Even by the 1930s and 40s the homicide rate in southern africanamerican communities was seven or eight times higher, the white homicide rate fell so i think the lore of the gun was very strong after the civil war for very good reasons. Ultimately it just lets a more gun and more gun violence within communities. Host i sometimes think of our gun situation today is a infinite maze and a hall of mirrors and a horror show. I see theres no way out. But i really hope anyone interested in guns in america reads this book as a starting point as a subject of debate and discussion from the person who strongly supports the second amendment. The hunter and any citizen who strongly believes in the second amendment. And anybody who really wants gun safety for gun control and wants to stop gun violence in america. It is a great place to start. I just wonder if there is anything else youd like to add to what we talked about today to further the discussion. Guest has been a pleasure to have this conversation, i think that i hope that people give the book a chance and i hope if they read it they, away from from the book with a much richer understanding about how we ended up with so many guns and how the gun developed in our culture and how its mystique developed in the 19 hundreds in more than the 18 hundreds. I hope they will be a little more skeptical of the next time they hear a sentence that begins, americans have always been a nation nation of cowboys, weve always love guns, this has all changed over time and it can change again. Thank you so much pamela. We been speaking with pamela hagood, i am william doyle, thank you. Think you donald trump and Hillary Clinton made the republican and Democratic National convention a messy on tv. This weekend will show you many of the featured and must talked about speeches from cleveland and philadelphia. Saturday night starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern youll see democratic speeches by michelle obama, bernie sanders, bill clinton, joe biden, michael bloomberg, tim kane, president obama, Chelsea Clinton, tim kane, president obama, Chelsea Clinton and the acceptance speech by Hillary Clinton. Sunday morning at 10 30 a. M. Eastern youll see republican speeches by rudy giuliani, donald and monica trip, chris christie, ted, ted cruz, eric trump, mike pence, even the trump and the acceptance speech by donald trump. That is saturday at eight eastern and saturday at 1030 eastern on cspan. The on cspan. The cspan radio app and cspan. Org. Did you miss any of the democratic or Republican National convention. You can watch every moment at cspan. Org to find every speech from both conventions. Watch on demand whenever you want. Heres how. At the top of the cspan. Org home page click on the democratic or Republican Convention where youll find videos from each day of both conventions. Youll find Convention Highlights near the top and scroll down and browse through every speaker. Click on the speech you want to watch. Then you can clip any speech and share on social media or email. Cspan. Org is you must competence of guide for finding video of any convention moment. Cspan, created by cable, offered as a Public Service by your television provider. Now on book tvs afterwards, peter marks reports on aig strategy to revive the company after the 2008 financial crisis. This is one hour. Peter, were here to discuss the book, good for the money i thought it was the most no holds barred account of crisis ive read. He is not playing nice when people are marred by the need to get along. I thought it it was an amazing story of leadership. So tell me, why did you want to do this but . Spee2 it started with my wife who at the time was an aig employee. She wrote a lot of letters to employees in Communications Department and bob reach out to her wanting someone to tell the story. He loved the way she wrote. I subsequently became intimately involved in the piece as well. It needed i think some outside perspective, someone who did not know the company so while at the beginning i could come inches i was thrilled by the idea of penetrating this mans mind because i hurt so much about him from val who really admired him. She has worked for many companies, big companies, citigroup among them and she greatly admired his leadership. There is such is such modest devotion within the company to him. So finding out the story of how this man turn this company around and paid back the country 180 billion was just delicious. Spee1 i wanted to read this from the New York Times obituary when he decided to take the job running aig which is after the crisis and what it looks like the the company was never going to recover. The aig boards comes in my First Response was you must think im crazy. That i thought about and said to myself, you know, theyre right the financial industry is in cass and i have the skills. It went on to say the drama and self regard were typical, largerthanlife executive who is also an imposing physical presence at 6foot four. That only did he restore aig to help by 2012 but he also repaid its entire debt to the american taxpayers every turn 22 billion in prophet as well. Its a remarkable achievement. I was thinking about this, he was the only person who thought this was possible. Essentially. I mean the government did not think it was going to happen, the company certainly did not think it was quite happy and they are ready to sell it off or spare parts. The American People had no