Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About President Trump And The 2020 Presidential Election 20240712

In advance of the Republican National convention we want to show you related other programs from our archives. Coming up, programs about donald trump and his supporters thoughts on how to win reelection in november. First up from this past february on our either Interview Program afterwords k t mcfarland recalls her time working for the president. Trump understood if you rebuild the American Economy to make the strongest economy in the world, all the middle east oil and make America Energy independence, you have a lot of leverage in the energy world and also because we are the recipients of purchasers, other countries make stuff and sell it to us. They need to sell it to us. We make stuff, trump understood and realized if he could fix the American Economy, get us off of middle east energy could use trade wars to renegotiate agreements with china, japan, south korea, one with britain soon, mexico and canada. Put the United States enough far better position of much more leverage and then start negotiating and my advice to him is now that you have china, you have a trade agreement with mexico and canada, japan and south korea, probably get one with the brits by the end of the year, we now have a consortium and trading block where we can go to china. A lot of us have the same complaints and go as a block led by the United States and say we demanding the deal, we dont want to keep you dont want you to stop exploiting the generosity weve given you over the decades. I want to talk about tax americana, which we think about when we think about china. It has given us with American Intervention in iraq and afghanistan which youve seen as a complete waste of american lives and american treasure. How do we extricate ourselves from like iraq and afghanistan. There are concerns with isis and al qaeda and others in the middle east. How do we get out of those and focus our energy and resources at home . Foreign affairs, you pick your fights and have priorities, the priority now is china. Isis is a problem and all these other things are problems we dont want to lose track of the real problem. He was great at understanding the real game if the soviet union and the United States and its nuclear weapons, lets not get sidetracked with what might prevent you dealing with a major issue of the time. When trump has allowed the Energy Industry in the United States, from net energy importance to exporters within a short period of time, replacement the world as major source of energy which once we get off of their energy, dont have to get sucked into the psychodrama is that they been fighting each other for thousands of years, we dont belong in that. We could probably replace their oil so that to me is one of the important things, all the other stuff you mentioned is important, not is important and it distracts you from the important things of dealing with asia and china and the 5g Global Technologies of the future, you should have a different approach so i was critical of not going into afghanistan because we should have killed the people that went after us but we did that after 3 months. We not is not of statement to rebuild afghanistan and shouldnt of stayed around in all these countries. You talk about wanting to nation build overnight even if overnight looks like 20 years and what is missing is going up a Civil Society and institutions this we cant just make a democracy, created democracy, create educational institutions, talks about invasions being the right thing but the same being the wrong thing. Im interested in what your views on institutions outside the United States. I appreciate your candor about the president s tweeting and im interested in your thoughts on the importance of institutions in this country as a backbone of democracy. The Administrative State which is one institution but on the other hand the judiciary, the president has attacked judges in terms of speaking about the judges in charge of trials of People Associated with them. Talk to me about the importance of institutions. One of the most important institutions, the first amendment, freedom of speech, the press is going to be against him. You can see the quote from various some what you are tuned to, George Washington couldnt be bothered with the newspaper but continue. Trump understood the way reagan did and all of our great revolutionary president did that you have to find a way to get directly to the American People and jump over the heads of those press establishments which reagan did it by going around the country and speaking in the cities and towns across the country, going to local radio stations and local television stations. Fdr did it by fireside chats were talking on the radio directly to the American People. How does trump do it, he understands the Washington Press corps will not like him and they will hate them and lie about him, fake news. He found a way to reach over the heads of those people directly to the American People tweeting. Some of them make my skin crawl. But it has been very effective for his ability to get directly to the American People and for that to me thats an institution he and reagan and fdr, lincoln, going all the way back, the freespeech of the american leaders to talk directly to the American People. How do we find that balance, wouldnt have had watergate, the wall street journal, Washington Post where is the balance between a press mob getting way in the president and a Fourth Estate that is asking the questions that matter to get answers to the American People or is it just theres always going to be a tension. