Them and she had and how do we fight this sort of forces that fight and can some ways selfishness or selfjustification and societally how do we stop this inventing in our schools and education . This is the institution which record providing the american dream, the only semifunctional one. I wonder to what extent we reduce the problem to how we make the schools better. Why . The answer comes back to kids. When you see Public School students, you understand they are being largely deprived of opportunities that should be theirs. Those schools need attention. They need funding. They need political will and people to come teach even if they dont teach all that well. For a time. I think we are about out of time. Thank you all for coming and for participating. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] congressman said break away the recommendations for books on your website . Ive always been a big part of my life and i was actually a pretty Smart Communications is idea because we get these questions all the time. I talk about ideas spokesman in making a point at town Hall Meetings so we decided to we decided we would turn into a regular feature and has been pretty surprised about how much attention it gets. You change it every month or so. We do. We struggle to find the right way. It will be a series of books on particular topics, but its usually the easiest way, what are you reading now. We keep one up about a month and sometimes ill have two or three books im reading the mullah just take a picture this month, next month, whatever. Host do you ever post reviews . Ooscar no, never been too much of that. If i put the book up there, it means i think it was a pretty good book. Host what are you reading right now . Guest i thought it would take a little break. This is a classic case where you see the movie so you want to read the book a martian. It seemed in the rear. And then, i got intrigued by this new netflix thing, the man in the high castle which is an old boat. I used to read Science Fiction when i was a kid. For whatever reason i didnt read that one. A guy named philip is now dead. Those are kind of the things. Just finished up a biography of Robert Schoen knows which is a fabulous book, but boy its on. Host youve read mostly nonfiction. Guest i do. Mostly heavy biography, history. I used to be in historians so thats what i enjoy. Well have some things, every now and then if i read fiction it is quite often. This is like im going back to being 12. Two Science Fiction books basically. I read quite a bit of historical fiction. I love kathleen mcculloughs wonderful story by julia series. Mostly heavy history, have a biography. Host you mentioned your academician. Where do you teach . I actually taught as a graduate assistant in adjunct or frustrate university of oklahoma. Oklahoma that this university and that was just a semester gave. Todd in grinnell colleges london program. That was a fun one. Got my undergraduate degree from there. And then teaching a class with don fowlers Democratic National Committee Chair and i taught in congress say class and a National Party cant gain since gw i. D. C. I tied a campaign course at the university of central oklahoma. Host many historians when they come out with the book for whose entire series book youve read. I love anything that Stephen Ambrose wrote. A lot of range in his writing. Very good. Obviously John Mccullough excellent, excellent historian. But in an earlier. It was very heavily focused on british history. These were not all histories, but churchill was always worth reading whether its memoirs, a wonderful little book which nixon did his father juan. I like to read Richard Nixons death. I like to read about richard nixon. The most fascinating politician of my lifetime and i thought the things that he wrote were really quite good. Host does your reading help you and your work is congressman . Guest it does. History in particular provides a lot of context, a lot of analogies. Frankly a lot of understanding. Most people when they get to congress is circuiting history begins with them. You are really stepping into the flow of some thing, an institution or if you read particularly contemporary history, a lot of interesting not only parallel of the backgrounds quite frankly to what is going on. John berry read a wonderful book years ago called the ambition of power, which is a really sensitive writer dave jay, what was that, the great book on 1927 flight to mississippi. They think it was rising tide or something. He got hooked up with speaker right before he realized he was in his last year basically. He was going to write a book about congress and it turned into the rise and fall of speaker right. Theres a lot of characters in there. In that case, a lot of people i know. Newt gingrich, guys like wes watkins, little vignette or consequential figures in this sense they were close to write, that you read about. So yeah, those kind of things theyre extraordinarily helpful. Sometimes when older members are immersed in your words are telling stories, you know something about the context that the story really comes out of. I love how rogers. Hal has been here since the chairman of the appropriations has been here since 1980 and when he starts telling stories about the guys that when he got here have been here since the fifth piece, it is just fabulous. Host are there other books you would recommend about congress that you read before you took your seat . You know, one of the more interesting books, not about congress or senate, its a biography, but Lynne Cheneys recent biography is not a sin is a good book. Here is a guy in many ways the shape the system so to speak in terms of the constitution and serving in the body so i think hes so its worth reading