Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20161017

Part for journalists in America Thanks to her mustread column times, talking of the road not taken, even a quiet life is a barkeepers life back in clare. Talking about your mother, your family, your irishness. Ms. Dowd that would be my dads family. Mr. Lamb what about the most powerful journalist in america . Ms. Dowd that is what irishamerica would say. [laughter] dowd i am sure there is another magazine that thinks paul krugman is and another that thinks Paul Friedman is. They were giving a boost to one of their own. Mr. Lamb how important is it to be irish . Ms. Dowd it gets more important as i get older, funny enough. When i was small, my dad would make us recite irish poetry into one of the old initial tape recorders. My brothers name is kevin barry, so he would have to recite barry and i would have to recite things, you know, at the time, a lot of it seemed kind of corny, but as you get older, and now the nation is obsessed with ancestry and of finding out things, as you get older, you realize it is really nice to know everything about your roots and to have a warm feeling that ancestry can get you. Mr. Lamb that is something that you wrote about in your book. You have some fresh stuff and we will talk about that. Heres something you write about and i want you to explain this portrait to the audience. [laughter] ms. Dowd right. That was such a weird story. So, what was the guys name . Nelson sparks . Mr. Lamb nelson chang. Ms. Dowd yes, he recently died. He was given a commission to do an official portrait for bill clinton. And for his own reasons, there he oddly, he had in his studio a mannequin and a blue dress just randomly. He put the blue dress on the mannequin and a painted the shadow of that into the picture. Not haveton often does on a wedding ring, which is weird. So, when they found out, i dont think they wanted to put the painting up. Not the clintons, but it was the museum. It is in storage. He was trying to investigate whether it was in storage because he had played this spectral trick where he had an illusion to the blue dress. And there is a history of that kind of thing in art, but i think when you get a commission to paint a president , the president definitely does not want an allusion to his white house sex scandal in there. Mr. Lamb i saw the painting at the portrait gallery. The first thing i thought, i had no idea there was the blue dress image on there. It was the shoes. If the president of the United States gets his shoes shined, those are the ugliest shoes in the world. [laughter] ms. Dowd i know, it was very strange that he did that. It was up for it while and then they took it down. He suspected the clintons asked him to take it down but he never approved it, you know . You know, i think it would have a right to, such an offering to do in an official portrait. I think they would have a right to, yo u know . Such an odd thing to do in an official portrait. Mr. Lamb in your opinion, what are the chances he will become the first spouse january 20 . Ms. Dowd i would say at the rate we going, 100 . That is when you go to hollywood, the story line all of the clinton donors are really excited about. There was an old Frederick Mcmurray movie called kisses for my president where she was the first woman president and he was the first lad, but hollywood mostly hasnt seen anything like that. When they got sarah palin, they got so excited because it opened up their imaginations to have a beautiful, sexy young women in than in the role of dick cheney, something that usually had been old, grayhaired men. That is where you get a bunch of other things that it never occurred to them, wow, we could have a babe in this role. And in the same way, they loved the story line of bill clinton as first lad. He says he wants to be called first laddy. The funny thing is, hillary has said she might let him do the economy and let chelsea do the hostessing, and hillary would keep picking out the china. But you really should not do that. She should let bill do the traditional things first ladies have to do because it would be a great way to show how antiquated the job is because hillary hated it and chafed at it. Michelle has done it beautifully, but it is kind of a white satin jail for a woman lik e hillary or michelle who have the same educational credentials as their husbands. Saw billnk if you clinton doing it, i think you would realize that maybe we need to modernize the job. Mr. Lamb you have a column in your book from march 6, 2016 and it starts out, here is why the Donald Trump Campaign is wicked fun. [laughter] mr. Lamb do you remember what you said . Ms. Dowd yes, that lasted for about five minutes. Well, the second part was just wicked. The fun was seeing the political applecart of you know, leeches, the Political Consultants that make millions of dollars giving candidates bad advice and to , 170 jeb spent i think million in negative ads and donald trump was doing his own instagram, making them up himself. It was just fun to see that kind society turned over, and to have a more direct connection between the candidate and the voters. But that did not last long because then, you know, there were all these bursts of bigotry and racism and misogyny, which kind of took over the fun, populous part. Mr. Lamb did i count right . 