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out, you talked about this in the beginning of our conversation. A lot of people screaming at each other. It is like trying to reason with a tired mom 2yearold toddler. You are never going to break that. What happens . Eventually those people become irrelevant and that is the ultimate proof. A real believer in the common sense of the common american and those voices that are trying to strangle refuse to listen will eventually go by the wayside because nobodys going to listen to them anymore, they just blaming. Am i worried about the balance, yes, it get out of whack. There but at the end of the day it seems to find a center. The Republican National Convention Starts next weekend we are showing you some programs about donald trump. Up next author nick adams offers his thoughts on what donald trump and Winston Churchill have in common. This is from may of 2020. Donald trump and Winston Churchill have a lot in common. When you look at both men you wouldnt think that to be the case. One loved to drink, the other is a 6 foot 3 teetotalers, one famously napped in his pajamas every afternoon, the other barely sleeps. One began their career by introducing tariffs, the other by opposing them. One was a great soaring compelling orator, the other a rather crude but very effective tweeter so on the first surface say seem to be very different but as soon as you start to dig a little deeper as i did in my book trump and churchill you find that the men had remarkable similarities, both loved their country, both planes speakers and clear thinkers, both alpha males, both had a neck romanias relationship with the media, both endured massive battles with the establishment in their own political party, both had predecessors that were considered very weak, Winston Churchill had Neville Chamberlain and donald trump had barack obama. There are actually incredible parallels between the times and the men and that is why i wrote the book. Host when we look back on Winston Churchill of history we picture him as beloved and with unanimous support. Guest it certainly wasnt that way. Winston churchill much like donald trump was a disruptor, somebody that was bold, somebody that was brash, someone that decided to do things a different way and whenever somebody like that comes into the fold often the people that have been in the fold for a long time really dont like it and do everything they can to stop it and in my book we offer excerpts from British National newspapers from the midtolate 1930s, early 1940s and if i didnt tell you those excerpts were from British National newspapers referring to Winston Churchill you might think you were reading the Washington Post or New York Times and it was about donald trump so similar other criticism, so identical i the accusations, both men lacks judgment, dont listen to anybody around them, only go with their gut instincts, that they are too optimistic, all the things we heard about donald trump with criticisms leveled at Winston Churchill. Host both were party switchers as well. They certainly were, yes. Winston churchill was fluid. Winston churchill was a lifelong politician. Donald trump a billionaire businessman. Both of them had different backgrounds but they certainly were fluid in their early years in terms of the political affiliations that they had but what both men had in common was love of country, love of the ordinary person who lived in their country and they had sentiments and tastes that resonated with the people of the time. In the movie the darkest hour a couple years ago many of the viewers will remember a scene where Winston Churchill goes into the tube in london and visits with the regular commuters and had that kind of great relationship with the average person and rather surprisingly because Winston Churchill was aristocratic, born into money, wealthy, in the same way donald trump is this billionaire businessman that seems to have a lot of bluecollar tastes in terms of the food he says what he does, both men very relatable. Donald trump loves junk food, Winston Churchill similarly a doomed dutch like all of us to on occasion, drank too much, these are all things that we kind of look at as humans and say i dont mind that guy, he does a few of the things i do, he is pretty normal. Host you mention the times were similar. Guest they were. Certainly right now what we are going through with a fight with the invisible enemy, churchillian sort of phrase donald trump elected to use so there are wartime warlike circumstances right now and we saw new york mayor bill diblasio come out recently and accuse the president of peddling a false optimism with respect to the coronavirus so a lot of that is similar. Churchills fight was on the outside and Donald Trumps fight is clearly on the inside so host what does that mean . Guest churchill was fighting of the axis powers, overcoming nazi tyranny and that particular threat from a foreign enemy and in many ways Donald Trumps fight is a cultural fight, culture war, battle for values and he does have foreign enemies in terms of china and iran and others, north korea but really most people see Donald Trumps most major war to be a domestic one where he is fighting various elements of the media, various elements of the Republican Party, obviously the democrats and others. Cspans coverage of the Republican National Convention Starts this monday and booktv is taking a look at books about donald trump. Up next from this past june, mary jordan profiles first lady milania trump. Trump love is really complicated, but i am told and have seen that when they first got to gather there was a real connection. I think it was real. He admires her because she is cruel. When she gets angry she doesnt scream or do something impulsive, she just walks away. He