I think its a sideshow that theyre not interested in. The twitter feed has been a big part of his true presidency. The media focuses on it and becomes a topic of the talk shows. Its almost as big a part of the presidency as he when he takes to the podium. How do you look at that in terms of going for, could it help him or heard him . If you are on the staff would you advise them to cool it on the twitter or do you think its a good thing . Its his ability to communicate directly to the voters without the filter of the Mainstream Media are given the alternative media. I think its an extremely valuable tool. He likes to say its like owning a newspaper without the debt. You can reach 60 Million People in a flash. I would urge him to keep tweeting. It is a valuable tool. It allows him to communicate direct and i dont think they like it. They like to interpret. That said, i do think he is going to be donald trump. He is not going to change. This idea that he is going to become more president ial or diplomatic, i dont think thats how he got elected. People like him because he is a blunt and genuine, hes uncoached and unscripted. What you see is what you get. That is what we have elected. Host referring to your book talking about the departure of the campaign apart because you different from strategy. Look like you wanted more discipline. Maybe a little less of trump being trumpet more campaign discipline. How do you take that is great with their view . Do you think he needs more discipline now in the way he you felt was needed in the campaign . Guest it doesnt matter what i think. The truth is, i left the campaign but never stop being a trump supporter cheerleader. One, my book the clintons were about to publish and i dont want people to say thats a trumpet project or a trump directed project. It wasnt. Second, and i was wrong about this i wanted him to run a more Traditional Campaign in terms of the traditional tools of campaigning. Polling, analytics, paid advertising and so on. I do not think you could win doing that. He was right, i was wrong. Hes in is a phenomenon in itself. Host youd describe him using that unconventional approach to having this victory. You said it was different from the approach you are talking about. Can you talk about your book and how he was able to overcome not having a traditional approach yet still being able to winner where he hasnt spent as much money. In your information how was it that he was able to get around many from all the traditional approaches . Guest this was different than any other election i have been involved in. This would be my tenth president ial campaign. This was the election was the Tipping Point was reached in terms of the Mainstream Media losing their monopoly on the dissemination of political information. In the 60s when there are only three networks when the destruction of Gary Goldwater was easy all three networks chimed in a gary was done. I mania, lunatic, later when he gets back to the senate he becomes quite revered. In this election the Tipping Point have been reach largely because of technological reasons. Meaning, people getting their news other handheld device no longer getting it from a television set. Therefore the Mainstream Media, the three networks and the Cable Networks their rating start to draw. People are getting their information from alternative sources. Some conservative alternative sources, some just alternative. Breitbart, daily caller, town hall, those are all important. Trump realizes this when nobody else does. For the First Time Ever voters realize that big media is in bed with Big Government and the establishment. The three networks and the cable outlets are reinforcing the narrative of the Mainstream Media. Voters are skeptical. Used to be if you saw something on tv it must be true. Now the opposite is true. You see something on cnn any wonder if its really true. I think those changes, one technologically german made a big difference. Host if you look at the situation now he has pull numbers showing though numbers, the saturation by the media thats overwhelmingly negative about President Trump so far. Do you think the media is having a big impact on the presidency right now despite his ability to reach out to others . Guest a lot of those polls who show him low ratings showed him winning. So the sample is questionable. One of the problems has been the polls across the board were largely wrong. Some to an honest mistake and others because they were padded. There based on an assumption that the turnout was going to be identical to four years ago. Same number of blacks, whites, christian, jews, women and men and so on. There was a false premise. An assumption that Hillary Clinton would pull out the same number of africanamericans and get the same percentage that barack obama got, not possible. This explains why the polls were off. There was anecdotal information to the contrary. Look at the crowds trump was drawing. Look at the crowds hillary was having trouble drawing. Look at the Trump Supporters and social media. The media tended to discount that. Perhaps the president s Approval Rating is higher than some of the polls are showing. On the other hand the negative brush it does continue and its incumbent on the president to help communicate his critics. Host can you talk about your early reduction to President Trump. You talk about in the book i saw him potentially becoming president some day. A very long time ago. Talk about what happened there. Guest the first person to imagine a trump resident was not me but former president Richard Nixon. I was working for next and political chores in his president ial years and he met donald trump and George Steinbrenners