expectation this would happen. So the idea that he was a little crazy, you had to be a little crazy to take this on. He was the right kind of crazy. He was approached earlier about the job when they chose his predecessor, but i think he was spoiling to do it. I think he really the idea of taking this on just appealed to a guy like this really was a guy who got stuff done in the corporate world. Host i wanted come back to that. What did you think about him when you met him. Guest the first time i met him we met in and i was immediately struck by what a people person he was. If my idea of a ceo with someone reserved and kind of arrogant and had some level of not, arrogance would be the work, i found him the opposite. He opposite. He was immediately assessable, he was funny, he wanted his story told. Obviously in the mere fact that he picked my wife is the first person to tell it to injured me to him. He wanted it told honestly. He did not want a story to see just the story of someone who was flawless as a human being or as an executive, but who had tremendous desire to tell the American People and to correct the record of their perception of the company. So i immediately liked him, he was the kind of man that you ask a question he didnt think about an answer he just gave it. He he was all, what you saw was what you got. Plus the fact that he was charming and handsome. You could see the charisma was palpable in the room, and so it was an immediate like. An immediate enjoyment of him. This is not a guy who came from privilege. In the book he talks about working as a cocacola truck driver and being in the army. Tell us about his Early Childhood and how it shaped him. Guest one of the critical moments in his life was at the age of ten he grew up in the catskills, his family ran a motel or a bar and grill actually. And eventually had plans to open a motel. They rented out rooms at this bar and grill. At the age of ten years old, his father died suddenly of a heart attack. The really poignant part of the story was in terms of financially anyway was that he left the family with a quarter of 1,000,000 dollars in in debt. This is in 1953 or so. And that amount really meant something in his mother had no idea what she was going to do. So this led to the feeling that bob was always on intimate terms with debt. They concept of debts and and the desire his mother had to pay back that obligation. She never wavered from and eventually did pay back, extraordinarily. The reason that also changed his life is because he had to become intimately involved in their business at a very young age. He was the oldest son and his mother leaned on him very heavily in that business. So that instilled in him a real real sense of commitment and responsibility at a young age. He was a very independent kid. He was in a perfectly behaved young man. He had to do things his own way. But always worked. And and he always wanted to make money. He often said throughout his life that the motivating factor for what he did very often was making money. It meant the value of money was extremely important to him. That is why he always had a job and learned about workers at the ground floor level. There is no trust fund, there is no extra boost by a relative to get him a job, never. So by the time he was in the army he had a very strong sense of earning about. Host there two stories about his mom that stood out to me in particular. One is a story, you give them the pen, tell us about that. Guest they own this motel in monticello, new york. He would he would sometimes work behind the desk. His mother was a pragmatic woman. One day he was behind the desk and a couple came up and asked about a room and he proceeded to describe to them the options they had for what they could rent for and what the price was an after the transaction was done his mother was various with him and he said well why was the matter and she said, son you did it give them the pen. And he said i dont know what you mean by that, she said when they are asking about the room you describe what you want them to reds and then you hand them a pen so they can sign for the room. Dont let them make the decision, you make the decision, just give them the pen and this became a mantra to him and an understanding of what the transaction and sales was you had to effectuate the sale. You had to make it happen. The other one his mom said was about the important early job, you got a at her job, no then go do it. And talk about how that shaped his philosophy that you live the hand that you are dealt. Exactly. Guest if you find Something Better do that, but for the time being, her philosophy always was son, whatever is available to you right now is the thing you have to go for. Those essential to him and it plays out later in his career. He was always on the verge of another job, something that possibly he was not even perfectly qualified for. He knew he had to take the lead. He knew he had to go for it because that is what was being dealt him. Host i also love that he talks about his leadership lessons and says they are not the lessons of the business goal variety, ive never been to one. Never enrolled in a sigel Business Class ever. These are. These are ideas gleamed with the life and business with the emphasis on the light part of business. So talk about that a little, i think in the stalemate with expensive harvard mbas his harvard mbas his approach and training were really interesting. Guest he had