Transcripts For CSPAN2 Game Of Thorns 20170318

Test. Were really excited to have and we have one with to two authors plus our weekly book club two stories per week and variety of social gatherings and if you enjoy your time here tonight please check us out on social media and ecity books on twitter and sign up for newsletter and hearing cool things that we have coming up. But tonight its our pleasure to welcome doug wad new york best selling author an advisor to two american president s an is one of the few living his toirns to have written about all of the american president s hes interviewed seven first ladies coauthor to book with one. Has entertained two in his own home. A and has served on a white house staff to the assistance of the president. And cofounded with first Lady Nancy Reagan and heres here to talk about his new book game of torns and introduce shortly. After the talk we have a q and a from the awngs and then youre welcome to purchase a copy of the book signed at the back. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much hannah, its my privilege to introduce kenneth wolch, he was the president of the White House Press Core Association they put on the big dinner that donald trump refused to attend this year. [laughter] one of the most prestigious events in washington, d. C. And he has covered how many president s, ken . Sixth one. Six president s in the white house as part of the White House Press corps. Hes worked at u. S. News for how many years . For 33 years. 33 years and senior writer, he said almost every title and position you can think of at us news. Hes a remarkable journalist. He may be among theyre almost extinct ill put it to you that way. He may be among four or five journalists that i know of who i dont know where he stands politically. [laughter] all of the others i can tell you if theyre left or right. I cant tell you where ken is because hes absolutely objective and pursues a story whatever it may be. So i guess we can call him a a journalist or Old Fashioned journalist. But its a profession that is disappearing pretty quickly, and only had a brief time where it flourished so ill turn it over to him the author in many book was his own right. The one i love is the places where all of the president s lived. Like nixon, san clemente and the kennedy written a book on that when you can find here in this bookstore and another is the celebrity president he writes about how president s have become celebrities and thats part of their power today. The extension of the bully pulpit and to see what that is. Thank you, towing. As doug said im a traditional journalist so i hope that by the end of this discussion you dont know my politics. And im glad i succeeded in that for 31 years of covering the white house because i dont believe i could have covered ranging from reagan to barack obama, now both bushes and donald trump if i could take the talk about things right down the middle. But the other thing i want to mention is doug and i have known each other for 25, 27 years now u, and so i hope that we can conduct our talk here like we talk over lunch. That was sort of informal and i find whenever we have lunch and i do this with many sources the best information comes in the more informal given take what i hope we will do. So with that, i, you know, were very interesting time for dougs book to come out and he mentioned kind of mentioned that i have a book coming out that is called ultimate insiders about white house photographers who are staff and personal photographers ultimate flies on the wall. Hear things that no one else hears. See things that no one else see os so thats my next book coming out in september. So it is an interesting time for this discussion and for dougs book. Game of thorns because the town is a biggest parlor game is what is donald trump all about . What is he going to do next. What is going to happen and whats the Republican Party mean anymore . And i hope doug can can explain a little bit of that as we go on. Whether the democrats go now and whats become of clintonism and so on but really it is donald trump who is dominated the daytoday and with his tweets the the overnight because in every News Organization we basically have to have somebody cover donald trump from 11 p. M. To 4 a. M. Because he puts the tweets the then. So theres another layer of coverage thats been added but i wanted to start by asking doug, basically, just a basic question which you talk about in the book at great length. What did donald trump do right and what did Hillary Clinton do wrong . And what just jumps to the top of your mind as to how this election turned out so many people were wrong. So many pundits wrong and people in my profession were wrong. People of both parties were wrong, what happened . Yeah, i rattle off numbers that she off staffing fiveone and out if you counting money and trump did have a superpack that started ed rollins and jesse benton got something going but raise 32 million. She her superpacked more money than any superpack in American History and they spent it all. She had a ground game with 960,000 volunteers on the ground. It exceeded Barack Obamas ground game. She had eric schmidt, the ceo of google in charge of social media. [laughter] she had hollywood. She had acedemia she had banks, wall street, 240 newspaper endorsements. He had 19. But he had a message. And the message was burned like a brand. It just, everybody in america knew what his message was. Everybody in america didnt know if you ask them right now what is hillarys message, but they knew Donald Trumps message make America Great again and jobs back and what i would say at a tower off the message supertweet with about no were on message because part of the message is hes not a politician. And i think the American People were tired of politicians. They had the last two president s, the rich got richer, poor got poorer. Some would argue and felt Free Enterprise was deeds and you had to be an insider they saw it as corruption both on the left and the right and hear was somebody, iconically a billionaire, but a troublemaker, and they wanted to see everything june upset so in a funny way is offmessage, quaint, mistakes were reassurance to them that this guy when you talk about the hillary and clinton advantage. What was that and it really wasnt an advantage in the end in . She had advantage of