loves her cruel and she admires what he is able to do. She admires his connection to people. They are both really distrustful of most people. They both value image, they both value beautiful things, wealthy things, they both like a lot of the same things. I think they are more in common than people think and really tight unit, family, trump trump trump and for her it is her family, her mother, father and baron, tight group and very few other penetrate. I think their relationship has hit rocks at different times. Theyve been together for 22 years. I have a lot in the book about this but she was furious about his infidelity. As she was reading about Stormy Daniels and taryn mcdougall, but she has an extraordinary capacity to kind of figure out where is my next best move. Someone who has known her for a long time saying she always thinks that way. She doesnt do anything in a hurry and does she get more from walking away from trump or staying with him . That is the way she thinks. Host do you think those disclosures, they were certainly embarrassing. Do you think they were surprising to her . Guest several key people told me she learned details from all those press reports, she did not know the details. I find it hard to believe she didnt know she knew something was going on but the details she has a son. She hates how he talks. The access Hollywood Tape where he was talking, and tape. Tens of millions of people heard him say things about i can grab any woman i want, highly embarrassing. She didnt know that tape existed. She didnt know all that she was going to be in for when they went into politics. Host that was a crucial moment. She could have blown his president ial ambitions by publicly rebuking him and walking away. That was a perilous time for donald trump in the 2016 campaign but she didnt, she stood by him. What is your sense about why she did that . Guest there is a vivid scene in the book about this because in trump tower with Chris Christie, steve bannon, for whole inner circle, one month to november of 2016 election and they hit play and the room listens to that access Hollywood Tape and trump was getting read from here on up and everybody, some people thought the campaign was dead there. Others were moving quickly into how are we going to spin this but it was pretty clear pretty quickly that trump was just worried about milania because he knew if she didnt stand by him right then, female voters, close race, hillary clinton, first woman president and without her backing him up i think in a close election, he didnt even win most votes, just the key states, 10,000 votes in one state made the difference, i went to pennsylvania right after that because milania spoke, pennsylvania was the key ground and in the end way less, fraction of one . They send milania out and she stood up to a crowd, a daytime crowd and vouched for him and he won pennsylvania. Nobody would dispute in that campaign how important she was in that moment. Her presence made a difference in the campaign in that moment, you write about other ways she had influence over donald trump including her most fundamental decisions. Milanias voice was important when he was thinking about that. What did she do, what influence did she have . This is why people underestimated her. She famously doesnt go into the west wing, she stays in the first ladys quarters in the east wing of the white house or even more quiet residential parts but he has brought in candidates for key jobs in the administration mostly run through her. The reason, and he doesnt trust that many people and things she has big instincts so during the campaign when he was trying to figure out who to pick for Vice President , the last three were Newt Gingrich, former new Jersey Governor Chris Christie and mike pence. She spent two days with the pences. In july of 2016 and she knew Chris Christie for a long time and met gingrich and talk about maybe it will begin grits because we need help on capitol hill and all this speculation but people i spoke with were right in the middle of this said once milania said to donald pence is your guy because he will be content to the number 2 and not be gunning for your job like the other alphas. Another told me she thought the two were alphas and pence would be content to just be Vice President so it is interesting to me, she knows how to prevent a ride human to trump in a way that is appealing. As Anthony Scaramucci told me trump likes to be the star and doesnt like costars and that was a very appealing way to deal with Vice President of candidates. The Republican Party and the upcoming president ial election, former republican speaker of the house Newt Gingrich who in a program from june of 2020 made his case for why the president should be reelected in november. When i set out to write the book i thought trump had a very substantial advantage and i would have said at the time my expectation i think now it is up in the air but it depends in part on what happens. If the economy starts to come back enough, but people feel we see hope, then i think the president as a huge opportunity to win. If the economy stumbles and it feels like whatever trumps magic was, that he aint got it anymore then there is a problem. The challenge for democrats, i did a newsletter the other day on biden is Schumer Pelosi as a machine and said this is not an election between donald trump and president biden. Is an election between donald trump and the machine of which biden is the weakest of the 3. A number of friends raise me and called, the thing about biden, pelosi and schumer, no supervision. It would be wild and so i think for the most part biden is a candidate who is so weak that the longer he can hide the better off use. I think the morning he starts