no particular interest in schooling. He went for high school he was sent he worked actually was a workstudy thing at a new York Military economy and was one year ahead of donald trump at this truck school. It into particularly well grade wise ever. In fact in college she went to elford university which he had never heard of and he decided on his major, math because he thought that is what smart people were majoring, he has some facility for numbers but his grades were dismal. He had no interest in studying. Book learning was not his thing. I think he respected education, such as that everything he gleamed was not from a book, was from handson experience. Thus started when he was young man working for his mom. Host its interesting today programmer people tell me about witches getting things things done in us. To miser time. Bob described himself as that person and so what is that how did it define him . Guest gsts habitat in there its called get stuff done. He was very early on in his career he was pegged as the get stuff done guy. What that was was a remarkable facility he always had for coming into a situation and being able to analyze it and even if you didnt have the skills that job required, finding them. Remember he came up through operations in the early days of Information Technology and data processing. Its really where he cut his teeth. He always was the man, the person that is higherups could go to the very challenging new situation that required him to figure out something he did not know before. He knew how to marshal people that he needed to help them figure those things out. He came into a situation knowing very little about Cash Management account. There behind the industry including those. Remember those were the accounts that became very essential for places like Merrill Lynch and weber and within a very short of time mastered it figured out aspects like math marketing, market research, things he knew little about going in but knew how to find the people that needed to instruct him. He was just a really quick study that way. So that gst stuff continued on and on through all the jobs he had going into metlife where he took on this huge responsibility for regionalization and taking the company public. I think that was an operating talent of his. It just got more intense as he got older. Host there is a lot of habitats in the book, thats a very true and his voice really comes through but he has another phrase and we probably will not be able to say this one but he describes if theres anything of low is the business person who looks at you with a pasted on smile spouting the company line or nodding in completely unconvincing agreement. He has an expression that that maybe you can come up with way to describe and tell me how he thought about it. He called it grin caffeine. It was probably one of the reasons i wanted to write the book. I helped him write the book because it was so powerful them perfect distillation of everything i have observed over my life in my work life and i thought well heres a man who is sort of a natural philosopher. And it occurs to people who smile at you and nod in agreement and that lavish praise on you. You be be the person in charge to make you feel secure and everything youre saying is brilliant, but in fact walked away and goes, what a jerk. This guy thinks he knows what is talking about. We have all met him. The part of the Emotional Intelligence is that he could snuff that out of people. He knew the first time they met them whether or not he was being it was an amazing intuition he had. When i met him i certainly did not want him to have that oppression me even though i hear the term and somehow five you into his world was a badge of honor. He recognized immediately when he was being talked to and not in a honest. Host something i thought about was emotional at ted ginn said he clears a lot about employees. But he also talks about his own transparency about being exactly who he is and he quotes some insane you need somebody who will not be afraid to say after you and i mean everybody how to balance those qualities. I think the balance in those things is what is hard to achieve. We meet a lot of people who are not afraid to say exactly what they think that they trample over others. He seemed to have something that prevented that a little bit. Guest i think it varied on the audience. I do think if bob was angry and terrifying. He had a very strong point of view and did not really, i mean i think you wanted some debate but ultimately i think you so sure of himself and what he wanted to do in those situations that he did not want the challenges that were going to thwart him in any way or changes course. To the point about balancing, he had tremendous charm and i think the key for him to running this company and what was extraordinary about his ability as a leader was that he understood and i think truly empathize with the people who work for him. He wanted them to feel that. He had an ability to communicate that i often said that he was for himself in front of a large group of people then he was oneonone. Something came out of him. There is a performance aspect aspect five. It was also very real. I think you love the idea of taking people to a conference in large groups and they responded to that. The employees of aig felt we truly thought about that. Thats an extraordinary skill for ceo. I am but he has worked a Large Organization knows the purple not the top is