21 years of writing your column . Ms. Dowd wow, i dont like to think about that. It is been since 1995. Mr. Lamb so, 21 years. In my county right . You only do one week now. Ms. Dowd i do one a week and i work halftime for the sunday magazine for our brilliant editor. Mr. Lamb how do you know the column has hit a nerve . Ms. Dowd well, you know, we have comments, which i never read, but you can see them. I can see the number of comments. You can tell on twitter, you know, where it has picked up, if it is mentioned in cable news. Mr. Lamb is there somebody that called you on that sunday morning and says, you got them this time . Ms. Dowd i have a friends who will do that. They will read it. It comes out saturday afternoon, basically, so i have friends saturday read it afternoon. And you can tell if you hear from them or you do not what they thought. Mr. Lamb what is the best thing they can say to you . Ms. Dowd just that they enjoyed it, that they thought i did a good job. Mr. Lamb this is one from february of 2015. I will pay for this column, you write, the rottweilers will be unleashed. Once the clintons have a war room and now they have a slime room. Once they had the sly James Carville fondly known a serpent head and now they have the slippery david brock accurately known as a snake. We have video we are going to show of david brock before and after. Ms. Dowd right. Mr. Lamb why did you call him a snake . Ms. Dowd well, this is actually something that really concerns me about the coming clinton administration. Because you know, she does have this idealistic Public Service side. I she also, over the decades, has developed a kind of, a different side where she often makes decisions from a darker place, of fear and insecurity. Secretiveness and defensiveness tends to trip up the Public Service side. To that end, she has surrounded herself with a lot of henchmen who will slime people, who were even saying accurate things about the clintons. And i think that speaks to this paranoid side she has. So, they are going to come with her, in one way or the other, either outside the white house or inside the white house. And you know, it just worries me because i wish she could have the confidence to throw off that kind of person, and i interviewed Bernie Sanders and he was really concerned about that as well because david brock had been attacking him on his these sleazy ways in the primary and he does not understand why she needs to have this kind of person around here. But in my experience, people tend to get more paranoid in the white house, at the very moment the entire country of firms them and they should feel confident. Comeften, their gremlins out then. That is not only with president s. With any chief executive office, often times that is when their insecurities come out, when they get to the top, which seems counterintuitive, but it is pretty common. Mr. Lamb this is video from 1993 and 2015 of david brock. You can see him when he worked for the American Spectator and the clinton project. And then you can see him now as he raises money for Hillary Clinton and runs the other side. He switched complete sides. Lets take a look at this. [video clip] Larry Patterson quotes that it is Common Knowledge of the governors residence that mrs. Clinton was intimately involved when governor clinton would leave town. Shortly thereafter vince foster would regularly show up at the mansion and stay through the hours of the night with mrs. Clinton. They were often driven out to a retreat that the Rose Law Firm kept a cabin outside of little rock where they spent extensive time together. Much to my own surprise and certainly to my professional detriment as a right wing hitman, i wrote about a woman with a steadfast commitment to Public Service, a lifelong passion for children and family and a deep wealth of personal integrity. Mr. Lamb how does this happen . Ms. Dowd i do not know. It was his work on the state troopers in arkansas that lead to impeachment, right . With paula jones and everything . But he the irony to me is he was the main kind of attack dog hill as a little bit nutty and a little bit bloody. And then he had his conversion on the road to damascus and bill clinton called him because he liked his book, blinded by the right. So, they brought him in. The clintons turned him around and he now runs one of the media conglomerates, one of the pacs, that defends her and goes after people who write accurate things about her even. The irony is, he was smearing anita hill, and now, he is part of the clinton team. And