campaigning if he ever does it will be so painful to watch his inability to function that i think he could melt pretty quickly. You made it point in the book that donald trump made a bet and that is that his use of social media could beat the news media and he has been at it now in that war using those tactics for several years. Do you think technology is such today but his grasp on social media gives him an advantage over a unified media on the left or are we seeing as a result of all this cultural wore a balancing effect . Guest without social media trump would have been driven off the field. This is a guy, as early as summer of 16 people were writing columns that say we might have to impeach him. The day was sworn in Washington Posted an article about donald trump will be impeached. He has had 92 or 93 hostility every single day from winning the election to today. If he had not had a huge social media base he would have been broken. As it is he has a slight advantage. He doesnt fight to a standstill. Is gotten a lot more people thinking about fake news than i wouldve thought likely. We had the experience of going to the secondlargest egyptian collection outside of egypt. We gotta guy in this museum and we are going through one of all 30 points to a statue and he says people will tell you x but that is fake news. I have an italian guide in an Egyptian Museum using Donald Trumps language. That is Cultural Impact so i would say, i wish it was a little more disciplined and i wish having said that his ability to keep pounding away i think has saved his presidency, and he would have been crushed in a preinformation age environment because the media hates him havent seen any candidate faced with the level of hostility trump is to live with every day. Interesting point that you make about trumps style of pounding away just relentlessly, always counterpunching, whether counterpunching up or down, that is how he plays it. Do you think the left has led to something from that . I get the sense that they have become as relentless in the attack as well . I think they were. It is what they did to gerald ford. Forward hits is head getting off air force one and that becomes a relentless series of jokes. There are two different stories that you touched on and blended together. When is he believes in counterpunching and i think he learned that by coexisting with page 6 in new york. He learned early on that every time they hit him he had them as long as he did that he was getting lots of publicity. In the early days he was a relatively unknown Young Real Estate guy and a wants to rise and be known and manhattan is as tough an environment as there is for doing that. So this deeply held belief that you always counterpunching but the other part, hes a genius at random. Go back to his first book the art of the deal which was a bestseller for years and years. How many trump towers, trump hotels, trump golf courses, gave me several trump ties and says the reason they are successful is two inches longer than most so americans he wants the entire stick, late in the campaign where romney said something about trump is not really a business guy. He brings in trump states, trump water, 26 minutes bringing product out, the number one tv show which stayed on the air for 13 years so i would say he understands relentlessly positive optimistic branding that is the apprentice and the trump ties and so forth and understand counterpunching but they are different patterns. They happen to fit together but they are different patterns. Cspans coverage of the Republican National Convention Starts this monday and booktvs look at other programs about donald trump and his campaign for reelection continues. Of next a portion of a recent interview with faith and freedom innovation founder ralph read weighs in on why even indian evangelical christians should support the president. The president s walk to st. Johns episcopal. I strongly supported it. I released a statement at the time to that effect. I supported it for two reasons. Number one because i think the president was making a strong and powerful statement by walking across Lafayette Park that we are not going to allow our cities or hours streets to be taken over by criminals, by leaders and by domestic terrorists who burned down businesses, shoot Police Officers and in the case of st. Johns tried to burn down one of the most sacred ecclesiastical spaces in our country. That is wrong, it is over the line, dishonors the memory of george floyd. It is contrary to everything Martin Luther king preached, lived and taught and ultimately is counterproductive to addressing the very real issue of racism, discrimination and Police Brutality. The second message he was sending is that while we need to fight the evil of racism and while we need Public Policy response to racism and Police Brutality and i support all that, my organization faith and Freedom Coalition lobbied for years for criminal Justice Reform so africanamericans who we believe had been unfairly incarcerated under mass incarceration would get a Second Chance at life, not just africanamericans but disproportionately those of color but ultimately the answer to what ails our country including the original sin of racism can be found in the repentance, the forgiveness and the redemption found through the gospels and by going there trump was saying that and i strongly supported it. Host another topic you cover in your new book for god and country is mike pence, quote, in pens trump james what all president s want but few get. Ineffective, loyal advocate who has no agenda other than to advance a single client namely the president. I am biased because mike pence is a friend of mine and i talk about it in the book, i got to know