very remote. Has her parents just for the control from minimum. That gave him tremendous capital. The moments when he was also being bob and being angry, when he came into a room and untold off the people work for them that they were doing what they had more power because they wanted to please him. I think they really wanted him to be happy. As he made them happy. It was an exchange. Its an amazing an amazing bouncy construct that way. Host from a leadership point of view is a intuitive book. They say they listen to everybody elses point of view into account and it sounds like he did that but in the end he ultimately wanted it to be his decision. Guest absolutely think thats totally true. Especially in the case of aig he had a mission, he knew what the mission was he had to shift the mission because lets face it there other very strong people involved in this process is what one particularly the chairman of the board so he had to be a negotiator that way. He relied so much on his own sets of the value of things in the belly of people and felt he knew it so well that he did not really need a colloquy constantly. He did did not have to have a brain trust that told him the opposite. I think that drive really did serve him incredibly well. That intuition. Host getting to aig, you had a better understanding of it given that your wife work there. Refresh refresh the audiences as to why aig matters. Guest aig was Largest Insurance Company in the world. It had been dominated for decades by a legendary leader who had built it into Elizabeth Warren and frank and stan my monster because it had so many working parts. It covered every part of the globe, was what i know about it was the most seductive to me about the company was its adventurousness in terms of what it insured. It insured kidnappings and military things, and all kinds of high risk customers all over the world and it really did change the nature of what a big Insurance Company could do i think. So that was my understanding. I did not know anything about the operations of the company. I. I did not understand the workings at all and how it was really broken into little pieces especially after hank left in the mid 2000s. When insurance is not the sexiest business on the planet. Host and aig in some ways was a very glamorous company. Guest aig, American Institute of it had a bad quality so i did not really have a great understanding. I think i was part othe problem the company had won the dam burst. I think the American People particularly new but citigroup was in what Goldman Sachs was in the nieman brothers even. But they did not know much about this Insurance Company. It have it a very foggy public image. Spee1 so aig became a poster child, child, one of the most if not the most hated recipients of a government bailout. It was 187 billion. One of the controversies of the financial crisis was the idea that a chunk of the money that was funneled through aig actually went to bail out its counter parts on all of these, take firms like Goldman Sachs who received payments for risky deals they had done. Talk about how bob felt about that. Guest he was furious. It infuriated him that theyre being bailed out at 100 cents to hundred cents to the dollar. It made no sense to him. He called them vultures. And then additionally theyre all in the building. They were reaping hundreds of millions of more and consulting fees, they are brought in to do studies, there is a huge plan called project destiny which cost untold millions that was supposed to sell off the company very quickly into the contingent parts. That all drove him nuts. He thought it was unconscionable that they got paid off before the public did. Host its interesting, he sounds like he ended up running affirmed that in some ways epitomize wall street but yet he was not up wall street. In fact the tone of contempt for the institution to the Consulting Firm permeates the book. Guest he felt there was some fair dealers. There are some that are fair than others. He understood the nuance and had friends on wall street but when it came to aig and what he wanted to do he saw it very blackandwhite. He understood that something was amiss. There are only so many fronts on which he could fight at any one time. Before we come back to project destiny talk about who Hank Greenberg was and what was the relationship. Guest bob was the ceo of metlife in the 90s and early 2000 so they were competitors. Bob had great admiration, think he had Great Respect for what hank did at aig. I think he thought he was a visionary and new him as an just the same way hank had tremendous respect for bob. He thought that he shepherded metlife three very difficult time. So there is a symbiosis, connection they had. Hank left under difficult circumstances having to deal with the attorney general. It was a long story but hank was one of the people who when the government and aig were looking for a new leader after they resigned he was one of the people urging the government to look at bob. They had some meetings over time. Bob respected hank. I think he thought that aig was to bake. He came to the conclusion that they had created something that really was unattainable. What bob would say is hank a created a company so huge that only hank understood it. So by the time that bob came along he knew there had to be some sensible reduction in the size of the company. I think over time he continued to want hank as a silent ally and someone who supported