experience and all of these things going for her. But there was some humorous, obviously. And yeah. Yeah. So is on because i was out at the rallies for both sides really. And i remember people in washington saying, yeah, rallies are intenses. Theyre in giant crowds for trump and so on far outnumbers clinton rally in number and intensity. But it really doesnt tell you how the election will come out. And trump said rallies do matter. But it turned out they did. I wonder if you saw that coming and felt that intensity around the country. A lot of people also said they went to places in these rest belt states like pennsylvania and ohio and some in extent washington saw all of the trump signs. All a of the signs for Hillary Clinton and in washington it was dismissed. Oh people put signs up but that doesnt indicate what is going to happen on election day. I want to when do you see it coming that trump was going to win yourself . [laughter] i have bob potter here by the way going to have a book the next book party. He was telling me there are trump signs all over pennsylvania saying boy, i dont see them and the thing that i kept thinking of, ken, was i remember George Mcgovern het intense rallyies and i cant forgot him saying i dont believe these polls. I see enthusiasm of these crowds you cant tell me this doesnt equate to something so i heard that echo in my mind when i would hear trump say these rallies i kept remembering George Mcgovern who was misled by those rallies, and impacted those rallies. But i have to admit that it took me offguard. Im portrayed on youtube as one of the few that said he had might win. I could see a specialty of mine evangelical vote and i have to say my wife miriam thank her because she was running everything while i was working on this book an my daughter chloe who is around here somewhere taking pictures. They were helping me do the research on the book one one of the things they hit an they missed it and barack obama saw that and he called up there towards the end and he said you are losing the white evangelical vote and you dont have to. And they laughed at him and after the election was over one of obama assistants wrote on sed in the Washington Post say why did hillary lose part of the headline was she ask for it. That turned out to matter because 81 of them voted for donald trump and i can tell you from our experience, they were or very conflicted right up to the end. He was lewd, with he was not someone they wanted to support. But when had on november 4th when a bunch of celebrities got together and started using f word and profanity saying get out to vote using jesus i thought wait a second, would bunch of celebrities use the name muhammad as a curse word in a campaign, song what kind of reaction would you get . One 1 of American Population are muslim. 70 are christian. Is that going to work . So nobody, you know, on the flyover state from east coast, west coast they dont pay any attention to this. It doesnt matter. But it does matter in those flyover states. But trump did not have the roll model qualities. He was not he didnt live his life as evangelical and conservative christians or practicing catholics feel that someone should love their life as far as studio 54 mystic lifestyle how he talked about women and so on. How did people get past that . He knew buzz words. Theres a moment in the book, game the thorns hes in trump tower and depressed and misses sold preacher Norman Vincent a and hes watching tv and sees this sex blond evangelist talking about hope, and he calls her up on the phone and says gosh, youre trirveg and he flies her up to new york city, and she walks him through the neighborhood, so to speak, buzz when you study Donald Trumps life he would also move into a neighborhood and rent. He wouldnt buy. And hed rent and hit the pavement and walk around and listen to people and talk to people and wouldnt buy a thing sometimes for several years and then when he thought he knew the area hed buy. Paula white this walk withed around the evangelical neighborhood he knew the different subculture when is you talk about 26 bt of the American Population and compare that to 12. 9 a lot of subgroups. He understood those and when he had say things that would be little hints that they pick up to go over the heads of the Washington Post and new york times. Sat one point he said to paula jones, this donald trump should know ive been married three times and she says, me too. So she wasnt judgmental to him so thats the story it has hardly been told in game of thorns and then catholic story was there a story where bill clinton takes his trch, cell phone and he throws it off the roof of his president ial pad in little rock, arkansas, because hes so mad at hillary and the staff. Theyhe wanted her to go to notre dame to give his speech and wouldnt do it and when emails came out you can blame it on russia. But when they came out, what was in it, with the catholic spring that was damaging and bill clinton answer was you need to get in front of that and speak up, and basically catholic spring idea once we get into power were going to set up and these committees and well coop the Catholic Church and well influence their dinner to make it what a catholic spring. Well to make it more of a liberal, more of a liberal, more socially acceptable a lot of bishops are are thinking one thing for you to separate church and state and get mad social policy but youre going to take over our church bill clinton wanted her to get in front of that and say were not doing that. This is strong, i denounce that. I just like a republican would denounce a donation for the wrong person. But her fear was theres no reason to call attention to this. A lot of people dont know about it. News media is not covering it so lets keep it underwrap and bill clinton would say you cant do that. Its out there going from bishop to bishop from diocese to diocese you have to get out front and say nope, we have nothing to do request this. Well, that you mention some of this came out of the email 22 the population are catholic. Right. But this is part of that email, so massive emails from the Clinton Campaign and from pedesda and jennifer part of that a Communications Director both of whom were catholic as i remember. Yes. Which was why they had the expertise to feel they could influence. So how much was what is elite, how much