Country and overseas. And the opportunity to have, you know, big ideas oen tn the agen and bring people together in o e order to, an address those big s is just endlessly appealing to me. And were at a time, i think, in this country where the anxiety economically, socially that you see abroadth is something that very familiar to me having grown up on the south side of chicago. You know, we saw the steel millt up and moveve and all of the at calamity and unease and disruption that that left in peoples live, the way that opioids and other unhappy thinge came in and destructive things p came in to fill the void. The overpolicing, the sense thaa the attention paid to those issues and to us came at campaign time, if then, and thee disappeared from the agenda in between. Those are those are things he folks are feeling in a lot morer places than thetu south side of chicago. We have that in common, in fact. And so the opportunity to have broad and focused and sustained attention in solving those ll o problems and bringing all of the perspectives we know we need from all of these different ved corners in which i have solved problems in the pastst i cthink just a let service i want to bc to offer. Nly be i want to talk about your chicago roots, but lets first talk about your entry into the race because its only been a a couple ofct weeks. In fact, we were ready to goh about a year agoange and changef and were within a week and a half or two and a half weeks ofn announcing when my wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer. And it made sense to her and to me to you know, thats the sort of thing that brings your feet back to earth, that we would focus on her and on the wl family. And i still thinkd 35 yea that right decision to make. We celebrated 35 years of marriage in may. Shes cancerfree which is a blessing and a relief. And weve continued to look at it and to watch the field, manya of whom are my friends. And i still think there is a cr path and theresib an opening au frankly ani contribution of skis and experience that i can bring that is unique. And i say that humbly. And maybe i would also add that thewa humility is one of the things i think that has to come to bear if you want to actually have solutions that last, you y know . Hdeas. Because no one candidate, no one party has a corner on all the bestst ideas. Trick what was it like for you and your wife to go through that ht process . Of ling trying w to think t how to run but also dealing with cancer. Well, you know, we are so se fortunate that this wasr found early. She had a its interesting, thens thing summer before she h to have some indications that en things were wrong, but hes a r shes a pretty tough lady and she wasnt all thatat worried about it. She finally got checked out by her doctor whomo saidre its probably nothing. And as she began to tell me more about it,he i said why dont yo go back and ask some more questions. And as she did, one thing led to another and here came this diagnosis. And i dont know if or your you been close to, or yourself, weh experienced cancer. The diagnosis itself, the word itself, has a weight. And i think it just knocked the air out of the two of us. Im so, so pleased that it was dealt with mainly by surgery ane a little bit of radiation. But those days and weeks of understanding what the path forward was going to be itse just, you know, i married up. I know that. And by no means am i ready to let go of that treasure. Other times in my life including public life, you know, ive been asked about whether this or that involving my wife was, you know, irst rhought about thathis is politically. I talk about wait aity is secon. Shes my life. D rema this is my life. And my first responsibility is i and remains to her. F you i wouldnt be stepping out now if she werent fully behind it. How did the two of you meet . We met in los angeles in 1982. She was coming out of a first iu unhappy marriage, actually a marriage shes talked about publicly in which she was a survivor solve of domestic abuse. We were introduced at a Halloween Party that was just meet. Zed so that we would she knew that. I didnt. I was told i had just gotteni outd there. I had graduated law school and was clerking for a federal judge. And i was told to come and id meet new people and so forth. Wet and i said well, its great. Like to meet new people. I havent lived on the west beh coast before. They said you have to come in t costume. Ill be there but im in not comingng in costume. They said, no, you really have to come in costume. This is how we do it. I said okay, so i got up in thiy ca caftan from nigeria. I was the only one they invited to come in costume. She was in a black silk pantsuit. Ill never forget it. And we so, you were set up. I was set up. I would like to you know, i feel at some level she may haveb felt a little threatened because i was the only one there that was armed with my spear. But we started a very hesitant courtship. And by the end of that year, i was supposed to move to San Francisco to join a firm i had r worked in the summer before. And her firm asked her to come to new york and help them open their office in new york. And she had grown up in new york in brooklyn andbe had bac talker wanting to be back and i closerm her family. M. And i remember i was studying for the bar in an empty office u one weekend at her firm. And she said she came in and said you wouldnt believe what i was just asked tooop do. York. I said what. She said to move back and help open the firms office in new york. I said this is a huge honor. Thi youre ans associate and they want you to be one of the woul anchors for this new firm. Theyreesh expanding and you sa you want to go back. I said what did you say . She said no, i told them no. I said what do you mean . R not she gave me all these patently weak arguments for not going. And i said whats the real reason . And she said, well, youre going to San Francisco. Ar eno going to new york is too far. Neo l. A. Is far enough. Im not even happy about that. I said well, if you want to go to new york, ill go to new york. And that sort of started the conversation. And in a couple of days we had t decided i was going to turn down the offer i had accepted already at the firm in San Francisco and follow her, jobless, to new yor. And we were going to get dream married. So, we did goli toeve new york. I got my dream job, believe it or not. Its amazing the hand that touches you when you let go. And we found a marvelous house in brooklyn that was kind of a u dream for bothr of us. And were married there and started our family there. So, how did you end up in massachusetts . Well, i grew up on the southd chicago, as i think you ved th know, steve. And igr lived there with my grandparents and mother and sister in our grandparents two bedroom tenement. Some off that time on welfare. What was that like . I think when youre a kid and youre poor, its not what you focus on, at least not what we focused on all the time. In fact, my grandmother used to say were not poor, were broke because broke is temporary. I ds we had a very strong sense of wn community where i describe it as a time when every child on the block was under the jurisdiction of every adult on the block. Ou d so, if you messed up down the street in front of mrs. Jones, they would go after you and then call home. So, i think actually i just take a minute to say that that experience of learning early what community is about, that is that you have a stake in your neighbors dreams and ugh strales as well as your own has been a central influence for me in my public life, in my professional life, and in my personal life. Sourced we had terrific teachers in those big, broken, and underresourced and overcrowded schools, marvelous sixth grade teacher. Ill never forget mrs. Acquaintance that taught us to a count and say the greetings in t german, took us to a brandnew movie out at the time called th the sound of music, and she used it to introduce us to the t rise of the nazis and early and the United States entry into world war ii and that part of thee history. She took us to the first opera i had ever seen. Are i had no idea what they were ld singing about. Now. I still dont know what they were singing about but i loved r it thenyi andng i t love it now. What im trying to describe is what its like for a kid to be e invited to see him or herself as a student of the world and as a citizen of the world. Thing for any kid,us. But i think especially for us. And she was present when i graduated from college and from law school and my wedding. She was present when i was sworn in to the she justice depar here. She would have been present when i was inaugurated the first timi for governorn mass but she had away byca then. My third grade teacher was there but not my sixth. Anyhow, your question was how did i end up in massachusetts. E theres a program called a t bru better chance at that time based in boston that was sort of a tale Talent Search that brought kids from the euphemism of the day was nontraditional backgrounds to independent schools. My 7th grade english teacher whether or not just sent me an email the other day to tell me l how proud she wasic i jumped in the race, knew about the hich i program, explained tos my mom me, and we applied. You could go too the general hih school which is where our junioi high was. In fact, you could go to one of two Technical Schools which taught things like mechanical a drawing. And i was really interestednt i that because i wantedd to be an architect. Want to be an architect. As i say two in the city, one on the north side, one on the south side where we lived. The one on the north side was td verye wellequipped and have a terrific reputation, less so on the south side. But in those days the North Side School wouldnt take any south side students. Auto and there were vocational anics schools scattered around the su city that taught schools i now wish i knew like auto mechanics and tayloring andcoll such. Ege. H but they werent College Preparatory and nobody in my and family, my immediate family, had gone to college. That was a path i had been encouraged to think about and to believe in. Q to get this opportunity was extraordinary and off i went. Two quick questions about gr youran parents. Kentuc first of all, i heard your fmr. G mother hadov roots to a parent grandparent, a slave in kentucky is that true . Grandparlouisv il yes, to my mothers parent the grandparents i lived with, were from kentucky, from loui louisville. And in fact wesvvisit fa used t them once a month, drive down t louisville to visit family when we were small kids. And then my grandmother i think this is what youre thinking. We had this incredible experience i had this s ago incredible experience a fewon years ago on skip gates show finding your roots. And through dna and all sorts of research, he plotted our family tree back to the 1600s in the u. S. I mean, i learned things i didnt know. And i learned one thing that i thought i knew, i knew differently. Nd i think thats what youre referring to. So, my mothers mother was very fair. She could, as we used to say pass and often did when the so family would go on driving trips around the south, she would go in and order the food. And then my mom and brother ande grandfather in because as she used to say it was just uncomfortable for the proprietors to send them to eat in the kitchen if the food was on the table and everybody was h at the dining room table or rather at the restaurant table. Anyhow, she told us that she was the product of a white irish land owner and his black gene charlie. Thats what she toldraos t of u. In this show so, thats what you accept. Generally most of us accept the history that our fore bearers le tell