at least i think thats because bob thought he was a really smart businessman. Guest bob comes into this. Host bob comes into this company on a lifeline from u. S. Government and its incredibly controversial and is getting play for the financial crisis. You you could even argue a disproportionate share. Talk about what he encountered in terms of what was going on with the employees when he got there . And the widespread hatred towards aig employees. Guest mostly because of what was happening in one small unit that created all of the chaos. Aig financial which was in connecticut and london this was the home of the ceos in the all that horrible stuff. Those people for the focus of a tremendous amount of american anger, particularly because of this issue around the bonuses that they were contractually entitled to. But it played out in the press so theres it sorta became a symbol of everything that was wrong. It was not that much money. Considering the billions of people the government had now invested in aig, it was something around 60 million, but was a focal point and i got to the point where organized groups went and protested at the homes of Financial Products and executives and workers. There were threats against and Death Threats against people in the company. There were security security people had to be higher. It was extreme. It was way over the top. It got to the point where aig took its name office building. It started creating things like chartists, the property and Casualty Company that did not want any association with the name aig. When people are wearing their id takes anymore. Host and how did bob feel about that . Guest another thing to be wildly angry about, he felt was congress and even the president who said who fed the anger and some of them might even be privately much more conciliatory. Publicly they were condemning and using language that just inflamed the hostility and made everybodys job and bobs opinion harder. The government was wanting aig to pay back this money and at the same time is basically telling people it was a district reputable organization. Was mostly because he had an outside amount of empathy for his own people. But you can understand, he felt responsible for these people. Host thats what he said about congress that he they seem to in intense on sabotage. Guest he would watches these things would unfold like there was a congressional hearing about a retreat at the Saint Regis Hotel in california that cost a certain amount of money. It was a retreat for Sales Promotion that they had organized two years before any of these things happen. It had nothing to do with the operations of a financial product, this was an insurance division. It became another huge, public issue. The idea that aig was sending executives at a california resort. Costing the taxpayers money. But what he did was the clawback and he promised feinberg in return for allowing them to take that executive compensation fairly he promised to get the money back actually they would call it dialing for dollars they have a list of the people who had taken bonus money and over a period of time, all the money back through various persuasion. That sounds astonishing. But he did that himself. That is to the man was. Host talk about his attitudes towards pay an unpopular things like Corporate Jets and ceos to be paid a lot of money that ed liddy famously took up 1 per year to clean that up. It was worth more than a dollar but he valued his skills and he set what he would consider a reasonable price. He got a package which he came to ag he negotiated a package of ted Million Dollars per year and at the time the government was set way will for compensation but they also knew that they needed him one thing to remember is who was going to do this job . I dont think they had a very smart alternatives. Can also, someone who believed this could be achieved. Remember nobody thought this could happen or at what price ultimately it was a very small price to pay to get it done. Ultimately he had nothing to do with the damage that had been done he fixed it. So when he did, he knew the compensation in this goes back to his career again with the importance of money to him he didnt do this he did it partly because of the American People to be made whole but it took them a long time even after the agreement was set it took a couple of months before he was paid to the Corporate Jet to i think was an important symbol for him it had a terrible p. R. Impression for people partially because the year before when the executives of the Auto Companies came to washington to talk about there bailouts they flew in on a Corporate Jet and that left a bad taste in every race mouth but that was an extension of his ability to do his job it is a Global Company everywhere around the world and they have very specific guidelines from the government about how much it could be used and it made it almost impossible for him and it drove him crazy. That comes through. And he was retired when he took the job he has the beautiful place in croatia he loved growing grapes but it wasnt so much the fine wine but he really loved the process and the people he got incredibly close to the winemakers and i actually met these tough people who would make a living growing grapes on the side of the road of the peninsula. That would even make said diehard skeptics think twice about Corporate Jets. [laughter] so there is the meeting with tim geithner before he takes the