the clinton team, Sidney Blumenthal and charlie rank, and elizabeth hillary, were sneering mearing monica as a little bit nutty and fluffy. That is an interesting arc right there. Mr. Lamb alvear on this, we have to talk about this. This is a picture of you. And you have to tell me where this came from. Ms. Dowd yes, with cindy blumenthal. We just happened to be standing in line. He was standing in line in front of it. We took this together. It was funny because bill has an allergy, you know, he has a lot of allergies. And he has an allergy with trees so they always photoshop the Christmas Tree before and after. Bill and i both have on lovely ties. Mr. Lamb how long ago was that . Ms. Dowd gosh, that was probably at the beginning of the clinton administration. The thing is, i feel sorry for president s for the Media Christmas Party because they have to stand there and pose with all the reporters they are probably seething about. I dont think it is a very pleasant evening for them. Mr. Lamb it is a constant subtheme over the last two years, about Sidney Blumenthal. How does he fit into this . Ms. Dowd donald trump keeps trying to bring him up in the debates and rallies and nobody knows who he is. Unless, i mean, people in washington do but none of these people at the donald trump rallies. It is so funny to see donald trump trying to make that state. Make that stick. It is a rare case where trump is right that Sidney Blumenthal was one of the ones who, you know, was smearing people and, what is the issue that he came up in most recently . Oh, come on. I know exactly what you are talking about. [laughter] irtherwd oh, the b thing. He was trying to say that hillary started the birther thing. It turns out blumenthal went to a reporter and suggested he sent a reporter to kenya to check out and see if obama was really born in kenya. You know, as always with donald can be a kernel of truth in what he is saying. That does not excuse his absurd and defensive birther campaign, but there were hillary people calling reporters and trying to suggest the same thing. Mr. Lamb here is more video, and this time you write about dick morris who worked for bill clinton and now works for the other side on the New York Times best seller list, on the right side of things. Here he is, and it kind of goes back to what you said in the first question about watching this town and what it is all about. Here is 1998 and 2016. This is the same man. [video clip] the democrats do not want the abortion debate to be resolved. They do not want gun control to be passed. They do not want necessarily, our environmental problems to be solved because they are too good for getting votes. Essentially, what he decided to do was to take each of the problems we face as a society and in a very workman like way, almost in a nonpartisan way, he brought them to a solution. I think he succeeded overwhelmingly. Now, corruption and money making is the beall and end all. They have gone from a romance in the 1970s and 1980s to a partnership in the 1990s to a Racketeering Organization today, where bills job is to pass the bag, and hillarys job is to offer access and favors to those who put money inside. Ms. Dowd wow, you know. Girl seems by a call so quaint now. That was a crazy sex scandal n did morris was caught when dick morris was caught to doing that. Now we have all sorts of vulgarities and cruelties. Mr. Lamb how about what we are seeing with anything to do with the american peoples attitude toward this town. Ms. Dowd well, i think the cases you have shown are extreme cases, but that is what is disturbing about the clintons because they will hire anyone who can help them win. I was at that convention where that story broke about the toesucking and he had to resign. I think hillary helped bring him back in. Yeah, he was very, i think that theirrt of their kind of conservative streak they brought to democratic politics. Storymb the toesucking at the Jefferson Hotel in washington, was he with a call girl . Ms. Dowd talking on the phone to clinton and congressman and stuff. Mr. Lamb where are you on the cynic side, the skeptic side . Ms. Dowd i think often times people think journalists are cynics, but often times, we are idealists. I am definitely not cynical, maybe you get a little jaded if you see enough things that this that dissolution you. But i think basically the reason people want to be journalist is because they are idealists. 