about. I like these things again and nixon instead. The johnson series. Host robert caro. Guest yes some of those i respect secular. Nobody knew this institution, the senate and the presidency is obvious that the bread of american politics. Although nixon in a different way and i had the opportunity to meet him on several occasions. Really, really new at this. I would also say the biography of gerald ford obviously because even though he was a president , very much a creature of the house. Host i think youre right. Guest vpn. I think it was timed chance or Something Like that. But who is a wonderful book and you had asked in the politics of the era because this guy comes in the 40s is minority leader when he is elevated to this president. Thats an awful lot of history. Years ago i worked for a guy now that not enough people remember. They should. A creator of the modern Political Campaign committee over at the nrcc. He arrived in a 1066 and lost the republican primary in 92. A guy that understood the institution because he was involved in campaigns across the country was very consequential legislature. Deliver the nomination speech for Ronald Reagan at the ed convention. Pretty cool guy. His ability to tell stories that recount these petition, i used to call him knows this because he got a spray to the edge of the Promised Land and had he not lost his 92 primary, he would then reelected and wouldve had the opportunity to be here at the creation of the modern republican majority. Probably more to bring it on than any single guys. You pick up some of it listening to members and some of it reading. Host when you read these older biographies about Lyndon Johnson or gerald ford, do you ever say to yourself, the house doesnt work that way anymore. Guest you do. I listed the house changes with the times. Although there are lots of elements that are the same. I like to think honestly the Appropriations Committee is a Little Island that functions the way it was supposed to. That wasnt always true. It went through a raft time. The rogers, who very much is in the best sense of the word, and institutional lists, creature of the house so to speak has really done a lot to restore that in the hopes it can spread more broadly across congress. Theres no question within a divided, ideological time with the ability to apply that consensus or make a deal appointed really have a lot of good friends on the other side, but theres not as many issues that you can work on together in the way that clearly some of our predecessors managed to dupe. Host given your oklahoma Race Committee ever read books of Andrew Jackson . Guest by great, great grandfather, it was forcibly removed from mississippi, so we were raised i used to tell people when i was five years old i wasnt sure who Andrew Jackson was, but i knew he was a very bad man who had if of things. My grandma literally wouldnt carry a 20dollar bill. But i remember when proper remedy was to historian of the house had also written a wonderful book on congress. But roy blunt, hes a big reader. You should talk to them sometime. At one time he invites me a wendys chief web to have lunch with dr. Read many. He presents me with a copy of jacksons indian wars and he presents rodney with a copy of henry clay biography because they think it was his great, great grandfather, theodore, who ran on the ticket with henry clay. Also held the floor against indian removal for three days. So we were both sort of jackson and amazed by this sense. But it is a wonderful lunch and i remember him handed me the book and say them now, you probably wont agree with my thesis in this book, but i once youve read about it and think about it and come back. It was not that he meant to do it, but in some ways the removal of the five great triumphs of the southeast, choctaws, seminal because it pushed them further out and puts them from being totally overrun. That is a unique x the nation for violating treaty right and what was effectively at that cleansing of that part of the country. I said i dont agree with you in some ways, but i will say this. A rubber having gone in the same timeframe. We have a great festival and the site of the old chicks capital, had a great grandfather who was in the chicks i nation and their spouses to come to this thing. You know, and it is amazing that might not have been the case. We might not have survived in quite the same way we did. A large shiite, is 60,000 person tribe. You dont have any in anywhere near that on the east coast where you obviously have european and american conflict in contact. Host what about books on native American History . Guest gosh, a lot of them. Charles mann spoke is where you have to start. Not so much native american, for 1491, which is what is the state of the indigenous population in north and south america on the eve european arrival. What happened and how devastating the contact was an inmate accused the disease alone was much, much greater in terms of the number of people and the indians, whether in north or south america always had contact in a sense with white long before they solve them because disease traveled ahead and decimated a lot of these populations. So that is a good one. I loved empire summer moon. The comanche is in my district. A great biography on quantum part to this near award winner. Now, guy named Harold Gibson wrote a wonderful now dated history, i tried chickasaws. Its a biography of my grade and im a wonderful indian folklore artist is the First Entertainment in the Roosevelt White house for rinsing final at march the 33 and entertain the king of queens uninsulated height or if in 39. Got to get a plugin for her. Again, lots of great books. One of the great historians of native america. A lot of people will be familiar with