job it is supposed to be a nice meet and greet but tell us what happened. It is a fiasco. The other hero the other main hero of the book the restructuring chief for treasury and it was very fortuitous for the country that these two men formed an alliance jim was his biggest booster and he was the recipient of the most grief of what the government was terrified but was but they had meetings in advocated giving him a job and he said before i take that job in the summer of 2008, i want to really me who is making the decisions i want to go to washington but he wanted to know who he was dealing with so jim arranged for one day to meet to Larry Summers who was the chief Economic Advisor and brought him into a meeting that was supposed to be a great session between geithner and although he was a little larry to begin with he wasnt sure it was the right fit because he was outspoken for his reputation but they sat down and instead of having an orientation session baba read him the riot act and lectured geithner how dare the government treat the employees of aig this way . You will not get anything done basically told him off and dieter was furious he was really a angry and he was taken at of the room he said why would you do that . He said i wanted him to know what i thought but that shows how far he would be allowed to go it was also a statement of independence you will not have a guy in the job will take phone calls and do what you tell me to do he had a better session with Larry Summers after that by the time he got over two summers offers it had godward that it had not gone well with geithner but summers believed in him very strongly and explained to him some of the political backstage work that was going on and why there had to be so much vitriol between aig publicly even though they wanted him to do the job. He didnt like that the wonderful thing about bob is win his interviews with employees and reporters there is no subtext is all text. I was trying to figure out who he like to lease and geithner is a relatively small character repress or harvey. [laughter] talk about harvey. People described it as oil and water very strong and very talented very bright but both had a vision of leadership that they were central and during bobs first year it was hard to take on simultaneously for the first time in the companys history the job of ceo and chairman was divided between two people. Bob had mixed feelings about this decision ultimately thought if the chairman, will deal with washington that is fine i will deal with the company when we sell an mri out and value and enhancing the brand but over time they never really formed an a relationship i do think there was so much on his plate it was understandable there was the endless amount most of the time he was dealing with compensation issues with the government for the for several months but something never connected between those two men they both had a vision that was never reconciled and harvey held sway with the Board Members and bob had a tendency to speak his mind that underserved a lot of people bin in his mind anyway was a campaign to undermine him in the press he had his theories about where it came from he told a famous story of someone who went to a doctor and the doctor said the good news is you are not paranoid but the bad news is there after you and he saw the way things worked for example, right after he took over the job he promised he would go back to croatia for the harvest of his own grapes he told the government he told everybody it was signed off but when he went two weeks later all hell broke loose when stories ran that the company was foundering and he is a grape harvester as their pictures of him even millstein called him and said were you doing . Your reporters for the news organizations and he is explaining they were putting them together but it was a p. R. Disaster. So that showdown on bastille day what happened . A went back and forth borrelia was a deal to sell the largest unit that agee wanted to get to which was a i a which was a chinese based life Insurance Company the huge crown jewel part of the original vision of a company that preceded it from late 1919 and bob had secured what he thought was a coup to get a huge amount of money from a british Insurance Company for the company that was way over the original valuation said deal did not do that well over time and it wasnt related to the american prudential but didnt have the resources but it really brought the factions to ahead of the board and after the board refused to back bob bottle lower valuation to still sell it, the relationship was in tatters and in than meeting in that july 2009 bob decided it was either him or her party had to go he talked about leaving before he had another famous saying he had something that was called f you money and that anybody should have that he would announce one of us has to go and that was with the most erratic Board Meeting he had ever attended. Over the course of the afternoon the debate ensued with harvey in his office and bob in his hand the board wrestling with where the company would go and who would lead it. It may have been a foregone conclusion at that point bob had to do with there were so far down the road with his plan would make docents to lose him and he knew that at some level but something that afternoon harvey went into bobs office to say we need to repair our relationship and bob said we do have one. If you can imagine this