30,lamb this is from may 2015. I recently interviewed several dozen hollywood players, mostly on background because of fears about the famed clinton didnt clinton vindictive streak. I have more to read. How does that work when you are writing . How do they go on background or off the record . Ms. Dowd yes, i think you know, hillary and trump are known for vindictive strakes, so it is hard to get people to go on the record when you are talking about either of them. Mr. Lamb did they say to you, this is off the record or do you say to them, how do you want me to quote this . Ms. Dowd well, both. Case, i remember one woman it was very involved in all of the races of the clintons in hollywood. And a donor said, the problem with the clintons, but she did not want to say this on the record because they all knew probably there would be another clinton administration. She said the problem with the clintons is you kind of get right in the middle of the campaign or a white house with them and is something blows up. That that is their modus operandi. With hillary, the email thing was breaking and they were not sure. But they are kind of handcuffed to this roller coaster, where with the clintons, there is always some snake popping out of the can you did not know about. They could be a small thing they have hidden, or a large thing they have hidden, but then it comes tumbling out at an inopportune moment. Mr. Lamb going back to the column, they are not over the moon about barack obama you wrote in 2015 anymore, even feel burned. He was like a razzledazzle trailer that turned out to be a disappointing movie with mediocre box office. Ms. Dowd right, well, i think craze of 2008,ip barack obama and michelle you rememberd obama as michelle saying, this is not about politics, this is about our souls. It was more than politics. It was something cleaner, finer, pressure. People thought they were turning. And in hollywood that was ground zero of people who were betraying the clinton machine. I think that people in hollywood who sort of changed sides and went with obama against the clinton machine did not think eight years later obama would put out the red carpet for the clinton machine because now all of these people are going to be pariahs, anyone that left the clintons before for obama. Mr. Lamb why does president obama working so hard for mrs. Clinton . Ms. Dowd well, the first africanamerican president does not want his legacy erased by the most overtly racist candidate in modern times, certainly. An amazingo, she is campaigner. I think that is about his legacy more than it is about the clintons. Although hillary is his handpicked choice. He pushed biden aside for her. You wrote in february of 2016, johnson saidndon the two things that make politicians more stupid than anything else are sex and envy. With hillary there are three things. Sex, money and the need for secrecy. Ms. Dowd yes, it is so weird that this campaign is like the revenge of the 1990s. Both candidates are kind of good bothes are candidates are kind of, greed is good candidates, in a weird way. I recently reread all of the biographies of hillary in my own, starting up covering her in 1992, very supportively. I was surprised when i went back and read it when she was running. I was very supportive, even as a news reporter. But somewhere along the way, maybe when she got to arkansas and the marriage was rocky and she thought she might have to itsrt the family, maybe one of these things like johnson areat you think you doing Public Service, but i think i should get what it wouldve gotten if i had gone into the private sector, but somewhere along the way she did get this fixation on money, which is weird because they made so many you know, hundreds of millions, even if they spent a bunch every day, they could never spend it. So, why on earth, and if she is going to be president and he is going to be the first first lad, they will get 20 million each to do memoirs once they are in there. So, why would you go to goldman 75,000d make those speeches . Mr. Lamb in that same speech, youome column you wrote, also bring up the point that Michael Schmidt was the one who started the entire email story. The reason i bring it up and i ask you about it, if you listen to the rightwing talkshow hosts, they are constantly exposing the New York Times of being in hillarys camp . Why . Ms. Dowd he is a brilliant reporter. He is like a throwback to a 1930s reporter where he is a real investigative reporter, and he wrote a lot of the steroid stories in baseball coming to washington and broke the story. The clinton people can say all they want, but it is a tempest and a teapot. What she did was really, really reckless in so many ways, and that is what worries me, the paranoia that caused her to make that kind of reckless decision. It is sort of unfathomable. One thing i do not like about the clintons, when they get into trouble and donald trump does this too, when they get in trouble, they try to blame somebody else. When bill got in trouble with monica, the white house aides would call and say, Thomas Jefferson had a mistress, dead president s they are dragging in, right . [laughter] ms. Dowd and jfk had a mistress. Whyyou are like, ok, fine, dont you just confess what you did . But bill clinton would never admit it. He would drag everyone in to say that he was telling the truth and his wife would try to savage the girlfriends and then, years later, he would kind of admit it. It is