her biography of geronimo. Some ways the most consequential books, the waters flow and this would have been to the five tribes in oklahoma was opened up to the allotment process. My family owns the last of our allotment lands still. He predicted the cd mixed. For the Transit Authority been removed and affect the daily and a land allotted up into individual ownership, which in many cases systematically looted from them. Its a tragic tale, not as if every bad thing happen to india and have been 200 years ago. This is early 20th century in oklahoma. It is a difficult history. Difficult for americans to get their hands around. It doesnt reflect very well on the American Government are frankly the treatment of native americans is a hard, hard history. To other recommended books . Guest i recommend folks all the time. As a matter of fact, every christmas i have that dinner from our republican appropriators and my classmate. He threw in appropriators because classmates were diminishing group. Im going to lose three of my great friends this year. But we always buy present and its almost always about. I think the most popular one was probably unbroken. Everybody loves that book. Host hillenbrand. Guest yes, great author. Fabulous book. One year i gave them bob woodward spoke, the price of politics is a great book and particularly i think i gave it out in 2012 and its all on the budget crisis in the budget act of 2011. All the characters are still the same. It will help us understand. The parts of it i knew her very accurate. Hes one of the great reporters, he was kind enough to sign on them. The person on the dinner took my copy to be signed. When i read, i write. It is underlining, to say that. He starts going through there and says to his ds mean what i think it means . He sat there for something close to an hour. And read the comments. It may have been aimed at the character is supposed to the account. I do think, you know, i dont want to be critical because i have a wonderful relationship with john boehner, but it cannot down relationship. I should say up down and up. We are in a good place now. I have a decent relationship with the president on a personal basis. Ive had the opportunity to interact with him. He was wonderful in a hometown in the tornadoes in 2013. What couldnt have asked for a more compassionate race on. When you look around his office, i always joke, im the only republican that has five pictures of barack obama in his office because hes good on indian things. Most indian legislation tends to be bipartisan. We worked well with the white house on everything from the settlement of which is the largest classaction settlement in america just read the mismanagement of transplanted violence against against women act an important tribal position to expand to the sovereignty law and order a to indian reservations around her resource and also its a tricky jurisdictional questions to try and work with those. But having said that, i like both these guys. I think some of the president s observations about john boehner are really based on misunderstandings of john boehner was. You could see it not book theres a part where he talks i understand guys like boehner is a Country Club Republican. I will grant you that it looks like a Country Club Republican and he plays a lot of golf, but he is anything but a Country Club Republican. This is a guy who grew up in a family of 12, the only one who got to college. His dad ran a bar. He took longer to get through college because he was doing the business. He is a much different guy. His story in some ways to verizon speakership is every bit as remarkable given his circumstances and where you started in my face a president which a Great American story. So i think sometimes that wouldve helped if the book had been before they could have each read a book. We mightve had a somewhat different ending to this tory although frankly they maintained a reasonably Good Relationship despite the difficulties. Anyway, back to the main point. Obviously, we get books every year to these things and its always interesting to see if your colleagues, you dont have a lot of time to read, but unbroken was popular. They loved that one, did one recently. I am blanking on the authors name, devotions, fabulous, fabulous book about two american pilots. One of them the first African American carrier pilot and his running mate of an annapolis Ivy League Educated but from the very affluent family in connecticut, is so alive. The africanamerican shot down over korea, the Strike Missions for their help and cover their retreat from the river but how close they were in the white pilot and multiply it trying to cover this guy trying to crash land his plane. His name was jesse brown. But the way pilot crash lands his plane to try and get his friend out at playing. Ill tell you, it is everything from the letter the African American pilot bread the night before hes killed. It is all reproduced in there. They had a wonderfully clear penmanship. Yes, thank you for remembering. It is one of the best books instead so many great things about the country. At the time i still had jim crow and yet heres two guys and the crew around them on that Aircraft Carrier that all became friends. It is a very moving, very patriotic story. Its like unbroken. That to be a movie and i hope someday there is. Postcode you read a book a week . Guest obviously it depends how long the books are. On average, probably one of the, Something Like that. Certainly two or three a month. Host on the airplane back and forth. Guest absolutely. I do two things on the airplane. Its unfortunate to get operated keep a journal. If im several days behind, that is a good stretch of time to catch up. Usually reading. Host is that journal for a future