difference did that make . I think they were big because the catholic vote if youll think back and remember when george h. Bush won he won with a tremendous landslide and he split the catholic vote 50 50. And yet he won a landslide becae of the evangelical he had and he took it substantially over Hillary Clinton. She could have gotten a portion of that as barack obama afterwards if shed asked an bill clinton felt if she had gone after them. So she could have had some of those so i think those leaked emails did have a big impact and that clintons belatedly came to that conclusion and first reaction are was this is all jim comeys fault and they said that. That was the fbi director. At least thats in public statements all jim colenys fault and then later you dont hear them talking about jim comey anymore but then the russians fault in fairness. In fairness the russians gave money to Hillary Clinton. They didnt give any money to trump they gave money to her foundation. Right. And they got the Silicon Valley deal. They got the uranium deal and there was potentially theoretically, an exchange. There was no exchange with trump. If they helped trump, okay hes in power. First thing he does is increase military spending what did you he do that for russia . Well, other thing i wanted you to talk about with doug is the White Working Class because i know in the book, you talking about how you picked this up and i was fecking up from a reporter standpoint on how Hillary Clinton was completely missing problem she was having in these rest belt states they were confident. They were going to win pennsylvania. I mean litany republican talking about winning pennsylvania but almost never do. Dont ever do they . They didnt. Ohio i didnt expect it this time. And of course florida different area of the country. But what happened with the working class . I know in the book, you have i actually put it tag on it because i personally come from working class background heist, and i know you said people overlooked, stomped on used taken for granted, this is their moment to speak. They had been shamed into telling the pollsters what they wanted to hear but in the privacy of their polling booths they have struck a blow. Talk a little bit about that. How did trump, hes not a working class guy. Hes hes an American Business aristocrat. How does he sense this . Yeah. And Michael Moore was right on the money when Michael Moore did his event in ohio, he kind of tease the audience if you remember that, he looked out the audience and said i know with what youre going to do and they all kind of laughed like he caught them like they were little kids and he caught them in the act because he knew they were going to vote for donald trump. I think they resented being pushed and they resented the media, the may have overplayed it and they just reacted to that. Dont tell me what to do. A little bit it might have worked but ting might have been overdone and the media came u off desperate and did in reagan years and they didnt like being called racist they had voted twice for barack obama the same group. All through those rest belt states they took great pride in the fact especially the catholic, white, union voters, twice they voted for barack obama, they were proud of themselves. They loved to see that that stigma of racism ended and they took pleasure in voting for barack obama now being culled a race racist because they didnt vote for another democrat who wasnt africanamerican . I think they thought nim not pushedded into that. The deplorable moment. Talk about that a little bit f Hillary Clinton used that word. To describe a lot of Trump Supporters that is taken as observancive by a lot of people. Worn like a badge by many people because i guess it shows the humor, again, it was overplayed. So people said oh, you know, were quick to think of the worst thing about ourself ourselves that somebody says something that is critical were going to say thats true and assume vote were defiant like im deplorable give me a break they think thats overreached and they kind of pushed back and took pride. And wore deplorable on their lapel. I wanted to get to, sir, what you make of whats going on contemporary here with President Trump before i do that what did you learn about the country from this campaign yourself . What did you learn about where the country is and what they want from the government and how much change do people really want and what did you learn about donald trump . I would love to hear your answer to that question. Well, sarah and i have talked about that a lot. Shes worked for hashet they turned this book around on a dime. I dont know how they did if. Theyre pretty very impressive to me. But what i took away is that the american electorate were, therm on to things that i i couldnt believe they were on to. And in some cases it was almost instinctive. They didnt know how they inport, exfort bank works average person doesnt know how the Federal Reserve works. Didnt know the details of the stimulus plan which allowed those push bliberals thait was bums plan. That allowed Major Companies to virtually ignore environmental regulations. So they have it both ways. They could say were strong on the environment. And they could let major monopolies disregard the environmental l laws. But keep them for small businesses. So there was a lot of i dont know how else to put it, but corruption. And thats why towards the end, steve bannon and pushed trump into this drain the swamp. Because the average vote voter the there, they couldnt explain what the details were. But they had this enate sense were getting screwed and they had it on the left. The Bernie Sanders people. They call it the oligarchy you have it on the right with rand paul people come out of the wood work in 2012 and romney came forward i think he was a bit in shock. That people didnt say great he thought this was going to be easy. Ill just step in here. So i came away impressed with the the average person out there theyve got a good sense of smell. And they sensed something is wrong and thats why theyre picking trump. See i just the column about this for u. S. News. But i think in washington we tend to make mistake of seeing things just from the political prism but if you look at polling our institutions are in big trouble with people as far as credibility goes. Like for example concern organized