us. Raced on that show, i learned and a they traced my fathers family back a long way, you know, out to colorado and back. They traced my mothers fathers family back to virginia and maryland in the in fact, back to england at the time of shakespeare. Incredible stuff. Go and they traced and they couldnt go back further than mt grandmother in kentucky. And they said do you know why that is . I said no. They said, well you know the xpn story youveed told. I said, yes. They said that cant be. I said what do you mean . E fath he erexplained that there are h chromosomes that only flow from the father and only and others that only come from the mother. Notin fact she was thee product of a white man and a black woman but a black man and a white woman. She was probably put up for unr adoption. St but if you just think about when she was born, that was a very dangerous thing to be. Do you understand . And so the presumption was that she was either, you know,w, adopted or abandoned or are cons something. But its, youou know, you think you know yourself but youre constantly discovering. What about your dad . Was he in the picture with you growing up . Not much. Ve it or my parents split when i was of four. I have a very vivid t t memory, ing up believe it or not, of that day. But i didnt know him very well growing up. He was a jazz musician, helped found an avantgarde orchestra which had quite a following especially in europe. And he toured a lot with them. When they split up, hehebe i mo new york to help with the band. And my mother encouraged us to be in touch with us as much as possible. We would see him when he would come through town for concert tours. And then, you know, i remember h once beingad e taken by her on first airplane ride we had ever been on. W we flew there and took the trai, back to visit him in new york during the time of the new york worlds fair because he had a gig at the african pavilion. So, we hung out with him for a couple weeks that summer. We learned the dance routines in the shows and got to know the dancers. My sister, whos just about a year older, i think kept closer contact withad him. And as she entered, you know, adolescence and then adulthood,a had a closer relationship with him. He andst i got to know each othe as my particularly when i ege started living on the east coast at milton academy. Andwo i spent one summer in collegege living with him when was working in new york. That was a pretty tum multichus summer. He came into our lives when so w diane and i were livingou in ne york and about to be married and he was enamored with her. R. They hadad a very strong bond. I got to know him more grown up than i did as a kid. His parents i knew. Ed this a lot has been written about your friendship with barack goi obama. Did hetoto give you any advice before you entered this race . Nothing im going to repeat here, but yes. You talked to him . Office. Oh, sure. I talked to him i knew baracp obama before he was in any public office. I knew him when he was back practicing civilil rights law, i excuse me, in chicago. And i was head of the Civil Rights Division here in member o washington. Andnd do you remember ab . White house solicit tor . D i e yes. And he was white house counselor at the time i was working in the clinton administration. I remember he saidld kno to me,h you ever metis n barack obama. He reminds me of you and you remind me of him. I had heard this name. Its not a name you commonly hear. When i was in chicago we had a chance to get together and spend time together and i liked him i from the beginning. F i remember he called me or o, i cant i think i was working at cocacola when he called to say he was running for office the first time, i think for d state senate. And he said deval, he said, im running for office. Want y i want your help. That ti and i said, look, im so excited. Its about time. Im all in. Ill give it the max. And he said, deval, he said eva brother, there is no max in illinois. I said, well,i my friend, theres got to be one. He was and then, you know, his run for the presidency and i helped when i could. With its just a thing to behold. It was not just for him but for the marnation. It was a marvelously uplifting, positive, encouraging time for all of us. And ill never forget what that inauguration was like, just how joyful, how people who were total strangers were just ugh haddi hugging and shaking hands and the sense we had taken a the understanding we had taken a historic step. P. Admi and youni know what that administration was like with huge highs and lows. I suppose like any administration. But it also exposed rifts that had a kind of a, you know, smelly underbelly. Let me put it that way. And so, you know, he was very, and has been, very clear about f that, very clear about both theh wonder and opportunitye of bei the chief executive of the just United States and the sense of d sometimes being confined. Ust lie i remember he said i just like u to take a walk to the bookstore, but it was an event. We were i think on their astn first visit tod marthas vineyard, i remember him saying he sat withma the girls at breakfast and said what would you like to do today. They said maybe go for a bike ad ride. And i think that was it, maybe go for a bike ride. A by the time they gotbo the bike out, the whole road had been closed down and there were of helicopters above. The gi and so they road torl the rode the end of the road and back and he said to the girls want to go again . Its just a very that bubble can be very confining. Oo. But the opportunity to do a lot of good for a lot of people is pretty powerful too. Famous so, we talked about all of that, about just how hard campaigning is. He was famous when he started to run. Im not. So, yeah, its a i he was very clear and always has been. N so, what is your path . I mean, you look at a crowded field and you look at Barack