book . Guest i dont know. A good friend of mine who since deceased is a wonderful historian and with this if you ever go to peep out to read or listen to Teaching Company which has these wonderful lectures. Hes got like five different series in there. He was a classical historian. At the university of oklahoma he held a chair funded either but chip family unfreedom and he wrote a great lecture series called the history of freedom unless a specialist, to a Great British historian who had the same player in the early 20th century. But he was a guy i used to sit down with two or three times a year and mike to know what he thought it was ticket vice. Not long after i got to congress, but ive been elected, we went to have lunch. I said id miss some advice. What you think i should be doing up there . He thought for a minute and set right. First of all, tom, not many people do anymore he said he may not be very important when youre congress, does seem important when youre gone because there wont be many around for historians to look at. I kept journals when i worked for rinkydink nasa secretary of state in the school took through the Oklahoma City bombing and have that. Literally that they were the next day and what he was doing in the crisisand what we were seeing around us that was unfolding. Ive always had to sort of novel with the Research Period of time. But when i got here, ive been pretty good at it. So there are no breaks. Its been pretty continuous. Host is it a real discipline to write every day . Guest now, its fun. You is keep rescheduling card with you because it will bring the memory right back. I dont have a certain time or whatever, but i am very, very systematic about keep it up. I go back and look at it occasionally. I found one line. Boehner and i went in a big. In challenging. Good on him when i is the executive director of the nrc seeking a committee. He was one of the gang of seven. We came up with a post there is so cool cool and they were rebels back then. Although leadership hated these guys. So i knew had very well and he has been helpful in my campaign and is on his committee doing well. But also very good friends with roy blunt. Roy had been exceptionally good to me. Didnt know me, but they not only contributed my campaign. It is a very competitive race in 2002. He sent a busload all the way down to lawton, oklahoma because of a big in both places. I had to cover a big parade and it was closed. Ive heard about this. It is called the stop program. Then they had 5000 for me so we repaired. He made me away. As the free skate become a deputy whip so we are pretty close. They end up running against one another and im untamed blunt which put me in the doghouse for two or three years before boehner. One night before this race had occurred, i was sitting in the Capitol Hill Club with some friends of mine, john claims he was so if you, but both pray from colorado now gone innocence of nigeria. They are in life. We are sitting and having a drink and boehner had this table where he tended to hang out with this group. We are all freshmen, on this committee. Bob may not have had, so he sits down for a second. We are chatting away in the leaves. In my journal at night i write john boehner came by today and we were sitting around in chatting and said they think a run for leadership will probably support and good unless he runs against roy blunt in which case i am screwed. And that is exactly what happened. Im reading this thing and i couldnt believe it. I sent it to my friend, john kline on the other side, very close to speak or boehner always throughout his career. But again, like most things in life, speak or boehner has a wonderful phrase, do the right things for the rightbrace and, the right thing will happen. Our relationship changed pretty dramatically to the point that i was always whoever is writing this hasnt been around here very long because we went through a couple of difficult years. But that happens in politics. It wasnt unfair. We were on different sides on a lot of things and its not smart to be on the wrong side of first or later another speaker output to be fair by the time he was speaker, we were through our issues and worked very hard to find common ground. Throughout the speakership i did have a terrific relationship with him. Host how do you get your books . You buy them, go to the library . Guest i very seldom go to the library. I like to own the book. I wouldnt mark up a library book or somebody loaned me a book, so i do go to bookstores and just browse like everybody else. Ive read reviews. And just see or hear some day. Theres no particularly systematic way. Or i decide i want to read something on fill in the blank. You just go to the internet and pop up something that is about this and there you go. And if im going to have an opportunity to meet an author, the other night at the library of congress, this president ial series that they are doing. I didnt have a chance to meet them, but if convicted liar of evan thomas. Where did they book a number of years ago which it is by and got autographs from head. So i wanted to make sure when i knew that was coming. I read the mixing, which is one of the best and most sympathetic portrait ive ever read. If youre going to get to hear them, youd like to have read it. One of the nice things in this business as he do have those opportunities more than a lot of other people do. Host on the night evan thomas was on the library of congress, how many other members . Just go quite a few. They are very bipartisan. Probably at least 50 of it paid there. But it got a big turnout. Again, just a terrific book. I was sitting next to ken calvert, who i think he was like chairman of californias youth. He knew mixing very well. He was telling me