religion, church as people see it. Congress, news media, the presidency. The presidency has gone from are a 73 favorable rating of peoples minds in 1973 to about 20 today. Or 30 . Congress is like 9 . The only institutions that are above water in other words have a favorable rating are the military and the police. Interesng just about Everything Else is as tremendous credibility problem or crisis and so i think that like what with youre saying people sense thing is sort of gone wrong here. And for many years that famous polling question of is the country in the right direction or on the wrong track . Has been in the negative that people feel were headed in the wrong direction and i think people got to the point where they said donald trump is a flawed candidate. Hes a flawed messager. But hes going to shake things up. And i think thats to me thats one lesson i drew from are the whole campaign. But i wanted to ask you a little bit now about where we are today. Donald trump has talked about doing it things that republicans have traditionally liked such as increasing the military budget as you said. Increasing the Homeland Security budget just kill out in his budget now. But at the same time and hes cutting social programs but at the same time hes opposed to free trade republicans have liked for many years. He doesnt want to tamper with Social Security and medicare which a lot of republicans want to find ways to overhaul. So what does the Republican Party stand for anymore . And what does what is trump i. What does it mean . I think were in a transition right now and it hasnt settled. It hasnt been determined but i think were weve been cut loose. And were adrift right now. But it seems like the old left and right no longer apply. Yeah. But there is a sense by some that the United States is like congo its like brazil everything is up for sale. I think that part, this is my opinion i think part of the economic boom on wall street is what i describe as yellen envy, and by that, i mean, that yes i get through my bank or directly from the Federal Reserve, by i dont need it. I would do better in the free market and i dont get as big a loan as you do. So theres a sense that yes, theres corruption. But i dont know that im getting the best deal in this corruption. I may be beating the small businessman but i dont know that im beating this big company over here. And almost a desire to end it. For me lets end it for everybody. Lets get back to who makes the best product and comes in on time and and serves market place. And i think to the excitement that maybe trump can find a way back to that. So that isnt left or right. Thats kind of a recapturing Free Enterprise i think weve lost a lot of it since 9 11 under two president s a republican and a democrat. Lost a lot of what . Free enterprise and well Donald Trumps signature book was the art a of the deal. And in that he talks about lots of his approaches to doing things. And of course in the campaign he builds himself as the dealmaker who will get a lot of better deals for the country in just about everybody way. How much can his Business Savvy translate into governing now because we havent had a good experience with business president s in the past. I mean, Herbert Hoover in our history for a long will time he did have government experience too. Can trump convert his business powers into an effective governing strategy . I think i give him some credit or some of the jobs that come back. Some are saying thats just talk. Thats part of the process of being the leader is the talk is to say it and to try to get companies to please him by bringing jobs back. What i like is the whole china thing. I think he, he was wise enough to see, weve had ken, the largest transfer of wealth in World History outside of the middle east and thats in the wealth that is left of the United States gone to china. In 2015, the trade deficit was 360 billion but that doesnt begin to account year after year after year the money that we borrow from china to do things that we nt to do and paid off what they manipulate currency so th pay off debt with cheap dollars and trump is first guy to talk about it. And the last three presidencies clinton, bush, and obama the last three president s have really greased the skids for china. Theres no way under normal circumstances china would ever have been allowed in the w. T. O. Without clintons paving the way that was at a time when china was giving huge amounts of money to dnc to clintons, there was a scandal, fbi started to arrest people and fled to china, and they had to give it back. They had to refunds the money. Most people kind of forgotten, ignored that in the book, game of thorns i show one who wired a Million Dollars into restaurant own per and little rock, arkansas, he showed up again on the streets of manhattan. Fbi arrested him and we dont know outcome of that. They sound suitcases of cash in his room. So theres this one scene in the book where Donald Trumps with melania and shes saying to him, why do you have to do this weve worked so hard and we finally have this great life and we have reached this moment where everythings perfect. Why do yiewpt to do do you want to do this and he he feel it has taken away he says i could have done so good and done such a good job like he cant be president and it is like china and i know how to fix this. And i could fix it. I have no strings attached. Im willing to take this on. Nobody else is. And at that point melania says well, if you want to do this, then you have to do this. But she warns him youll win. She wanted to make sure he understood but not just increase your market share if you did. You go for this you prepared for the fact that youre going to win. Theres chatter that he really didnt want to win but hetted to increase his brand and be more famous that even to take marbles and go home and he would give up the nodges nomination or something but at the campaign he was working a lot harder than Hillary Clinton and had a lot of more events. And he really wanted this. He did theres a part in the book, game of thorns theres a part and talk in the green room at fox that well start our own Television Network. Well write a book called, rigged, and well have sean hannity come over and be on our Television Network which sean hannity says no, i never and he did, never agreed to that. But that was the talk. And