incredible scene with so much on space and to his credit party conceded at that meeting and said i will go and bob is still sitting in his office waiting for the results to be announced walked over one hour later and everyone was gone he didnt know if he had a job or not he had asked the secretary what happened . If they left they said you are the new ceo. But by january 2011 ag really is his company bin neil cavuto says a comeback nothing short of breathtaking in the meantime as he finds out he has cancer so does he cutback by people might do . No. That and how he can do that and that discovery. That was an extraordinary moment and ill be learned after he was already diagnosed and treated so his whole persona was someone informed by that but that was october 2010 he had been coughing and went to a doctor and ultimately at nyu one of his oncologist informed him that he had lung cancer and he would go on the treatment regiment that they would decide which one to do. It was actually an important meeting to set the price of a i a he was having chemo and he was on the phone he had told anybody yet this is happening. He told them this is a regiment to take over several days the he didnt have time so you have to give it to me all at once he talked for hours and hours i dont remember how many regiments were compressed into the one sitting but it was a terrible ordeal for him because he was terrified suddenly he would be confronted by mortality the personal pain was intense for his family that the idea that he would not get the job done and he invested so much of himself it was alarming him to the core of who he was the other question was is how much do you disclose who and when and how does that affect . He was worried they would usher him out the door. We will go with somebody else ultimately he decided shortly thereafter to tell the board and the press and the company that it was treated which it was at that point was very obvious of the outcome but he did not reveal he had lung cancer he never revealed that but in light of state steve jobs in his pancreatic cancer that was disclosed fairly early in this kind of surprising in amazing he could basically keep that to himself. He didnt feel anybody is business what typey had especially since he was treated the prognosis at the beginning was one year and a remember he had a conversation will you be around to do this and he says i depends i hope but by the grace of a guide, the first treatments he had were very, very successful he lived for a half years with various interventions and he never missed a days work spirit that is interesting about his fear of dying before the job was finished because he writes i plan to work as hard as possible to be raised the regrets of my vocabulary that shows how important it was to him but one place still that is an issue in the Campaign Today to to greece sanders popularity which is the continued anchor of the American People he wrote that it was just mistakes if we blame people for mistakes the entire company would be in jail and he didnt fault the actions but that blaming and viciousness that went on after but what did you think about that . Dedicating key compartmentalized it and in his own mind i tried on many occasions as three talked to him to get him to talk about an understanding of how much pain there was on main street as a result of what happened i dont think that he wasnt compassionate, but i do think he believed so strongly in what business could accomplish and what could be done by American Enterprise that he had to seal off the etf of the damage, not the damage but the response get over it. We are not there anymore and they think that was key to how this happened i dont know if he could have achieved these Extraordinary Results to pay back at a profit within three years this massive amount of money even the cbo said could never be paid off and then these organizations it was a 50 billion loss because he dwelled on the fact that people were hurting a dont think he could have achieved everything he did to help them stop hurting you want to shake them and say criminal but he did not see it that way. But this underscores the lunch with president obama. But finally, there was the famous article about him in new York Magazine that had the great summarizing headline a picture of bob looking great and robust a Great AmericanSuccess Story the headline was your welcome america and he did feel as if the count did not have much gratitude for what he and the company had achieved to pay them back there was no plus column it was all negative so that was extremely upsetting to him partly because he thought it would help the company to have an acknowledgement of what he had done and his legacy would leave a Healthy Company to prove them completely wrong to make sure is survived beyond the payback so millstein arranged to have a meeting with obama remember excuse me bob was not a huge fan of this administration is fair to say and felt something to be admired but others felt he was not a forceful voice on many issues including the role of American Business and i think he thought it was cowardly when obama went after truly not fair about the platitudes he voiced like its almost encourage the anchor to the company sold january 11 they arrange for bob to go to the white house to sit down with a short meeting with obama and once again in the midst of the pleasantries he laid out the lack of gratitude about American Business on the part of the