about the congratulatory call he got from nick spent the won his heat in 92. He was talking about a guy who we both know, a wonderful guy whos a senior republican political guy but was a nixon speechwriter in california. He said i was talking to ken earlier today. He saw through the book. I dont think he had read it yet. So he said, ken said, ken told me you go listen and make sure he is fair. At the end of the evening, ken concluded he really was very fair. He told me im going to call back. Its okay. Nixon has a fair treatment here. Host have you read president ial biographies on most president . Just go quite a few. They are doing. I dont have any my tastes are about the same as everybody else. Its in each case that will grant to you. A lot on eisenhower. Again, you do get some wonderful privileges when you serve. Susan eisenhower has met several occasions and she was kind enough to invite them in the chief of staff, another dear friend too, to gettysburg on the monday ticket a personal tour of the eisenhower postpresident ial homestead. It was wonderful. It was one member after another because she lived in what the high school, lived close. Here is where the chef and the house. I said i actually got close to his playing and 59. My dad was a master sergeant. Ill never forget i was going out there to look at the claim that it brought the cruise ship to the united states. He was the most Senior Master sergeant on the base. There is a viewing area. He think it is pretty close, my brother and i. So it was wonderful. What a treat. Sit there and listen to stories about her rent father and grandmother and what they were like in either things in the home, but have it personal touch that this was discounted this was here. It is just fabulous. Host under tapir karlsson at the Washington Post book about khrushchevs trip. Guest ive not read it. He was here two weeks. Im old enough. It was a time i was fit a nine, so i was like 10 years old, 19 years old. I remember it very, very well been following it on television and all that sort of aid. But again, shes got one story churchill, montgomery, and their and walk in the of the grand father and find stuff like heres the barn, the horses face a runoff in the secret service to try to catch me follow me. But again, shes a wonderful, wonderful purse then. Host the importance of William Shakes here to our culture, our politics in your view. Guest pretty profound. Next to the bible, shakespeare is more influence on the way we think and the way we talk and on literature than any other person certainly in the history of our language. And its wonderful. Obviously its great art, but its great history, too. It is a reminder of a character in history really matters. History is not just a matter of demographic forces. That is a big part of it, but individuals count. Motivations are complex. No shakespearean scholar, but anyone hasnt been the most influential writers certainly in angloAmerican History so to speak and probably maybe around the world and some ways because he studied so many languages. Youve got to make it a pretty important guy. Host thats after congress you decide to go back teaching them to have to teach a class and give your students one book to read. Guest that the most unfair question. Host its an obnoxious question. Guest honestly it would depend on what i was teaching. If i was just giving them a great book and something on American History, i love Stephen Ambrose. He used to say, i am told, i read someplace his favorite out to right any of the three volume mixing, a twovolume on eisenhower. Dday, then the others. This is a great historian. He wrote a book, not as widely known as it should be in this cold crazy horse and custer committed to a committed to allege that two american warriors. I found a copy of that when i was going to little bit battlefield on an expedition and always wanted to see that place which is haunting. Then theres the boat. I bought the book, you know, a little place where you get your trinket and books and stuff like that. It is a fabulous, fabulous book about these two very different warriors is very different traditions. Oklahomas part of that in the first custer massacres the battle of the washer talk in western oklahoma. I worked with frank lucas years ago when he was in congress and have a secretary of state. It was in private hands to get it on a National Park system which it is not a goodness. But you know, he describes perfectly everything from weather to how this vast tableau battlefield out of shape to regionally, obviously shape pursuant to their great plains tribes that were involved is the nature of warfare and whether and how they interact it. Its a great book. You know what you are and it is your skype pulled into the character of custer and crazy horse and he was just so good. I could pick out a bunch of other folks and tell you i picked this one, too and it wouldnt even be necessarily a history book, but again, again a wonderful first nano grows yuris. That book on politics and intrigue, its probably better than any history but at the time. Wonderful, wonderful histories. But what a tremendous historical novel. You learn a lot from it. Host tom cole, republican of oklahoma, thank you for joining us. Guest enjoyed it. And now, and delighted to introduce tonight dr. , trans fixes the professor, historian, novelist, columnist and media commentator whose recent books include the president s wife, affairs of the state and americas first crisis, which received a 2014 gold medal in history from the independent publishers association. Visit sunday columnist for the sun sentinel and is currently the political analyst for debut ptb five and nbc affiliate in florida. His latest
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