[inaudible conversations] host book tv live coverage on tucson festival of books continues on the campus of the university of arizona, which has been the home of the festival for the past nine years book tv has been live for the last several years as well and coming up there are several more panels including in half an hour or so freedom of the press with authors maureen dowd, joe carson and evan thomas. Thats whats coming up and if you want to follow along you can go to book tv. Org and get the full schedule or you can follow us on twitter at the tv or facebook, facebook. Com. book tv. Lots going on outside, but we are inside and for the next halfhour we are pleased to have New York Times calm this, maureen dowd here before her panel. We will take your calls as well. Maureen dowd, how do you view your job . Guest well, peter, thats a big question. I dont like to talk about this because it sounds a little corny. I view my job as a watchdog and times readers often dont understand that im not an ideological columnists, not coming from the left or right. I was a political reporter for 20 years and so i come more from a political reporting point of view. On just going to try to tell them its like toto pulling the curtain in the wizard of oz. Im going to try to give our readers anything i can find out that they need to know about, you know, what is true and what is false and whats these people will have lifeanddeath power over us are really like and where they are lying and where they are, you know rising to the occasion of. Host maureen dowd most recent book is called the year of voting dangerously. , us president s have you covered you know . Guest well, i covered the very tail end of reagan when he was on his way out. I did a few features on him and actually i went on a trip with him to an asian economic summit and covered nancy because in those days if you are the woman you covered the woman. So, i covered nancy reagan. I did an interview with her where i failed to ask the most i asked her the most important question, but i failed to get the right answer which was pretty superstitious and she said a little and it knocked on wood, but it was really for micah and the plane we were in. Then it turned out she was running the entire russia relationship with her astrologer deciding everything about whether we would have nuclear arms reduction, so i kind of miss the big story there, but i started there and then i was thought White House Reporter for the first president bush and a year with president clinton and then i got a calm and 95, but i kept covering president s. Host you suggest in the year of voting dangerously that un president hw senior should have couples counseling. Guest no, i think his aides suggested that. It is like a screwball comedy. I rode at essay in the book that im really proud of about my 30 years covering the bush family and the letters that the first president bush has written me over the years and its a very unusual relationship because he is like a he was taken to kindergarten in a chauffeurs limousine and i am obviously from a workingclass ethnic background and i think he was expecting the New York Times reporter to be like clyde barnes with the third and they would have martinis and discussed the Atlantic Alliance and he got something quite different, but we came to appreciate each other over the years and he represents the kind of stability that may be gone from our politics for good. Host he sent you literally hundreds of notes. Guest yes, he did and as he himself said these are not notes that would be like john adams or Thomas Jefferson letters where historians would mind them. They are more kind of fun notes complaining about the New York Times and who he likes and who doesnt and trying to get me to be more conservative and listen to my conservative the siblings and its all about what he calls our lovehate relationship, but hes really not a hater. He has a really wacky sense of humor. I would compare him to tom hanks in big where he is like a boy bursting out of an adult body. When he was the ambassador to china or the representative in china, the chinese used to say he had a personality like ants on a hot pad, i mean, he is the opposite of low energy job. Jeb should have had some of that energy. Host maureen dowd is our guest and if youd like to to call and talk with her the numbers are on the screen. We will get to those in a minute. What is what was your relationship with george w. Bush . Guest it was good in the beginning. I had an interview with him when he first announce and he liked me because i had given barbara bush a good review in the New York Times for cash for her memoir which was really fun. Barbara is very sort of highly and so it was fine at first, but then unfortunately, i think he went down a very bad path with the rock and came under the sway of the man i think i was the first to dub dick cheney darth vader, but then he began, himself that probably and now steve bannon calls himself that, so i think the relationship with all of the press corps got more tense as the kind of, you know, had fake news about the iraq war. Host maureen dowd, in november 2008, and this is in the book the year of voting dangerously you write about the white house. How can such a lovely house makes so many of its inhabitants [inaudible] guest a lot of my friends are really hysterical about the trumpet presidency and one of my girlfriends who is a health nut said to me my gosh, im having a glass of wine a day now and i try to reassure them and essay dont worry we have had a lot of crazy president s in modern history and Lyndon Johnston Lyndon Johnsons aides used to argue about whether he was manicdepressive or clinically paranoid. Jfk and nixon took psychotropic drugs and so yes, president s at the very moment where they should feel affirmed and confident that the American Public has put them in the seat of power often they are gremlins their insecurities come out instead and so nixon was walking the halls talking to the paintings and doing a lot of crazy things and so watergate. So, yes, we have survived a lot of crazy president s already, so of course we will survive