box in yankee stadium. They hit it off. He called me the next day and he said well, i met your man. I have to tell you, hes got it. He could really go all of the way. And then days later he dropped a note which i reproduce in the book to donald trump that said, it is so typical of nixons location. Nixon show saw you on the Ed Sullivan Show that you were superb. If you ever run for Public Office you will win because you are a winner because mrs. They said knows these things. Of course he was talking about himself and his own judgment. Not long after they spend a weekend together, they went for a charitable event in eastern texas. They barricaded themselves in a hotel suite and spent hours together talking geopolitics. And trump fire questions at him and wanted to know about the russians, the chinese, really and around the world to her. The men headed off and it was nixon who first saw the potential for a trump presidency. I wanted him to run as early as 1988. I was president of his Exploratory Committee in 2000. I was working in 2012. But in what respect, 2016 was the right year. I think it was the perfect storm. Not only the Tipping Point have been reached for alternative media and thats an important factor. After eight years of barack obama the American People were ready for something different. In the 40 years ive been involved, ive never seen voters this angry or sour, or disillusioned. Theyre totally fed up with politicians, political institutions, big media, Big Government, they are ready for something radical ready for an outsider a donald trump fit the bill perfectly. Host did he discuss his plans this time around or how he is trying to weigh whether to do it or not . Guest within days of losing before the end of 2012 donald trump had his attorneys go to the u. S. Patent and Trademark Office and trademark this slogan, make America Great again. Told me on new years day of 2013 that he was running in 2016 and he had taken the steps. I was certain he would run throughout the entire year. Therefore the media columnist like mckay and others hes just burnishing the brand, this is just publicity. This is a headset, through the entire year i knew he would run. Host what was different this year . He has thought about it before. Guest his business was in the right place. He was in the position to turn over his business to his older children. I dont think there anymore mountains to climb in the real estate industry. He had done it all with a hotel washington, d. C. Be in the new crown jewel in trump enterprises. He realized the country was in the right place. I would go back to something he told Oprah Winfrey 20 years ago. She said donald, do you think you would ever run for Public Office or president . He said no, i dont think so. Unless things get so bad that i have no choice. Host i remember that. Guest thats where we are today. Hes not running because he wants the title of the great house are great playing, he already has a great place in manhattan and a great place in palm beach. He has an airplane thats on par with air force one. He is not doing this to be someone, hugh already was somebody. Hes doing it because the country is in trouble and he thinks he can save. Host what you make of the response of his presidency by the people who do not support him, the protests have trickled down to the local level first state representatives who are not democrat. What you make of the protest that took place after the inauguration what does that mean for his success as a president. Is there a way that they can abstract things at every turn. Should they have a greater voice because of the popular vote went to Hillary Clinton . Guest some of the demonstrations are paid for, others are sincere people who have concerns because they may be buying the caricature of him that has been painted by some of the Mainstream Media. The answer is simple. That is the torpedoes arse. Ahead. If he restores our nation Economic Prosperity and move in that direction you see an uptick in jobs. You seen an uptick in the market and a Small Business confidence. If he restores the economy a lot of this will fall away. The economy will give him the revenue needed to address the other problems. Particularly under the structure. He is first and foremost a builder. That is why do not try to convince him a while cannot be built because a can. Or our inner cities can be rebuilt, they can. If youll fulfill those promises the opposition will fall away. You have to have the cooperation of congress who are hawks and dont want to run up a big tap on these projects which will be very expensive. They have healthcare reform tax reform, two major agenda items that you normally dont see happening in a single congress. His promised a lot to the country. To think he can deliver . Is there any hazard for him having problems so much . Guest this is why hes doing executive orders to do what he can before turning to congress for a legislative solution. His ability to go directly to the people is unprecedented since Ronald Reagan did that with the Democratic Congress bypassing his initial tax reform. I do think you should focus on tax reform, particularly Corporate Tax cut, his acrosstheboard tax cut, i would do that first. Rather than deal with immigration first. I think that is key to the solution of the other problems. He will have to fro. Some republicans in congress are entrancing. His ability to make them feel the heat if you cant make them see the light by going to the people is still his card. Host talk about the book and i came up with the idea for. Sounds like you had to write it quickly. Did you decide there was going to be a book about his election. Guest i decided to write a book when i