ObamasVice President , joe biden in the field, a number ofb otheren candidates, representatives, senators, the mayor of south bend, indiana. Whatsre rea Deval Patricks pa . All of them good people. Friends like joe biden and some for less time like mayor pete. Theyre all very good and talented people. E. Han i think i sensed that the l electorate was not settled. I think that has been more than confirmed in the visits ive had since announcing in new lot hampshire and of california an nevada and iowa and south carolina. And i think there is a lot of t roomag for folks who want both ambitious agenda and a record of delivering against ambitious agenda because i think folks do understand if you really want the if you really want to n t change the helast, you have to bring the people in. E than o that isnt about compromising on the ambition of the goal. T its about acknowledging that, you know, there may be more thag one path to that goal and that others have contributions to make to strengthening your thinking and your success. And so and also aside from a the genda apart from the ver important reform agenda that weve all been talking about, theres an Economic Growth g upt agenda which has to be ao partd our thinking. You know, we have to have an economy that isnt so much we cn growing d up to the wellconnecd as it is out to the mid and to e thegi marginalized. We can do that and ive had experience with that as well in the strategies we used to climb out of recession in massachusetts. Ted kennedy, john kerry, tri michael dukakis, mitt romney, mr all massachusettst politicians. Yeah, dont talk about us like the red sox as if theres some sort of curse. John kennedy won. Look, its i have no illusions. If i had started years ago, it would be hard. And we have made it harder, i nh think, in america because we ofe have we, all of us. This isnt a fault of any one party or one sector of the o community. We have we keep trying to cram people into the tiniest possible box so that we can flip them to the side or pull them in. And, i mean, you know. If youre spending your time with people and you scratch jusl a little bit under the thems su they start to reveal themselves. Andd there are marvelous ways ie which you can findel ways to agree. But we move so fast. O werder trivialize. We feel like we have to turn n someone into an enemy in order to successfully differ or win the argument, turn them into evil because they disagree. And it it just doesnt serve our longterm interests. And im going to see whether there is still the appetite i think there is not just within the party but within the american citizenry to for politics that say you dont have to agree on everything before wv Work Together on anything. How would you describe your o politics . F how would you describe deval ere patrick . You know, ihave have broughtt notion of community that i described earlier that we have to understand we have a bus stan our neighbors dreams and struggles as well as our own as well as what i call generational responsibility which is an old idea. I think every one ofrythin usg from our grandparents. Were supposed to do what we can in our timeme to leave things n better for those who come behind us. Those two values i brought to every single job ive ever done. Thats what i mean when i say ive never taken a job where i y left my conscience at the door,i and ive never taken a job wheri i felt like i had to. Whether it was trying to advance the agenda in civil rights into into some new areas and on behalf of some newly covered constituencies, if you will, or the work we did to make the Employment Practices work in Big Companies like texaco and cocacola or move away from certain products into healthier products, the work we did on a whole host of fronts while in government, or the work im doing now or did now before jumping into the race at bing capital where we launched a fund to deliver social and Environmental Impact and showed, as we do, if you take the longer view of value, youre not trading anything in terms of financial return. So, that whole notion that we have to be about not just the here and now but about tomorrow, our responsibility right now is also to think about and plan for and be stewards of tomorrow is, as i say, its not a new behavior. Its not a new approach for me. G its, im afraid, a scarce approach in both business and government and a model im did o trying to offer. Eight years as governor. Did you have a learning curve as governor . Oh, gracious, yes. And how would you apply thata if elected president. Rwar d. First of all, people talk i about beingng ready from electi day forward. And i dont think there is anything quite like being u president. Once i think i cant remember you know, the governors have these meetings with the president once or twice a year, at least once a year. And its off the record or e goe supposed to be and itsrn just e president and sometimes a member or two of his cabinet and all of the governors. I remember at one of them and i cant remember whether it was president bush or president obama. It sounds like it esiden might have m with been president bush. 5 who t he saidhi Something Like i reale im in a room with 50 people who think they can do this job better than me. And im sure there is that sense lat some of what president s have to do including making hard decisions on less than perfect or complete information and thss sometimes having to, you know, h confront atuncomfortable truthss very much like what its like to be president. I think for me as governor, its the notion, i think, that you are always leading whether you this is what you think is a leadership moment or not. Youre always being watched. Area youre always being evaluated. I steve, its like i used to you understand that the only thing ive ever run for is governor. That was the and that first race was myyho first race for governor, my