him when he came to Congress Early on. We became friends. We would have him speak at faith and Freedom Events around the country, when he was a congressman. I think very highly of him and i talk about in the book some of the behindthescenes stories about how he ended up on the ticket, stories he shared with me and i think mike pence is one of the finest Vice President s we ever had. I know the president is grateful to have him and i know the president loves him, thinks very highly of him and values his counsel tremendously. I couldnt tell all the stories i know in the book about the role he has played in the administration but even though mike pence is obviously a person of great ambition of his own, i personally think a godly ambition, his name and only consideration is to serve the president and his country and he has done an incredible job doing so including most recently heading up the White House Corona Virus Task force. He is one of the finest Public Servants i have ever got to know in my career. Host what has been your involvement with the Trump Administration as an advisor etc. I am a friend of the president and friend to Vice President and friend of a lot of people who have served, that is my main role. I support them, do everything to make their job easier. It is a tough job. In addition to that, i serve on the White House Faith Initiative and in my capacity as head of faith and freedom we work closely with the white house on a lot of Public Policy matters including the life issue, immigration reform, many other issues. I have a great team at faith and freedom and they are working on those issues to advance that Public Policy. Host when you look at the hard numbers what percentage of evangelicals support donald trump over joe biden . In 2016 they supported donald trump at the highest level ever recorded in modern american political history. He got 81 of the vote, hillary got 16. I dont know that i have seen a test yet that had an evangelical sample that i consider to be reliable enough yet but right now the president s job approval which is a fairly good indication depending on the paul somewhere between 65 percent75 . At the ballot where he was in the polling in the summer of 2016 once we get past the pandemic and have more reopenings we can have a Real Campaign and biden picks his running mate we have the convention i think it will be in the high 70s to mid 80s and i predict evangelicals will vote for the president in even larger numbers than they did in 2016 and for good reason given all that he has achieved, richly deserves their support. Host are there enough evangelicals to help bring donald trump over the finish line in 2020 . Guest not by themselves but they are a critical constituency, 27 of the entire electorate and when you combine the number of main line christians who dont identify as evangelical but consider the bible to be the word of god and pray daily and go to church weekly, they wouldnt subscribe to that term born again but they share the faith and frequently attending roman catholics, 36 of the electorate, bigger than any African Americans vote, hispanic vote and union vote combined and they will turn out in big numbers and really going to matter and particularly those prolife catholics are going to make or break the president ial race in the upper midwest in those critical states of michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania so they are really important. They are not the only constituency but they are the largest, the most dynamic and the most vibrant constituency in the entire electorate. Host one of the things you do is look at 2020 through the lens of 2016. 6. 5 billion were spent over all in the 2016 elections and you say it will be an increase the democrats and the left are registering voters at a faster pace than the republicans. What does the landscape look like today given everything we are going through . I wrote the book prior to the pandemic and so that kind of forced both campaigns to go all virtual and all online for some period of time. The president announced hes about to begin his rallies again. I believe the first one is going to be in the next 10 days to 2 weeks. I understand it will be in oklahoma. We will see what happens but prior to this, the educated projections were the two sides woods bend 10 billion between them. I dont know if we will hit that number or not but we are continuing to register voters at faith and freedom. The overwhelming majority of churches are closed but in those states where we can we are doing it doortodoor, doing it online. Im sure the left is as well. We will have the biggest turn out in American History in a president ial race both in raw numbers and the share of the electorate and the biggest share of registered voters weve had since 1968. It is going to be big, is going to be close, going to be hardfought and because is going to be so much reliance on absentee voting, early voting and mail in ballots because of the pandemic, candidly, i cant predict but because it takes longer to cast those votes and they can be postmarked as late as election day depending on the state we may not know the winner in some of these states for days. It is going to be Something Like weve never seen before. Reporter in advance of the Republican National convention we are taking the opportunity to show you some programs about donald trump at the partys efforts to win his reelection. From this past june author and political commentator David Horwitz offers his father on the democratic partys reaction to the Trump Presidency. The founders understood that human beings are not all that rational. The creation of america is a kind of miracle. The sovereigns, the king, the people are sovereign but they distrusted the