left the campaign because whether or not he wanted lost there was a book. Frankly i was confident he would win for most of the campaign, because i noticed his resilience in the polls. Take for example his attack on senator mccain. Many of the Mainstream Media thought that was it and he will be blown out of the race. He went down two or three points but he bounced right back up. Same thing happened when he attacked the judge was of Mexican American heritage. He took a small hit the polls but he bounced back. Voters had bigger issues in mind. They were going to excuse him because of his overall agenda. I think that resilience indicated he could win the close race. I did think he needed to expand the map and that opportunity came late. To going to michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania is where he won the race. He got approximately 3 of the africanamerican about the mitt romney. Doesnt sound like much. But the difference between winning and losing michigan. He also got lesson Hillary Clinton. The overall turnout was not as great. And he got 3 more. Thats the difference between victory and defeat in michigan, and wisconsin, and in pennsylvania. That small, incremental bump up in the africanamerican boat. Youre in a situation where the race was so close that you cant point to any one thing that made the different because it was many things that made the difference. Including his superhuman physical effort. Dealing a page from harry truman, he burnt storm into eight states late while Hillary Clinton is in her pajamas looking at the swatches for fabric for the new curtains in the oval office. They were very confident they had a victory in front of them. People in the media, congress, political observers and pollsters felt the same way. You are among the few that fell confident he would win. Talk about when he felt the tide would turn before the election . Guest prior to the fbi director announcing he would reopen the inquiry into hillarys email he was already gaining at a fast clip. That event nearly accelerated his client. In the beginning she was sitting still but after that she began to drop slightly. Thats where you can see the true trajectory. At the close of any race when youre examining the polls, its not where you are thats important as much is the direction. So for wednesday in pennsylvania your down five and friday your down three, and someday your down one, you can see the direction in the trajectory. All the polling i examine the final weekend which came not only from the campaign but it did not expand extensively in polling but clinton pulled every time she burped. But looking from statewide candidates who are pulling an enormous amount of data became clear to me on sunday that the trajectory was a most perfect. He was on a track to win. Host nobody was expecting the victories in wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. Those were considered outliers for him to be able to pull off. Were you surprised he was able to get those states . Guest you could see in the polling it was within the region he was gamy. But he visited all three. He went back and visited all three where i think hillary thought this was in the bank. Host people thought he shouldnt be trying to expand the map. Focus on the must win states. What happened at that level to decide to expand rather than focus on the areas he needed to win, like florida and ohio. Guest the decision was made that they were both safe. Ohio was interesting because romney and mccain and george w. Bush spent tens of millions of dollars and put forward a very strong effort. None of them could ever pop ohio. Thats because in the western part of the state trump was able to pick up white, moderate, workingclass Union Democrats at a rate that neither of those gentlemen have been able to achieve. So trump pulled out to a fivepoint lead in ohio and it never dropped. Ohio was safe for him much earlier. In the end it was a battleground state. Florida was tighter but the decision was made that trump and carey could afford to spend his time in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania which was necessary. He couldve carried ohio florida and still loss. Virginia was always winnable. The Republican National committee pulled crucial resources out of there in the end which was detrimental. He couldve one virginia which he lost very narrowly. Host you break the book into sections of the campaign. First the primary than the general election. You talk about it requiring two sets of staff. Each depending on the goal they wanted to achieve. How is the transition from primer to general election . You so one top Campaign Staff really been another one coming. How did that work . Guest trump decided on and all Communication BaseStrategy Early on. The rally was the centerpiece. He made a decision rather than spending money on paid media he would do every interview he could jam into his schedule. He would go into the stage, do the massive rallies confident the two Cable Networks would cover them walltowall. Its a multimillion Dollar Campaign commercial. He did this skewing organization and structure and of course while his primary opponents are spent in fortune on analytics and phone banks, trump was going solely communications. It worked. He completely dominated the free media before each primary it was like having paid advertising. That works fine for that portion of the campaign. When he hit wisconsin and then subsequently lost contest in north dakota, colorado, and louisiana. Host different formats. Guest your heading into convention. Theres a premium on organization and structure. No one in the Trump Campaign had thought about who from each state would sit on the