First Successful race for governor was my first race. And when you i won, what did you think on electionwh night . I thought this is an affirmation of what grass s when organizing is about and y more the point, this is what it means when you invite people who havee checked out to check back in an take responsibility for their own civic and political life. How does Deval Patrick make decision, how would you d you structure your white house . The flow of information, the decisionmaking process. Well, i doou thinkt th and hy learned, this is on your to your point about learning curve, how important it is to have a strong and highly trusted chief of staff. Ver to to be clear about your own objectives and turn as much of that over to a talented team asn possible and how to accomplish it to make sure that folks are s consulting andti asking questio, lots and lots of questions frome lots and lots of sources. Ink interest you think now, a you already know and people too whose interest may g obtain and you ought to go you ought to go get. I think you can see all that, sa and i think pacing as well. Turs you know, i push myself and i e. Push my whenm pretty hard because it turns out, you know, four years is not a long time. Many po eight years is not a long time. H when you consider you want to do as much good as possible for as many people as possible. I think the other thing i wouldg say, i would say, steve, is, you know, in this business of tryino to think about the longpula ter there are going to be hard decisions facing the next president that will be we do politically unpopular. You you know, we do needtax sy fundl and comprehensive immigration reform. We need tax system that is simple. Andtes or a and functional. Oopholes in it. We have to have a conversation i believe before that about what it is we want government to do and not do. Eliminates or at least limits all the loopholes in it but have to have a conversation, i believe, about what it is we ef actually want government to do. And not do and what the whate the fairestp and most efficien ways are to pay for that and we have to keep in mind what it ise were investing inle today may t be for us. Vernin we may not see benefits in time for the next election, but governing, i think, has got to r be about the next generation. Es finish this sentence. The presidency of donald j. Trump as meant what for the country . Division. Airnes in fairness to the president , d the division didnt start when he was elected. Ound rac weve had division. Ethn weve had it foric ait long tim. And the divisions around race and ethnicity, the divisions aroundd socioeconomic status, al of those the divisions around region, you know, the way people in the midwest or in the, you know, in the southwest, for nol example, feel that folks on the coast are not look down their noses at them. All of these and other divisions have been with us for some timea i think its beende a long timew since weve had a leader who seemed to wake up every day really trying to think about how to divide us. How to trivialize the difference rather than rather than unit us. I think theres so much power ii asking people to turn to each other rather than on each other. Theres so much power in that. And giving them a reason to turs to each other. Nation i think there are reasons i r think, in fact, we are an exceptional nation but not because of our, you know, our military might or our wealth. You and i both know there vhave been countries of great army and treasure that have come and gonu with the passage of time. Were a great country because were the only one ever organized around anarchies hand civic ideals. Think about that. Countries are usually organized around geography, religion, monarchies or what have you, race, but not us. Just ideas. Weve defined those ideas over time as equality, opportunity, fair play. Thats why were magnet to people to aspiring souls from all over the world. Thats why thats why it ou n is you know, this notion of r the American Dream which i haved lived that you can imagine a whe different destination for yourself and your family and actually reach for it. Quest thatsio why its so central toi who we are. And why i think the question right now is not so much the, you know, the character or the candidates but the character of the country. A cs. Couple final points. Do you have a role model, mentor, somebody whos influenced you the most . Ho i some them have passed away. Eades i look to Winston Churchill or fdr. What i found is that if youre listeningometim sometimes total strangers will offer you life lessons. And i remember once, and i wrote about this in my book being, i think i was 15, 16 years old, ie and i was home on a School Vacation in chicago and i was late to meet someone. I went running down the and im just kind of, like, what am i doing . I started to explain, this great old i say old, you know, her probably he was probably then the age i am now, but this guy was a sort of salt and pepper beard, black guy, sort of looke, at me sternly, just pointed to a the seatid closest to the door d he said, sit down, son. And i thought, im going to get it. You know, hes r goingate to going to berate me for trying tt beat the cta out of the fare and put me off at the next step. I started to explain, ive been. Away, really sorry, i was in a hurry. Didnt bring enough he turnemone he turned from the road for jush a second, he looked at me, and he sized me up the way people who work for the public can do i in an instant and then heon turd back and with his eye on the road and his expression softened, he said, just pass it on, son. Just pass it on. A tiny act of grace. But its it made me want to be a better man. Generayou and it it touched this notio of generational responsibility. Lu know, when you think its about you, when youre just focused on yourself, i feel like there have been these moments