just a very unhealthy and then on the emails, hillary said, well, colin powell did it. But the state of the internet has changed profoundly and new rules have been put in place. So, do not drag poor colin powell into it. It is not comparable. Mr. Lamb which one of these candidacies, prime candidates, mr. Trump, mrs. Clinton would be the best for columnist maureen dowd . Ms. Dowd well, obviously, you know, you are right. Journalists have a citizen side, and not a journalist side. As our chief washington correspondent says, bad for the country, good for carl. [laughter] ms. Dowd that is kind of a weird thing to explain to people outside of the business, but donald trump would be better for journalism because it would be utter freaking chaos around the world. But as a citizen of course, you have a contrary opinion. Mr. Lamb one of the things i notice when you write, you drop in many references to shakespeare. You studied shakespeare at university. But you drop in french all the time. And as a somebody who does not speak french ms. Dowd yes, i dont speak it either. Mr. Lamb this is not just french. These are Maureen Dowds words you have used in your columns. Do you realize how many of us have no idea what you are talking about . Ms. Dowd that does not bother me at all because i think words are so much fun, and i do not do it to be pretentious, i do it because i want people to have different words and to learn words and, you know, i took latin all through school, and played scrabble all through school and i think those two things really helped me a lot with my vocabulary. I just think it is really fun to drop in fun words, and in fact, i just had a column go up about what melania was up to at the debate, and i have a french phrase in that, you have something to look forward to. Mr. Lamb well, i want to show you. These are just definitions you would find in the dictionary. You may have met them in different ways. Of course, sisyphus is a you may have met them in different ways. Do you look these up before hand and drop them in or do you know them . Ms. Dowd both. Sometimes i know them and sometimes i feel like relying on the same words you know, they have computer programs that can emulate the columnist, so i do not want to keep falling back on the same words, and when i feel myself doing that, i go to the thesaurus and try to be different words because that is more fun for me. I do not want to keep using the same 80 adjectives over time. Mr. Lamb here are three more words and phrases. My favorite is the bottom one. Ms. Dowd and that is what Jacque Chirac had when he took them out on his motorboat. Mr. Lamb and then i will try not to pronounce it. Ms. Dowd thats from latin. That is from my days studying latin in catholic school. Mr. Lamb played a large experience. Ms. Dowd richard iii and understanding power. I know this is difficult for New York Times readers because they get upset with me because they want me to be a reliable liberal. But i dont write a column that comes from the left or the right. And i think im the only one who writes a political column that doesnt have an ideological slant. Its hard for people to understand. Even my own family gets very upset with me when a republican president is in because i am critiquing the republican president. A lot of times readers get upset when a democratic president is in because i am critiquing that president. I see it more like shakespeare, where i am trying to examine the effect that great power has on people who get it, so does the power war for them in some way that we need to know about or do they rise to the occasion, like harry truman did, and become more than you thought they could be. He was a hack machine politician. So it is very interesting to me how crises, like 9 11, for instance, if it were not for 9 11, george bush may have been a bipartisan popular president. But that completely changed him and brought out all his insecurities and made him more malleable to dick cheney and don rumsfeld. So we never know which enormous historical event is going to coincide with which new president s gremlins. I quote harry truman in the introduction, saying you never know how a man is going to take the responsibility of president. And you dont. In a way, you can follow candidates for two years and not know what they are really like because its easy to say that he has a humble Foreign Policy and then you have dick cheney try to turn us trying to turn us into a superpower. We have to examine once they get in how that power is changing that. And how they are rising or falling. Mr. Lamb why did you get interested in shakespeare and when . Ms. Dowd yeah, in college, i was an english, you know, literature major. I was drawn to shakespeare for the same reason im now drawn to game of thrones. A reader wrote me and said i should have been a french Court Reporter in the 18th century. I love watching the royal court and how it deals with power. In shakespeare, people