rules in the Credentials Committee which are crucial if the nomination would be stolen from trump. Thats what would happen. Thats what i thought he was wise to bring in Paul Manafort who is an expert in conventional politics. Put together structure, we were prepared to route them in credential committee. Ted cruz ran against trump. Guest so the campaign needed to change at that juncture and it did. Then the campaign needed to change again, the president brought in steve bannon, kellyanne conway, and i think they are able to retool in time for a general election campaign. That said, i can tell you that donald trump to not prepare for any of these debates. Not in the traditional way with the stand and acting like Hillary Clinton. He didnt do anything. He just read and made notes and calculated. I would argue that he won every debate. Host theres criticism about his performance that he did not seem prepare or knowledgeable about the topics. Guest the proof is in the pudding, he won the election. I thought one debate you could argue was a standoff,. Host which was that . Guest probably the first one. The second one he clinched the debate when he said we cannot trust a man like donald trump to run the Justice Department and he said, because youd be in jail. That is the beginning of the end. Host the criticism of trump is that hes an outsider and he doesnt understand issues because he hasnt been in government. They say youre doing these things that might not be good for the country. What you make of that criticism and you think he really can learn on his feet and the white house . Guest thats typical of the washington establishment. The that you hear what is help you. What they really mean is let us derail your program. The leadership of both parties like the status quo. They like the way things are now. They fight on television and all go out to dinner afterwards and slap each other on the back. Its about getting reelected and raising money to get reelected. My problem with the bush, clinton, bush, obama continual ms. , not only have they driven the country into the gutter and given us endless war and massive debt and spending, erosion of our civil liberties, and immigration system that leaves us on safe, trade agreements affect jobs out of the country and an incoherent foreign policy. They and their cronies have gotten rich while doing it. While they have made the people poorer and less safe, they themselves have made hundreds of millions of dollars. And elitist phenomena and the voters are fed up. Host trump is receiving criticism if theres conflict of interest for him. He is supposed to be handsoff with his real estate empire. This questions about the. How will that play out . The public may start to scrutinize him in a different way and see if theres a conflict of interest or do not see a problem . Guest one of the greatest ranks was his independence. People thought he had so much money that you couldnt buy him. That he cannot be bought and bullied. I think that is still the case. Im satisfied with the way he structured his business. He understands that after he leaves office still have opportunities if he wants to make more money. Hes a billionaire. How much more money does he need . With that comes the independence to do some very difficult transfer seal things. People talk about his reelection, i dont think thats a foregone conclusion. He may not run. Depends on how much he achieves. Host what you think would influence his decision to not run . Guest a bountiful economy, a return to prosperity. Host that success in winning which you want to keep doing that . Guest it might take eight years may take four. He will not sit back and let someone else set the agenda. I think will decide about reelection based on what hes gotten done and what he has to do. He has given up an incredible lifestyle to do this. Heres a guy who loves the family and grandchildren, he is a homebody when hes in new york or florida. His [inaudible] the party circuit. He loves to play golf loves his daily routine. Theres huge sacrifice in this in terms of lifestyle. His doing it not because he needs to be someone, but because he has magenta to save the country. Host one of the hardest parts for transition is to transition into president ial team. He brought steve bannon who needed to come in for the home stretch of the general election. If you keep trump focused and centered. Now bannon is criticized and ridiculed on saturday night live they depict him as a grim reaper, some outlier force in the white house i should be there. What you make of that is entrance where with what you know. Guest well to think that he is trumps brain is completely backwards. Steve bannon and donald trump have the same world view. That there copacetic on issues is not surprising. Its how they became friends. Trump is not doing bannons will, bannon is doing trumps will. They havent done anything that the president hasnt talked about in the campaign. Reince priebus, on the other hand represents establishment with republicans. Im disgusted by the leaks coming out of the white house. I understand leaking. Ive done a fair amount of it. But when youre leaking to the detriment of your boss and for example a white house staffer said the procedure like a clueless child. The president wearing a bathrobe in the family quarters after hours. Which i would hope so because its pretty drafty. Thats not helping the boss. The trying to suck up to reporters. Host you think is weekly in . Those were not trump loyalists. I fear they come from the established republicans who seem to dominate most of the washington and white house staff under reince priebus. Its detrimental. Unprofessional and hurting the president. Host