like that that reminded me there is a there is a higher purpose in your life. Not higher office, necessarily, thats not what im talking about. But that there are expectations youre supposed to bring to your life because you are touching otherss all the time whether y know it or not. W and if thats the case, why noth give them a reasonil to hope . Well, let me conclude on that note then, if your children were here, how would. They describe their dad . And what do they think about you running for president . Wow. Wasn well, if they were here and i wasnt, theyd probably say pretty nice things. If they were here in my presence, theyd probably give me the side eye, so just to make sure i didnt get too big for my britches. I have two remarkable adult daughters. They take after two r theirem mn terms of theirgt their strength, their astuteness, their their, you know, how engaged they are in helping ey e other people in the ways they m do. I they are worried about my running. Theyre proud of me, but theyre worried about it. You know, its the sad truth t about running these days is ve o that, you know, you sign up, but you drag all the people you love along with you. So and theyre private people, like their mom, actually. And so they are they are theyre rooting for me to be tol sure. They are theyp are hopeful. They send their friends our waye to help out, but, you know, one has just started a career and the other has a has a relatively new job, has moved home and is raising an absolutely Perfect Little boy. And i think thats where they want to make sure that they get most of their time. Governor Deval Patrick. We thank you for your time. Its god to od to be with yo steve. Thank you. And live here on cspan3, a discussion about to start on the first year in office of the president of mexico. Some of the challenges and successes hes faced. Its being hosted by the center for strategic and International Studies. Youre watching live coverage here on cspan3. Just waiting for this discussion to start on the first year in office of the president of mexico. Some of the challenges and successes hes faced. Its being hosted by the center for strategic and International Studies in washington, d. C. Running a bit behind schedule, so while we are waiting for the discussion to begin, well take a look at some of todays washington journal. National political reporter for the Washington Post and, of course, hes the moderator of pbs weekly washington week. Bob costa, thanks for being here this morning. The impeachment process picks up again really today as the Intelligence Committee releases that report. Theyll vote on that tomorrow and move to the House Judiciary Committee. What are you expecting that House Judiciary Committee hearing to look like . So far, everything is moving along according to plan in the eyes of many house democrats. They feel like speaker pelosis timeline was to move this through the house Intelligence Committee, have this report this week and then move it to the House Judiciary Committee for chairman nadler to come up with the articles of impeachment. What were going to see is likely articles on obstruction of justice. Abuse of power. And you are going to see democrats in the coming days underscore what they believe the house Intelligence Committee has found through these open hearings and these depositions that President Trump, in their view, abused power, abused the u. S. Government in terms of how he operated on foreign policy, and thats the case theyre going to make to the American People even as the process plays out on capitol hill. Not a real surprise, but the report late yesterday that president s counsel issuing the letter, the headline at washingtonpost. Com, trumps counsel says president wont participate in the House Judiciary Committees first Impeachment Panel calling it unfair. The president is traveling today going to the nato summit in london. Is the white house leaving wiggle room to participate or his counsel to participate on some level . Based on my reporting, there has been an active discussion within the west wing about whether President Trump or his lawyers should participate in this process by having either the lawyers present or witnesses eventually come forward. They have ultimately decided not to do so and the argument inside the white house has been from the White House Counsels Office and others close to the president that as much as they want to defend the president , theyre going to rely on outside allies to do so and they do not want to legitimize the process in their eyes. So, by not having lawyers present, by not engaging even though the democrats are opening the door to participation, theyre trying to make the case to the American People as the democrats make their own that this process, and the republican view is illegitimate, so thats why you see the white house standing a little bit back from the process and the president in many ways adopting what president clinton did in the late 90s trying to go about the business of the presidency traveling abroad to the nato meeting, met with the troops in afghanistan over thanksgiving. Do you think that that taking this overseas for a minute, the president heading to london, do you think the theres a lot at stake for the president at that nato meeting . Outside of the having the impeachment baggage, if you will, all the stories still following him. U. S. Allies will pay close attention to how he describes the Nato Alliance and how he describes the russian threat. You saw in Time Magazine this morning president zelensky of ukraine was speaking out saying he always feels like he cant trust anyone now. Whether its the u. S. Or others. He feels like hes in a corner. He wants the u. S. To be an ally. How does President Trump speak about ukraine, russian incursion in crimea . Those will be things that people will be listening to, world leaders, europe