you are dealing with homicide and patricide and, you know, it gets very bloody. But it deals with my merry emotions, like jealousy and envy and desire. Im just very interested in primary motions. As a writer, im not interested in these little stories about how someone goes to cbs and buys a bottle of aspirin and is having a bad day. I like an othello, mcbeth kind of emotions. Mr. Lamb this sent me to you tube. Kellyanne conway turned yesterday Campaign Manager attempted to communicate with her fragile lunch to block candidate last week through an appearance on the view. Here is an excerpt of the movie. Vivian leigh. [video clip] no, i dont think i want to marry you anymore. No. You are not clean enough to be in the house. Get out of here. Quick, before i start screaming. Mr. Lamb did you figure that we all know what this blanche dubois character is . Ms. Dowd the reader does now, if you if they did what you did. That is one of the best movies of all time. Mr. Lamb so go back to the quote you said about kellyanne conway. Ms. Dowd right, the cascading series of advisors tiptoeing around donald trump who is a critical narcissist, having a narcissistic explosion right on the trail, and trying to get him to do the obvious, like prepare for the debate, he wouldnt do it. He was sitting around with roger ailes pleading cheeseburgers and roger ailes was telling war stories and company about brunch about rupert murdoch. [laughter] it is so hilarious to see all these aids on eggshells tried to get you know, its like taming of the shrew, to throw in another play like shakespeare. So they are trying to get donald trump to do the basic minimum he needs to do in order to have a campaign. Yet they cant. Hes one of these mad german kings locked in his castle in trump tower, like ludwig, you know, getting more isolated and not talking to anybody. And hes up there today sending out 10 tweets trashing paul ryan, who said he Wont Campaign with him and all the republicans and they are ungrateful and disloyal. That is a scene straight out of shakespeare. Mr. Lamb so what is your reaction to this tweet from donald trump . [laughter] ms. Dowd i was deeply disturbed by this because i have covered him off and on since 1999 and i really thought that i would get a more customized nickname, like Elizabeth Warren has pocahontas and chuck todd has sleepy eyes. And he just gave me the same one he gives all women journalists, wacky and crazy and erotic. It did not make me feel special. Mr. Lamb pretends she knows me. Wrong. How much time have you spent around him . Ms. Dowd so i went out for a day to miami with him when he made his first president ial foray and he was dating malania then. And made a speech to cubanamericans. You know, i wasnt taking it serious then. It was a celebrity who wanted to test the waters. He had a brand, anything that could bring attention to the brand. Then i would interview him over the years. He liked to do lightning rounds. He doesnt want to sit down and have discussions about the issues because, as you know, he doesnt really know about the issues. Basically, he orders every day, he gets his press secretary to give him the top 30 pieces about himself and then he reads those. So its this constant incestuous amplification of his own persona publicity. Mr. Lamb got some video that we found. Its 12 years old. I know you love television. [laughter] ms. Dowd only with you, brian. Mr. Lamb sure. I know you love television. So heres some television you may not have ever seen. This goes back its about a minute and a half. It goes back to september 13, 2004. You will see some people in here you know, including your deceased brother michael. Ms. Dowd is this the cspan book party . Oh, wow. [video clip] get peggy dowd on tv. All right, all right this is where all the brains come from. Right here. I really want to meet you. I am your biggest fan. Mr. Putnam will kill me when [indiscernible] [indiscernible] before i became a lawyer. We deliver mail to all the offices, you know. You were told, if you go into senator John Kennedys office and he happens to be there, do not talk to him. Dont even talk to him. Do not say its a nice day, sir. Avert your eyes. [inaudible] on the other hand, Vice President Richard Nixon was one of the nicest people i ever met. Mr. Lamb your back was to the camera and thats your brother, who died in 2007 . And mom was in there. She died in 2005. You write a lot about them in this book. What about your brother michael . What about your mom . Ms. Dowd i was super close to them. My dad was 61 when i was born. Michael was 17 years older than i was. He kind of helped raise me. He was google before there was google. He had absolutely an encyclopedic memory. He was the most voracious reader i have ever known. And just a brilliant guy. And he was one of the ones who would get mad at me when i was covering w kind of harshly about the iraq war. And when i would go home for thanksgiving, he would