people quite frankly. Lets not forget that heather was elected. Very important. They get swept up in passions such as weve seen in the past couple weeks in this country, destroying large sections of our metropolitan areas. The founders wanted to frustrate those passions so in the Democrat Party declared war on the Trump Administration before it was in office, committing a fundamental act of treason. The only other time this has happened was 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected and we had a civil war. We cant have a civil war now like that because the federal government is way too powerful. A political war over control of the executive and the 3 branches of government. How far could the democrats take this . I run through this very briefly. Obama appointed as head of the Intelligence Agency several political allies, clapper, comey, they were recruited by the Obama Administration to overthrow the Trump Presidency by framing trump as a traitor himself. Classic case of projection and carrying on this charade for three years, at least three years, by any means yesterday, one of my chapters is called impeachment by any means necessary. When i wrote the book i knew this but we have absolute proof now because rick grew now brunel, director of National Intelligence by Trump Classified the documents so that all of these treasonous actors, nancy pelosi, adam schiff, comey, brennan, they all knew there was no collusion between trump and russia, no evidence whatsoever. Erics wall well, such wretched characters, the ranking number 2 guy on the Intelligence Committee still maintaining the trump is a russian agent, there is no evidence, think about that mentality, the Democrat Party is ethical, moral compass, the ends justify the means, to rid the country of trump, much worse than that, rid america of its values and they like the word transform although some of them use the actual word revolution. They want to revolutionize america and turn it into a socialist gulags. The whole democrat leadership, they called trump a liar when he exaggerates or disagrees with them. Lying is pretty precise, you have to know what you are saying is false and do it anyway and the entire impeachment project is driven by democrat lies and it is selfconscious and circumvent procedures a democracy that have been in place whatever it is, 240 years. These are the most frightening things about what happened in my book. The Republican National convention airs this week on cspan beginning monday and commentates with Donald Trumps acceptance speech on thursday. And tvs look at books about the president his former Deputy Assistant attorney general and george w. Bush administration john you ways in on president ial powers and the u. S. Constitution appeared on author Interview Program after words at the beginning of august. I started out wary of donald trump. I wasnt a supporter of him in the 2016 election and the thing that worried me was he was a populist, the constitution seems designed to stop populists. It is fairly antidemocratic in nature and a lot of ways like the senate and the electoral college, the presence of the states as important part of the constitution so i was worried when trump came in as a populist to wants to achieve an agenda, that he would strain against and go beyond constitutional restraints of power and i was worried he was doing that in things like the travel ban, threats to build the border wall without congressional approval and in my early piece i urged them to use his president ial powers primarily for National Security and Foreign Affairs at their height and instead understand in Domestic Affairs his role is to enforce the law and work with congress to get legislation passed. What happened since 2017 until today is i found his critics have become the ones who have gone too far in trying to stretch the constitution because trump so enrages them they lodged attack after attack on his legitimacy, trumps critics talked about getting rid of the electoral college, talks about packing the Supreme Court to get to 15, want to to return us to a world with permanent statutorily protected independent councils which criminalize our politics, nationalize large parts of the economy with a Green New Deal and the effect of that has left trump undeniably using the constitution more as a shield, to pursue his own selfinterest but that leads to him the field of relying on more traditional interpretations of the constitution so i argue intentionally or unintentionally he has become more the defender of the traditional constitution than his critics. A number of topics you cover from pardons, executive orders, the border wall, the impeachment process. I want to get your take on the president s exercise of executive authorities starting with the impeachment, the president did not apologize, he attack the legitimacy of the process, you also dont hold the president blameless for how he handles controversial phone call or the ukraine matter altogether. Is it really a win for the institution of the presidency, and affirmation of the defense of constitutionalism if defending his situation that he himself created and never should have happened in the first place. It does in the sense that he reaffirms in my mind how the constitution intends us to deal with executive misconduct or abuse of power. Trump created the problem in the first place by his unconventional approach to Foreign Policy or as some people claim, his mixture of Public Interest with his own private political interest, the deeper constitutional question is how does the constitution try to constrain the executives and i thought it doesnt it does it in 2 ways, the election in terms of the framers view how to constrain an executive who you think is