what will happen because he will have to work with establishment people in the white house with him. They could undercut the entire presidency with leaks. Guest the best possible to hire trumpet people for key positions. Peoples whose loyalty is for donald trump. Who supported them prior to the convention not after. There are many qualified people active in this campaign who have applied and heard nothing being in this enormous rush to hire a Republican National committee alone. Interesting to me that when jim baker who is george bushs Campaign Manager was hired to be the chief of staff, the first thing he did was reach out to high profile reaganites and hire them for the white house staff. Therefore he did not get the kind of criticism they have now. Host you work for the president s like Richard Nixon. You said they spoke at one point and while he was living. Can you talk about comparisons between the two and how they operated . Other similarities or differences. Theres enormous similarities between trump annexing and trump and reagan. They are different. In the case of next, both men are brilliant. Both men are stubborn and the focus on a goal and you cannot get them off of it. Both of them are pragmatic. Trump is not an ideologue shes a pipe list with conservative instincts. Hes interested in solutions. I like franklin roosevelt. He will try Something Else until he solves the problem. Theyre both pragmatism loyalists. On the other hand trump is very much like reagan in terms of size. Images physical size. They have that in common, but theres a command presence. Its more than charisma or magnetism. Both men fill a room and have a certain statue that is particularly strong on television. In that sense he is a master communicator as reagan was. Hes more interested in the details and reagan was. In that sense is more like nixon. I like to think about is the best qualities of both. Host if you were to make a call on his performance right what would you recommend to him in terms of if you are on staff the changes you make what you would like to see him do differently. Stick to the agenda which he is already doing. Hire more trump bites. Investor confidence in people who share your vision. Dont hire people who have a great resume and have never stood up for trump is a and work for you in the general election. Thats generally good advice. Ignore the Washington Press corps. They will never get with the program. There in shock about losing the election. Dont forget the alternative media. If you want to reach millions of people on filter, interview breitbart and with the daily caller and in four wars. The region millions of people and youre not going to get the twist youll get from cnn. To try to reach out to the people who voted for Hillary Clinton because she won the popular vote. The best way to reach out is to revitalized the economy improve the critics wrong. Trump would say in the year youll see. Youll be really happy, im going to do good job. I think thats true. I think youll get a reassessment after year. Certain door at the penny criticism is stick to the agenda. If you revive the economy and renegotiate the trade deals, you start to rebuild the inner cities, take detroit or philadelphia and show it can be done, i think he could be one of the greatest president s. Host does he have the skills to take his business acumen and translated into working with government . A different skill set. Do you think he has the ability to do that. His bennett businessman has whole life. Washington is much different having to work with congress. Lots of roadblocks and frustrations. Yet say youd have to be a talent like l bj. Yet he has none of that experience. To see him being able to do that . Yes because hes a dealmaker and negotiator. For example, he has talked about terrorists on our trading partners. Im not sure hes going to do that but im also not sure hes not. Its the stick. Now the care, either we make a better deal or i will be forced to do tariffs. He knows the Corporate Tax rate would kill china faster than any tariff. So thats why puts it at the forefront. The way he has worked the phone on carrier for example another Big Companies to get them to stay here, he really has been juggling these executives to get them to stay and expand. Youll see more of that. You can argue its only a thousand jobs here there. Its symbolic that hes making the effort what is important. Host you talk about an underestimated candidate. Thats the understatement of the year. How did he stay confident. I was always amazed by how confident he remained even though the washington Media Establishment everybody seemed a goats should be the nominee. It seems like an almost impossibly confident people person. Did you notice that about him and how to think that played into his victory . Guest hes an optimist, he is a can do guy. He doesnt think anything is impossible. He never thought the election was impossible. Even here at the end finally got beat down by the constant Mainstream Media saying you cant win. He told his wife and he said publicly, we might not win tonight. Thats about as bad as a copper i think it was momentary. Nobody could be immune to the fact that the Mainstream Media try to write him out of the race at least three times. At the end of august theyre saying the victory was impossible. I dont think you lost the faith. I was that he thought he would win. His confidence is integral to at the make up of his personality. Thats what makes them donald trump. Host what is that come from . Guest he has succeeded beyond his own wildest dreams in terms of building and economics, business success. But the experience of coming to the brink of disaster in fighting your