say, you know, if there was a hurricane, you would blame it on w. And then there was katrina and i did. [laughter] i wrote about it more lightly in the column, but its hard to its hard when what you do conflicts with how well you want to get along with your family. Mr. Lamb how about mom . Ms. Dowd she is my absolute idol. She was 97. As you can see, still gorgeous. She loved tim russert. He would call her every mothers day. She was wonderful. She was completely literate. She would tell me, she would go to oscar wilde readings of oscar wildes work, very interested because Jackie Kennedy was there. She had a lot of stories about politics, too. The basically, she was the epitome of what you want a mother to but also an american. She was very fair. And a very loving person and very smart and very patriotic. She would get very angry at me if i didnt wear red white and blue on july 4. [laughter] mr. Lamb five kids including you in the family. Here is some more from this. [video clip] i might end up on cspan. This is my doctor. Who helped do through who diagnosed me on tv. That was terrifying. I never saw that. Oh, my gosh, i thought i was going to faint. Letterman said, are you ok . And i said, no, im not ok. And he said, ok, sit down. Then he tried to call me down to calm me down by saying he bought a place in montana because brokaw had one there. [laughter] see now i cant get off tv. Im determined. They follow me everywhere. Im a monster. [laughter] ms. Dowd the funny thing was, because im so shy and introverted and because i only go on tv as you know, if a lecture has a gun to my head, my family was stunned that i was willing to be might up miced up for television. But it was cspan. I wouldnt do it for anyone knows. Mr. Lamb did you watch it . Ms. Dowd no. But there was a hilarious scene where tim bradley was stuffing his face with hors doeuvres at the table. [laughter] mr. Lamb were not done. [laughter] ms. Dowd it was completely out of character. I did kind of love it because i look at all those people who are great, kind of largerthanlife people in my life, but also in washington history, like tim bradley and tim russert and it is fun to have them on tape. Mr. Lamb the names coming up here ms. Dowd pat oliphant did the cartoon for bush world. He is a brilliant political cartoonist who worked with me. He is australian. He compares my work to political cartoons. He says what we do for a living is stirring up the beast. Mr. Lamb you have chris matthews, bill plante, joe wilson, valerie plame, judy woodward, al hunt, bill press, sally quinn, david collins, who was at the time of this, would she have been your boss, gail collins . Ms. Dowd maybe. My theory at parties, which is why no one will come to my party anymore, is just to invite everyone. Everyone from my electrician to my boss to Vice President biden and then see who shows up. Mr. Lamb this is 12 years ago. Rahm emanuel is now the mayor of chicago. There is a guy with a tshirt on. Do you remember who that was . Ms. Dowd probably my electrician. That was funny because Alan Greenspan at an inaugural party i had for barack obama, he came up to me and asked if this was a toga party. He had never been to a party like that. Mr. Lamb youve got to watch at the end Alan Greenspan and ben bradley. Ms. Dowd ok. [video clip] are you in love . No, but im meeting a lot of new people. Here you are. Oh, my gosh. Everyone is asking for you. The president is coming any minute. [laughter] i cant get off tv. Bush is coming. Here he comes. Of course i did. I saw you on all your little shows. How are you . You look beautiful. I read about it. Take it off. On behalf of all the people from the times, i want to say how happy we are that its been so wonderful because it is everything them are in deserves. Now we can really get down to the real party. [laughter] ms. Dowd thats it, the guy in bermudez is a friend of my brothers from suburban maryland who came along. If you only have one kind of person at your party, theres no energy. Youve got to kind of mix it up. Mr. Lamb do you really see people from far away from here saying they are just out of touch, that hold crowd is out of touch with america . Ms. Dowd well, i dont just think hanging out and having hors doeuvres means you are out of touch. Its funny because a lot of my fellow columnists have been going on these road trips. They drive across country or they put out open letters seeking to meet a truck voter. Im always picking up the paper and seeing them driving through kentucky and trying to find a trump voter. I would like to meet one of these exotic creatures, like a Margaret Mead anthropological expedition. And all i have to do is go home. I watched the debate with my sister and she told me why trump persuaded her that she might vote for him again. She and my brother have essays in the book. I do not think of myself as an elitist. I feel like i am deep in i get both the blue and the red state opinions pretty