrats are not pristine, one of the arguments in my book, because they dont go far enough in the 70s responding to watergate, the Democratic Party is structurally filled with problems, they too are taking a lot of money, they do have relationship with lobbyist and you can almost pick any number and they wrote in the system, this person must be corrupt and that stems from structural problems and sense then, since his rise to power, there are other key structural elements such as the perfection of gerrymandering combined with the Huge National investment by the gop in state politics to make sure the states in 2010 were able to craft districts that would solidify very red republicans for the foreseeable future. So structural issues matter, i want to tell a story that focused on people and turning points, it was important to me, i spend a lot of my time talking about the big factors behind partisanship, how the media changes, we did this in our book, how the parties realigned, how voters sort, all are crucial, its about individual leaders who push politics to a certain direction and moments when jim wright falls from power that legitimate the new style of politics which might not even legitimated if the story turned out differently. Thats why i wanted to tell this in a more human way and really hone in on the individual who mattered at this moment. Speaking of partisanship, we have a question, could too much partisanship break both parties . Sure, partisanship under strain is a dangerous thing. Some partisanship is good and its clearly good to have coherent ideas, a lot of people want parties to stand for something rather than watereddown ideas but if partisanship is always a priority and both parties go fully in that direction, they really doubled down, the democrats finally say so be it, were going all out, you will just destroy the ability of the institution to work, any semblance we have now policymaking in the middle of the pandemic, that would be gone, all you have is politicized responses to every crisis we face weathers big crises like pandemics and criminal Justice Reform or small crises like passing the budget so the government can pay for what they said they were going to pay for. And that is destructive, i dont believe theres no cost to all out partisanship. Assuming partisanship continues, theres a great question from vanessa, who do you think the republicans are grooming to be the next gingrich and or mcconnell. It sounds like Tucker Carlson will run for president , maybe thats argued there, im not sure the grooming people from within, obviously there are figures like ted cruz who still remains even though they have been somewhat isolated, big voices of the party, i cleaned up version, i think those are still some of the singers i look to but as this continues i think theyre also looking outside traditional politics for the people who are the future and i say Tucker Carlton is kind of a joke but our president really came out of the Reality Television and i would not be surprised if some of these outlets are brown where there trying to find new voices in their younger members like tim scott, who im sure some republicans are looking for voices who dont simply replicate everything that has been done. But i know im giving a lot of answers, tom cotton who likes ted cruz, they just do it in a more polished way, right now i think those of the voices that are being heard although im sure the party will look for others. We have time for one more and then on going to my own question, i know the answer to this, the question from an anonymous attendee, did you interview gingrich yourself . My question is, are you bracing for a response to the book . The first question i did it, i tried many times and each time i had a meeting, it was secretary postpone or cancel, after several years i finally gave up, i did have lunch with him many years ago when he was at princeton and before i was writing the book with a group of people, more importantly his lawyer granted me access to the congressional archive into historians and still the heart and soul of what we do and his papers were unbelievable, they are the best congressional papers ive ever used, their strategy memos, handwritten notes from him, communication within the party which is the material i am searching for and it resolved in front of me, i did not get to speak to him about the book but i got firsthand all the documentation from the. I met with jim wright, his archives are very good as well, in terms of bracing myself, im right about people who are alive and i understand they all have different interpretations and im sure i suspect, i think at some level he wont disagree with what i wrote but he did the right thing. Im sure, he did believe jim wright was corrupt, he will hold to the argument, im not bracing myself but im curious if he responds, hes very focused on q20 and his book. I have no doubt youll hear from him in time. I want to thank everyone for coming out again, the book is terrific, bringing down the house, it was not a collection reciting talking head stories, its about gingrich, the great book, to bite from the strain of this event, it is a chat room there and you can get it in alternate back over to andrea, thank you all for coming out. Thank you, that was so wonderful and so much information in the hour. I love it. Do you have any final i know youre beginning to share your book that you published in anything youd like to send out before we sign off . Thank you to everyone who put it together and obviously if you read a book it has the team behind it and they have a great team of editors and publicist, thinking to my family which has been instrumental to allowing me. Perfectly said. Thank you both again, you made something really wonderful, thank you for watching here on facebook, you been participatory and is been really fun and thank you for that, have a great evening. Thank you, you two. On her weekly Author Interview program after words, columnist cal thomas offered his thoughts on whether the United States will remain a superpower. Heres the portion of the show. Used to be when you had an election, the losing side with blankets wounds, how do we retool our message, how do we win next time. Now is how do we bring this guy down, this person down and they were arguing about impeachment, the democrats were, even before the election and certainly the day or two after from some of the more radical members of congress, thats not the way to do it and it poisons the atmosphere and as people set in this impeachment fiasco, it was supposed to be rare and now i fear when republicans get back in control in the democrat president , theyre going to go the same route, that will polarize employees in the political atmosphere even more than it is now which is bad enough. To watch the rest of the program and other shows, visit our website, booktv. Org, click on the after words tab near the top of the page. Now on the tv after words, environmental progress Founder Michael shellenberger offers his thoughts on what he calls apocalyptic environmentalism and provide solutions for current and environmental problems, hes interviewed by the author and director of Columbia University Earth Institute initiative on communication and sustainability. It is great to see you again, its been