way back makes you stronger. Trump is a very tough guy. Guest his bankruptcy, his near bankruptcy, he never filed for personal bankruptcy. He used bankruptcy as a legitimate tool from his companies and he emerged from that. He got overextended and there is a crash. He survived it and he came back stronger than ever. This is much like nixon and watergate. He causes way back to respectability and he ends up as advisor to clinton on matters of foreign policy. Russia, china and so on. That neardeath experience makes you tougher. Anyone who doesnt make sure how tough donald trump is doesnt get it. In his personal demeanor hes likable. Hes a regular guy. His not snobby year formalin anyway. Hes in billionaire who is not an elitist or snob. That experience of coming close to financial disaster and survive and it made him stronger more confident. Host talk about your book, talk about your first meeting and your impression when you first met him. Guest i went to new york and 79, i was assigned to run new york, new jersey and connecticut for Ronald Reagans campaign. I was introduced to trump by his attorney. I went and saw him and told him i needed headquarters, finance committee, volunteers, telephones and so on. He said what you need is donald trump. I will make an appointment for you but hes very busy, he will not give you much time so make your pitch and get out. So i went to see donald. He was very gracious. I said its a great honor to meet you and he said please call me donald. After the inauguration when i said congratulations mr. President he said please call me donald. Hes a non assuming die. Is like likable and has a great sense of humor. What impressed me was his intensity. He asked very tough questions and remember im making the pitch that Ronald Reagan can get elected president in 1979. All of his questions related to the electoral map he asked how to get to 270 . Its interesting im assuming your man can carry california but how to get to 270. In virtually every conversation i have about the 1980 president ial campaign hes a junky, he loves politics way he love sports. He would asked that same question. So give me your take on the map. So hes always understood that. I think it was a key part of the strategy for this campaign. He always had an eye on how to get to 270. His politics are less concrete. Who was considered in some phases to be a democratic supporter. I think people wonder where he is firmly planted politically. Host when he was a businessman he gave to both parties and he gave to candidates. Host not uncommon. Guest new york city is a democratic area, one has to have a great relationships with the unions to build anything in new york city he always had a great relationship with the building trade unions. He left the Republican Party because he objected to the iraq war and was deeply disappointed in george w. Bush. I was there in those days. He oppose the iraq war because i was opposed to it we talked about it and i wrote that at the time. He came back to the Republican Party after george w. Bush was gone. He briefly switched to the reform party of new york its affiliated with the reform party because ross perot and jesse venture encouraged him to look very closely at the reform party. They were entitled to 58 million in matching funds because of the strong showings of ross perot. See had the prospect of running for president on other peoples money. That appealed to him but he concluded after intense exploration that the country is not going to lectin independent country anytime soon. Therefore one really has to be a republican or democrat to win the election as president. He switched back to the party of his parents and the party he spent most of his adult life in. Host talk about the tensions in the campaign. Dramatic moments in the campaign between Paul Manafort and corey lynn garcia. His one person there orchestrating the Campaign Rallies that launch trump into the stratosphere as a candidate. How did manafort transform an unruly campaign into something with more discipline and how do you carry that out so quickly and you think it was successful in your estimation. There are certainly stumbles along the way. So and ask you was an advanced man. Manafort was able to call on Political Associates going back to lend a hand, people with more experience at the state level. He was able to pull the best out of the existing Trump Organization going into the convention to challenge there. Its a substantial task but the successful nomination of trump with the clashing the ted cruz demonstrated he was successful. Also the convention has to be viewed as what it is. A television show. Its about entertainment and Paul Manafort help donald trump stages successful convention. Highlighting of the trump children. The speech by rudy giuliani. A lot of high points in the convention. We have a larger audience from our convention than the democrats. They pulled it together very quickly without much structure. So manafort gets and deserves a lot of credit in the book. Thats run the time you departed the campaign. What led to her leaving. Guest i left in august because my book was coming out and i didnt want trump to be a accused as a secret contributor to that because he wasnt. I think i dressed it i think he needed to run a more Traditional Campaign. I thought some of the twitter fights he got it distracted from his overall message of immigration and tax reform trade and so on. Then he was right and i was wrong about a lot of it. But i appointed myself as a number one circuit of donald trump. I probably did five or 600 interviews between the time i left an election day because i felt like i knew the man for 40 years and i could tell the people