freely. Mr. Lamb your brother kevin and your sister peggy are in the book. Are they still going to vote for donald trump . Ms. Dowd well, at this moment, perhaps not by the time this airs. They still seem to be voting for donald trump because my sister keeps jumping on and off when he says something offensive. She said she wasnt going to vote for him after the wild, crazy week of him trashing alicia machado. And then these 3 00 a. M. Tweets where he insists that she gained all this weight and my sister hates fat shaming. And then we watched the debate and he was back she was back on board. They feel very strongly they dont want Hillary Clinton to be president and they want the Supreme Court that a republican president would appoint. So thats their point of the new. I know hillary cleats i know hillary keeps time people are nearly one staying between you and the apocalypse. But then my family sees her like the abyss. Mr. Lamb i see one more piece of tape. Everybody in this tape, this is what was amazing, has died since then. Not everybody in all the tapes weve seen, but in these particular 40 seconds. Lets just watch this. These folks are gone now. [video clip] i invited you that day in the elevator. Here we are. Yeah. Hi, maureen. Ill be right back. I want to introduce diana to my brother. How are you . [laughter] greatest senator in a history of newspaper. Ms. Dowd it is very rare to even have democrats and republicans at parties anymore. In the old advise and consent days, they would meet at parties and there would be these famous washington hostesses and that is where they got a lot of their business done. But it is not the way it works anymore. Mr. Lamb this is the greatest editor in the history of the world, when they hear that from somebody else, do they believe it . Ms. Dowd ben bradley was very special. Phil gailey, who wrote a great analogy about him, he said other newspapers were the kind of nova in a suburban garage. Then bradley was a little red roadster taking their curves a little too fast. He was just so dashing. You know, dashing and kind of oneofakind throwback to the great days of journalism. Mr. Lamb all of those folks it said that they are gone, but really was a bad one, bce besides tim russert was rosemont. Ms. Dowd that was the set us the saddest story. David rosenbaum was a terrific guy. He was our longtime congressional reporter and just a very happy guy. A hard worker and a really great reporter. And he retired very soon after his retirement, within a month or two, he would always take a walk after dinner on friday nights. He lived in a very safe neighborhood. Mr. Lamb in the district of columbia. Ms. Dowd yes, in a very safe neighborhood. And these two guys came up behind him i guess they wanted to rob him, and hit him with a lead pipe. They took him to the emergency room and the people in the emergency room thought he was drunk or something. They just didnt realize. Colby king did a wonderful series of columns in the washington post, got some legislation or procedures changed because of that. David died it was heartbreaking. Mr. Lamb so this book is your third . The second one, you actually wrote the book. [laughter] ms. Dowd i actually wrote . Mr. Lamb a lot of these are columns. Ms. Dowd i did a very long essay that i really reported on my 30 years with the bush family. I have the letters that george bush senior wrote me. Its a crazy kind of, almost like a screwball class comedy, like the irish workingclass reporter and the waspy president who is driven to school in greenwich in a limousine and how hard it was for us to accept each other and how, in the end, we did and even developed a fondness for each other. Mr. Lamb still in contact . Ms. Dowd yeah. I went down and had lunch with him a couple of years ago. Heres the funny thing. This is before donald trump was running and they fondness wish of bush senior was that jeb would become president and maybe make the legacy better than w left it. So i asked him donald trump was deeply involved in the birther stuff at the time. Bush senior said he loved no bill clinton and barbara calls him the brother from another mother and and he said he loved barack obama, who keeps a good touch with him. And i said what you think of donald trump . And george bush senior just had an epithet with him. He was so disgusted with him so i cant even imagine how painful it was for him to see him destroy jeb. Mr. Lamb if folks want to know more about this story, they must get your book. The name of the book is the year voting dangerously the derangement of american politics. I thank you. For free transcripts, visit us at qanda. Org. If you enjoyed this weeks interview with maureen dowd, here are some other programs you might like. Amy chose it on her journalism career, which includes covering the Hillary Clinton campaign. Robert costa on the similarities between donald trump and ross perot. And Andrew Ferguson on potential republican president ial