so he was prepared for that. But Reince Priebus and others to use this axium and sara knows in the book you have to land the plane, and they say that a pilot physical youre in trouble, if you run out of fuel. Both engines are blown, an youre going to die. And youre up there a pilot is taught you do not stop flying the plane. You fly it all the way down to the ground. Maybe youll die. But youre definitely going to die if you panic so you keep flying that plane. You look for a field or highway somewhere to land it. You watch for the telephone pole and watch for high wires, the trees, all you dont stop until youre on the ground or youre dead. Like in hutchison river. Like the fella that landed in hutchison river like a trump metaphor, according to Reince Priebus he started building ground game even though everybody said it was too late. You cant win without a ground game. So whe he started three months out there was one field office in pht. Florida. Hillary had completed most of their work. He had won but he kept building them and by the time of election day he had 87 field offices in florida. They barely squeaked out florida. If Reince Priebus wouldnt have done that they wouldnt have won. At a certain point youre right they outworked Hillary Clinton and they said that on one interview on tv, he said id rather end the Campaign Like this with wind at my back. But with reince, what do you make also of the willingness to take out after his opponents to sort of dis the policy if they criticize him they have to respond to slights, so on. And particularly this accusation that president obama spied on him at trump tower and ordered wiretapping without explanation. What do you make of that . I dont like it. You know, i wouldnt advise it if i was on his team but as i said its kind of a quaint reassurance to people who like the fact that hes got these rough edges and hes unpredictable and not a politician because they just hate politicians. But having said that, i have to tell you something. [laughter] donald trump is not the first president to suspect that his predecessor spied on him when clintons came into power. Hillary clinton you can read about it in game of thorns Herbert Walker bush was spying on them so he had been director of the cia so she had secret service sweep private departments of white house. Wasnt satisfied had fbi looking for bugs and previous president , and eventually the clintons organized what they called the White House Security personnel office. And they put two of their own Campaign Staffers to run that, to access all of the old files of their political enemies. And my file because they had all of george Herbert Walker bushs files brought to them ones that hoover used to use for blackmail purpose and called ifile gate so trump is not the first president to think for them for doing it, this is a case of one president calling his predecessor without evidence publicly and i dont think clintons made that public. They didnt make it public. Youre right. That bush was spying on them. Although they were very obsessed with the idea that the white house household staff an the secret service were not loyal to them because you remember all of that. Because theres truth to that. They were right. They were right. But the trump defenders qowld say hes airing it out. It is good to air it out and it may be good to talk about it. Because after news media said this guy is nutty saying his predecessor was wire taying only a few days later a big story is by the way, the cia can look at you through your Samsung Television set so [laughter] at which story is true . Maybe the thing to talk about. Okay. But, i mean, i dont think were on the same length on this particular thing. Theres a expectation that a president might have a more elevated respect for evidence and held at disclosure. But in any case but the other thing in looking at trump today is, how much can he unify the country . Is he seems to focused on this a of the of this sort of state thats buried it many the government to work against him the bureaucracy is against him and obama holdovers are against him. Do you take that very seriously and can he had bring the country together . I think he can. I mean, we saw an example with that speech if he would have kept [laughter] if they would have kept going and kept doing that, i think he could have. Do i think he will . I dont know. And i do believe i know everybody, everybody has said that they said it all through the nomination process through the general election, that theres a point where his misstep could reach Critical Mass and he could leave, lose his pace. I saw it happen with Richard Nixon. I remember with Richard Nixon people would say, well theres one more thing, then then there was one more thing. Theyd say well im still with him. But one more thing and they kept doing that. Finally reach the point and say okay, thats it. But a lot of one more had things with trump and you know, the base. There was with nixon but eventually reach. But ever be like a snap judgment type of a thing or sort of a change of policies or broken promise . Or do we really have much of a sense of how that might process . I dont have a sense of it because everything is so scrambled because of the sense of people and i think rightly. That theres a lot of corruption. Yeah. Because of that i dont know that theyre willing to trust somebody else. And they do, i think, they do event being pushed like their stories on tv about how much money is cost for to protect the trump children. What do they want . They want trump children to be murdered . Ive traveled with the children of president s around the world and they have to have secret Service Protection so here they are on tv saying look at all of this money theyre spending to protect the trump children. Do they want melania and sasha to be protected and chelsea to be protected why would they not want [laughter] you know they want them kidnapped or murdered or held captive at camp david so they arent spending money so people resent that and then a story you correct me. Id like to know because i see online different about thes. There was a story that trump was giving back his had salary or trying to it find a way to get back his salary. If thats true, then for a news agency to run a story saying look at all of this money hes wasted he flew down to maralago not to add by the way