firsthand why he would be a great president about his independence and resilience and toughness. I never stop being a supporter but is 64 years old i wasnt going to be in a Campaign Structure right had to approve what i was to write or say. I felt i could be of great help from the outside and i think i was. Host there is a dramatic moment when crews did not endorse trump on the stage. He tore the voters to vote their instinct or conscious. What was his response to that . Was a surprise to you . Guest i think it was a surprise to everyone because paul had made it clear to senator cruz and his manager that he didnt have to use the word indoors. [inaudible] the smart thing to do would have been to do what Richard Nixon did in 1964 when he was certain goldwater would lose. Give him a full throated endorsement and campaign from every place. That way of trump loss there is a good old ted cruz was really there for the party. He broke his back for the ticket and he gets consideration in time. Instead crews decided to be rockefeller. Take as long go home. Trump supporter use will never let him be nominee of the party because he turned his back on the party when the prospects didnt look good. Later on when he figures out trump is likely to win he endorses trump. Too little too late. I think he made a mistake. I guess he thought the quality of his rhetoric would be so great it be like the 1976 moment when Ronald Reagan address the convention after for its nomination. It was true many people said we have nominated the wrong man. He is not Ronald Reagan. His more like Richard Nixon. Host what was trumps response . Was he surprised or hurt . Guest i think he was unhappy but later on i think he was generous towards the senator and he accepted his endorsement with grace. The two had gone back and forth and traded insults. Trumps declaration that ted cruzs father had been in conversations with the kennedy assassin. You read about that in your book. What you make of that . Can you talk about that a little . Guest i believe senator cruzs father knew lee harvey oswald, an associate of oswald in her book. The photograph you see comes from the commission, not from the national enquirer. I think donald trump threw it out there to get under the skin. Guest does that question his patriotism . Guest it questions his temperament. The question is obvious. Why do people take an instantaneous dislike to ted cruz . Theyre merely saving time. Host but you feel trumps tactics of getting an emotional rise out of people in twitter, should he do that in the white house or should he back off . Guest only for strategic purpose. In this case he got crew so mad. He got in a fight with a ten euro boy at a rally. They keep showing my intent. Host but you could argue back that cruise cited that in terms of some disparaging things about his wife, heidi. As reasons why he could not endorse trump. You could argue that a cruise endorsement mightve helped trump at the convention. Guest trump one and therefore cruises the loser in his calculation. He is a bush republican masquerading as Something Else. I call them out extensively in the book i would hope that somebody will challenge him in the primary in texas. Maybe the attorney general. If not maybe alex jones will run. Somebody needs to challenge him. If he survives the and he has plans to run for president think many republicans will remember that he would not endorse the ticket at the convention. Host tech my favorite passages in the book that you find are important to you that you want people to take notice of. Host harry and his biography of donald trump and the light barrett who passed away recently have both written a story that circulated that indicated donald trump was scheduled to fly to Atlantic City from new york in a helicopter that would tragically crash in the pinelands and kill everybody on board, that was made up. Donald trump never intended to be in the helicopter. But he promulgated the story to get publicity. I can tell you first hand that they are wrong. Bus feed, and others because i was working for donald trump as a lobbyist working on transaction issues. I was in washington, he was in new york. I called him and said i needed to see him to go over compromise language that needed an approval. He said i cant see you today have to go to Atlantic City. And i said i could be there and in our and half its important. Guest and so he said he was in the helicopter. I was sitting in his office when norma, his longtime system came in and told him that the superintendent of state police in new jersey was on the phone. He put a veteran cop on the speakerphone and he said i have terrible news, the helicopter your company chartered has crashed and there are no survivors. And donald sure said said are you absolutely sure . And they said yes 100 . It was a horrific time. To his credit, donald called every one of the widows right then and there. In some cases breaking the news to them which i could never have done. So he was telling the truth. Now, i am not claiming that i saved his life. I really believe this was an act of divine intervention. This is bigger than any one person. At that point i decided god had spared trump for a purpose. Some future purpose. We know what that is. Trump is telling the truth about the incident. He was smeared by his critics. Host what a story. Thank you for being here. The making of the president , 2016 is now available. Guest am delighted to be here. Thanks. The Los Angeles Times has been putting on the los angeles from other 20 years. Its become an institution as part of the community. Its a way to celebrate with the readers of the paper and with the paper city as a whole. The very notion of reading