abusing their powers, then you elect congressional majorities to oppose him and get him out of office. The mistake that occurred here was impeachment was being used for activity which fell short of the constitutional standard. I dont think impeachment requires a crime. High crimes and misdemeanors does include abuse of executive power but has to be a serious one and seemed to me the kinds of accusations being levied against donald trump were designed for electoral process. Wasnt one of those serious levels of treason or serious bribery of the kind where like the king of france paid off the king of england during the seventeenth century, something the framers had in mind and you see that in the founders requirement that the senate get to 2 thirds before it actually would remove a president even though it put impeachment in the hands of a simple majority, it is difficult to remove the president through impeachment and that would funnel the kind of fighting we saw take place, should be properly funneled into the electoral process. Let me go deeper into the circumstances that led to that, the president likes to talk about the deep state of officials he believes, you give them some defense in the book, do not accept the legitimacy of the 2016 election and in the president s view, tried to undermine a duly elected president. You address the complicated issue of the principle loyalties of people who saw an oath to the constitution and not a branch of government or to the president and who believe they have an obligation to honor that by bringing to the attention of authorities whether it is internal oversight or committees in congress, potentially illegal or unethical behavior. This issue arises twice, not just impeachment but the Russia Collusion Investigation and raises a deeper philosophical question about governing. I am not claiming trump is thinking deeply about political theory but by pursue of his political selfinterest he is abandoning this greater constitutional good which is more tied to the 18thcentury constitution. Let me describe what he was fighting against in a way whether it is the fbi or gym comey or the permanent National Security council. I dont think of it as a deep state, the phrase comes from turkey, the turkish progress. It is a progressive era bureaucracy the idea of which was most important Public Policy decisions are technical or scientific or professional so we want to delegate power to those experts and insulate them from politics, not increase political control, it is very much Woodrow Wilsons thought who had a great impact on the constitution. We see that in the fbi and foreign service, trump embodies more 18thcentury view of what the executive branches about which is the voters elect the president , he is the only one charged with executive power and enforcing the laws and everyone in the executive branch is conducting Foreign Policy, enforcing the laws, doing it as an assistant to the president so it is a more political vision of the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy is responsive to the president and we hold him accountable through politics and to me that is what happened in the impeachment and the russia collusion, the foreign service, the fbi, saying the president was unfit for office so to me they they were challenging the head of their own branch as unfit. Not really their job. As you say theres this impeachment system and commerce has the right and power to remove the president and they will gather that information from executive, from people who work there. I dont think impeachment was off. I dont see how it would run other, how those witnesses would be from the executive branch was the standard the house and some members of the senate were using as high crimes and misdemeanors stands, i would have thought all those things were much more appropriate for oversight hearings to be brought out for spending cuts or the usual tools congress uses to fight with the executive branch and putting it before the voters. This will all be before us when the vote on the president this november, that is the better solution. That wraps our look at Donald Trumps strategy, all the programs can be viewed in their integrity on booktv. Org. A reminder the cspan coverage of the upcoming Republican National Convention Begins this monday, check cspan. Org for a schedule of events. Monday Republican National Convention Delegates in charlotte, North Carolina to nominate donald trump and mike pence for a second term in office. Live coverage begins at 9 am eastern on cspan. Bins watch booktv saturday evenings at 8 00 eastern, settle in and watch several hours of your favorite authors. Tonight we are preaching programs with robert caro whose books include working, the powerbroker and the multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson and watch next saturday august 20 ninth as we feature programs with the late christopher hitchens. Bins watch booktv on cspan2. You are watching booktv on cspan2 every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2 created by americas Cable Television company is a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. Beginning now, booktv on cspan2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend, television for serious readers. Here are some programs to watch out for today and tomorrow. On our author Interview Program afterward science journalist Deborah Mckenzie reports on how covid19 became a Global Pandemic and authors her thoughts how to prevent future outbreaks. We offer books about donald trump in the upcoming election in advance of the Republican National convention. Beginning at 8 00 eastern settle into bins watch several programs with awardwinning biographer robert caro. For Schedule Information ns