hes not taken his salary. But i think that omission is kind of irritating to people in the audience like hey. A lot of reports who try to get the the qhows to explain where that stands as he started to give up salary back and they refuse to answer the question. So we dont know where we dont know. And then in the Campaign Trump made a big thing about obama playing golf all of the time and traveling around the country on vacation and hes doing it more than obama did. On a prorated basis. By the way would you tell the story or will i get you in trouble if you would tell the story about george w. Bush who is elected new president he flies from texas back to washington and the only people on the plane this great big plane is empty karl rove and you and i dont know who else if anybody and you sit down with the new president elect i think it was president elect, and he asked you about, about well a number owa that story would go. [laughter] ihink were wh a number of stories but i know there was one story maybe the ranch. How many days . The time in the ranch. Well he well there was a lot of stories about the ranch too. But the one i think that is relevant here is how blunt he was in many ways because i remember when i first was getting to know him before he ran for president , he is governor of texas and i had known him when he was his fathers troubleshooter as you remember. Because you worked with him then too. And i went down to austin and within the office where karen hughes his spokesman, spokeswoman left the room and it was just me and him and he was showing me his baseball collection im sure youve seen. Mickey d thats a big sacrifice. It was. He never said thank you. [laughter] but sitting there by ourselves, and he said i hope now that hes been elected, im president s that you and colleagues in the media give me a fresh start because i know it is different. I used to be what he called a fierce warrior for my father. Now im president and i know there are different roles that might be a little with the campaign and trump as president so i took a risk and i said, just him and me and he knows i tell this story. Mr. President , in those days, youre pretty much of an ass hole and he said youre right, well, i was, forgive me for my language but thats the way the story went. [laughter] and he was very much say just give me a chance ill show you i can do things better. And a lot of people did give him a chance particularly after 9 11. But in person he was a much different guy than he came across in public. As you know he was much more engaging, interesting guy. But also he did go to the ranch a lot and said it is my ranch and i remember traveling around there with him, and he was driving his pickup truck and i noticed these flames, he was burning cedar had he felt was invasive vegetation, and i said what are flames all over the property he said im burning cedar i said isnt that against environmental regulations . He said it is my property and im going to do whatever i want on it. [laughter] but the story i wanted you to tell and i hope yonts get you in trouble on this. Or maybe im spacing this out. But something to the effect when you got on the plane he asked you how many days did reagan spend on the ranch . I remember how many days that was. N answer. 60 days. He was relieved because he was already couldnt wait to get out to washington. [laughter] he couldnt because he exceeded that i think at his ranch for 400some days but reagan at the ranch a year out of his 8 month presidency but youre right. People are already measuring trump always going to maralago too much but i thought that was interest and ive got a george w. Bush story that relates to issues today and that is when donald trump sod that he thought his predecessor obama was wiretapping him. Right. Obamas Statement Released statement was the president never directed that donald trump be wiretapped. As soon as i heard that, i thought oh because president s dont direct i mean thats a thousand years old henry the second will no one rid me with from medalsome priest because henry the second in the legend in the story was just astonished that his entourage couldnt figure out he wanted that man murdered. And finally he said will no one rid me of this mettlesome priest and race i have a and butcher thomas and i remember a time being on the air playing play g. Bush where i said to him im going to do this, this, this, this, what i was going to do. An illegal, and he grunted, moan about i said okay thats what he wants me to do and afterwards he was happy and ats what he wanted me to do but i thought the back many times he never said yep thats it. Thats what i want you to do so heads of network. Hoods of bookstores, heads of president s to the United States i want you to bug Donald Trumps department but you quickly figure out what they want. Sometimes theyre silent and theyre telling you what they want. Theres also the plausible denialibility remember that from nixon years you dont want the president to know certain things. So the president wants to have a way of denying but you dont open your mouth. Now your example is a very good one. But that is also this whole fisa that is a way that could have happenedded as surveillance too. But i suspect well hear more about that as time goes on here. But i think do you see signs that trump is thinking that he has to temper himself or do you think he doesnt feel that thats necessary and well basically wants to do that . Im seeing him quiet been like on the network news they say it is like five days he hasnt answered this when i see that. I think Hillary Clinton who took 300 days before she had her second press conference. But five and counting that he hasnt responded so theyre trying to build a little suspense that come on, and thats great. Hes gone five or seven days, good for him. Well do you havent been in had the white house yourself. Do you think this idea of the disarray thats been reported and talked about is overdone do you think theres some disarray or is that pretty normal for had this . Pretty normal. I remember with us George Herbert walk or bush john tower who was supposed to be the cabinet he was supposed to be the secretary of defense and this was still comical. And the u. S. Senate was outraged and we got a widen this up. U. S. Senate outraged and they , nohe csaidt be secretary defense. Hes an alcoholic. Well [laughter] for u. S. Senate to criticize for being a alcoholic hypocritical. He didnt make it. Didnt make it. Exactly. But as you said a sign here that we have to move along so anybody has questions or however you want to handle that . M ao anybody on live streams had a question chloe, anybody else question or comment you may have a comment you wish to make. Sarah. Which u. S. President would you liken donald trump to the most and do you explore some of the similarities and differences. What i compare him to both to is Andrew Jackson because the first six americans episcopalian and heres jackson a presbyterian and all east coast, he was west. All six president s were part of the political, four of them were secretary of state. Two of them came from the same family, john adz dams, John Quincy Adams favored the bank which Andrew Jackson said is just making the rich richer and poor poorer and they wanted a Second National bank he said absolutely not. He was profane. He had crude. He had bullets in his body from dual trs battles he had fought as a general when he came back and won from the election, they made the white house turned into a wreck with like a drunken party. [laughter] he had to sneak out, go to hotel to spent his first night in the white house. So i compare him and then he took revenge after he won he appointed all of his positions to buddies to businesspeople instead of the political elite who wanted those positions, the spoil system it became known as the spoil system and it became a scandal too eventually but that was Andrew Jackson so i compare him to him some compare aing may be to Teddy Roosevelt only to the extent he seems to be willing to buff up some of the corporations that he feels have an unfair monopoly. Well see. What do you think . I was going to say Andrew Jackson but for another couple reason ares one is that the temperament comparison and anger that he felt he wanted to show anger. On behalf of what he didnt use it was what trump feels around now and representing them and americans really felt that to their core that they were not being represented. During the campaign, one of the reasons he was such a tough guy when he was president is because his wife rachel, he married her and she was not divorced from her first husband because she didnt he was a very abusive and didnt realize divorce had not gone u through so his opponents made out to be an adulteress. She didnt realize this was going on and kept presented from this andound out about it and died because of a nervous breakdown and blamed adversaries for killing his wife thats a pretty harsh way to start your presidency. And when he took over then he was so angry that he was very, very aggressive against hissed adversaries and interesting comparison that he set up his own projackson media with his what trump is doing with his going to the allright media and breitbart other organizations and jackson was the forerunner of that. He would actually have his favored newspaper editors this was a Partisan Press at the time to the white house and he had dictate to them. Im sure trup would like to do that himself which he actually does on twitter anyway. [laughter] so technology has changed but there are a lot of comparison there is. Vrgdz. You mention in your book about the hightech technology that hillary had and basically republicans had had none of that. What does that say for technology and if republicans did get organized with what could happen . Comment sullivan who has all of the attorneys in the world. [laughter] you want to when Reince Priebus was head of the National Committee he said john spicer now White House Press secretarwas his chief strategist said they were going to have technology that was comparable to the democrats that they had caught them. Now, it turned out that they had not but turned out also that the technology that we were tighting, looking into fighting the last election trump had other ways of dealing with the country. They didnt use the old technology, microtargetting so on which the democrats we lied on and did very well. It is just that they missed the boat in seven key states where microtargetting didnt get to the resentments that weve been talking about. In the the rest belt states and in florida, other places. But i think that one thing i think we might slerned from this election is that we can overdue this idea that technology, Political Technology is the be all, end all. I think we have to reevaluate that in addition to polling we have to evaluate how much credence we put in polls because polls took a big hit had. I must say that the pollsters did pretty much get the National Vote right. Hillary did win three million more votes than he did largely because of california and new york. But she did come close to what pollsters said national margin would be but electorally thats where polls were off. In those key states and if you do your own, if you do your own search, go home and put into google, and start searching some of the issues, youll see how google slanted dray dramatically and get into yahoo or bing or Internet Explorer any other Search Engine and compare them and youll see the power of taking control of the Search Engine. That clintons were able to take control of the google Search Engine so you can type in for example, if you do right now, if you type in Hillary Clinton cri, if you do it in bing or on Internet Explorer it will automatic finish, Hillary Clinton crime, Hillary Clinton crime family, Hillary Clinton crime if you do it on google it will say, Hillary Clinton cries and second one will be hillary Hillary Clinton criminal Justice Reform speech that will be the second choice. If you go to google search, and you print out what is searching on google you dont find you find hardly anybody searching Hillary Clintons criminal reform criminal speech. You wont find very tiny percentage of people but its up there as the second search. So in the area of wic wikipediae did a great job and they really dominate wikipedia and in the area of google searches the help of the former ceo of google, th did a tremendous job so republicans have a lot of work to do still. Technologically bob. During the research for the book, i know you met with a lot of your sources, and did you come across some stories that you wanted to put in the book but you just couldntsome you know validate . It is your turn to get into trouble. But curious if you have the story, if you wanted to validate the the story or you tried to get it in there and editing took it out. The editor sarah can speak better to this for me. But editors at hashet were thorough like where did you get this, and who was it and attorneys so were occasionally some not good enough but most of them multiple stories like for example the story of hillary when she learned that she lost the election. And when it dawned on her that it is probably going to slip away. That i didnt want to put that in when it first came out because it seemed like voyeurism and seconds source you know, shattering glass, screens profanity, anger, tears so there was all of this going on and the second source wasnt good enough but after three sources a part of history and somebody else would write it and you know, i cant control what happened and what didnt happen, so i wrote it. And then when ed, the governor of pennsylvania appears on national tv, says i left Peninsula Hotel and i saw that on youtube and shes angry i thought yeah but there were stories like i was troubled bo worked for her forlmost 20 years who said that i thought this was troubling to me that her secret service agent, the woman assigned to protect her life referred to her as first as barbara bush would say which, to hit reince with which. That was what she called her. When i heard that i said to the person youre kidding me. I said no, what do you think when you heard that . I said very disrespectful. He was the only one that actually testified before congress and told what had happened and the money did come from the republic peoples of china and after the book was published a got a phone call from a whistleblower who said i read some of the stories about your book i have ordered your book and i have a story that i seek can now be told then he told me his story. I said the fbi may not be intereed they mave some loose ends so now they are looking into it calling it the one transfer of the Welding Equipment that allowed the silkworm missiles to work the chinese developed there were not working but blowing up bond of launchpad that transfer was made through the clinton did penetration at the behest of officials from the state department who said United States government would appreciate it if he would fill the quota for or this company that is a potential news story and we are just now learning and there are things we still will learn for the years to come through these presidencies. The short answer is yes but not much. Cube believe how brazen he is trump has the potential to push back that makes it increasingly difficult for conservatives quick. I think he has. He is very politically incorrect and he has pushed back a lot of lot of conservatives are emboldened with their own fragmented media culture that theyre just broken into compartments and we talk to each other and dont talk to people beyond them. Printing conservatives are very much emboldened but theyre just talking over everybody else and that it is unfortunate. Is disappointing to see that if you look back on america and some of the worst acrimony and the more lively we can agree. I wish she was here tonight because he helped with of vietnam and he would track every moderator of every president ial debate ever 126 of them and because of the internet there is no mystery now to clearly identify 121 of them. And then to identify themselves very clearly. With 121 not of 125. Location the 60s where people who watched they said nixon won but if you look at the ro of the moderator he is sitting in the back facing the camera but the reporters had to crave their necks and turnaround but now of moderators probably has much time as the candidates do. But that is another way but the celebrity culture the moderators think they are as important as the candidates. With the Lincoln Douglas debates there was no moderators there was a clock. But now with so much different i think there will be some changes the next round they feel there is too many of these debates but it was quite a show. But that is like celebrity culture and the poison of macon kelly macon kelly she gets into the although and the driver of first coffee parker she says no. So they go further he says pleased this will relax you so she takes the coffee gets a violently sick answer is to throw up and she covers up with a blanket that is en she called out donald trump and and felt like she had already caught the flu or had been poisoned working the political campaigns and in the debate roger ailes was nervous just before the debate started a moment to walk out on the stage to look out what is going on below said and smiles and the word is killed but it was joke what is this a secret to ambush . Behalf to use those techniques. Talk about the collusion between the bush and the clintons they had the same list of major donors. They were identical. And then clinton sent the signal because there was of Silver Bullet out there trying to take him out of the campaign but the British Secret service file or the hollywood access file over how to release the access hollywood files so right away that campaign is looking for the Silver Bullet because the clintons are telling them about it so be up part of the president ial campaign that was something to behold there were dozens of people in cubbyholes with the National Geographic gamble life magazine it is hard to imagine how much money they spent on Opposition Research with the Intelligence Officers and they could not find it so as i get closer to the nomination with that particular approach with the clinton people that you were trying to tell us and by that time the Clinton Campaign says no. Hugh cannot find your on your own. Trump will wind of nomination we will go into the general. The bush family believes the nobility of public life but the master of negativity to pioneer if anybody is interested to reinvent politics in many ways. Somehow whenever they needed to. Laugh course there was also roger ailes . And then he adds karl rove. And then there was sununu but you are right there is somebody. ,. Is so negative. But that is a very good point. Thinking very much and joining us tonight feel free to remain for a little bit and mingle with the authors [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good afternoon i am the director of the institute for ca