one more. Host do you think donald trump can quote unquote drain the swamp or change washington culture . Guest i think its up in the air. You know, he has a has appointed a lot of people sort of that from the swamp, but it remains to be seen whether lied to kennedy, you know, they appointed joe kennedy to the securities and Exchange Commission because he was a fox in the hen house. He knew because he had broken the rules himself how to catch people breaking the rules, so like the thats whats happening with trumps appointees and because they know this they will help you figure it out, but, you know, i wouldnt say that i expect that to happen. On just saying were not sure yet. Host maureen dowd, in your columns you expose a lot of yourself and your family and there, dont you . Guest yeah, i do because i call them my little basket of deplorables because i come from a conservative family and my father stayed up all night the night truman was elected. He was so excited. He worked in the senate as a Police Detective and he knew truman and left him, so my parents were up all night excited about truman. On the night trumpet one might brother was up all night excited about trump, so the democrats have to figure out how they lost the workingclass ethnic votes and what they can do to get it back. Host your sister, peggy dowd, has a chapter in your book. Guest she does. This is the first time she has written. I let my brother read the call and once a year because i think its good and i think readers enjoy getting into the belly of the red state beast and hearing how they think. I think liberals are better at hearing about how conservatives think, but conservatives want to hear themselves echoed, so i asked my sister to write an essay because she has an amazing political history. She was at jfks inauguration as she loved jfk. She was not even old enough to vote yet. Then, she was 18 or can you voted 18 . Host not back then. Guest okay. She loved Bobby Kennedy and was at the Ambassador Hotel the night he was assassinated and then she fell in love with w and volunteered at his 2000 convention and she could not get a room in philadelphia, so she came to my room and said could she stay with me and i said you can come in, but the signs that says it w stands for women cannot commend my room and then she got the solution disillusioned with the iraq war and then voted for president obama and then she got disillusioned and briefly became a socialist with Bernie Sanders and then she went to qb cuba and became a communist for weekend and then she decided she liked trump, so she has historic thing where she got the only apology that has ever issued from Donald Trumps mouth because he would always ask me when i was interviewing him during the campaign is your sister still with me and after he retweeted the main picture of heidi cruise, unflattering picture compared to milani and i said to him he lost my sister. She thinks that was horrible and offensive and there was a long pause and he goes he tried to explain himself and i said stop there is no explanation for what you did and so i said why dont you just apologize and he said okay, i apologize. Tell your sister. Host maureen dowd, the first time you spoke truth to power like that we nervous . Guest i was terrified. When i was covering i still am. What i was covering the first president bush and my bosses used to have nighttime press conferences then and my bosses gave me like a fourpart armscontrol question, but i was too terrified to ask it so i never asked a question at a press conference during the gaggle and finally president bush decided he was going to ask me a question at a press conference, but he never did. Yeah, its scary, but you know theres an old saying a cat can look at a king, so we have to which i think people realize more than ever now that its important part of the democracy where we are the ones who tell people when politicians have become drunk with power and are doing things that can really hurt the country and i take that role really seriously. Host the year of voting dangerously is the newest book by maureen dowd and timothy is in West Palm Beach florida. Timothy, you are on book tv with maureen dowd. Goahead. Caller i would like to comment. I found very few people knew anything about host i think we are going to have to apologize and let you go. Neither of us can understand what you are saying. It sounds like you are in a speakerphone, so lets move onto robert who is also in florida in st. Petersburg. Robert. Caller hello. Hello maureen. Guest hello. Caller glad to finally get you on the phone. I have been calling for four years and finally got through. I just want to ask you a question. Who is the craziest first lady you ever met . Guest ura trickster. Thats a tricky question let me think about that for a second. Guest laura bush is lovely. Nancy reagan was a very formidable woman. You know, as a someone said Ronald Reagan might have been pumping gas if it werent for nancy reagan. She was a great politician as is Michelle Obama. Because they are in such an antiquated white to satin box of a job you often cant see how great a politician they would be themselves and Michelle Obama for instance was always urging her husband to be more visceral in the debates and his response to things which was great advice because he would always fall into being very cerebral. Let me think. What other first lady. Host you have barbara bush in their. Guest barbara bush is wonderful and i sent as a Christmas Present to the bushes a few years ago i sent soundtrack to the movie 50 shades of grey is a joke because bush has a wonderful sense of humor and barbara bush will be back thanking me and said i havent read the book, i really dont think its my kind of tea and as i say host Hillary Clinton and milani had trump. Guest mrs. Trump is lovely. I met her on a 99 campaign tramp with donald trump when they were dating and i think she has a very lovely reserved aura and i think if she doesnt want to come to washington everyone should leave her alone because it she is a wonderful mother and if that is her priority thats great and its a super antiquated job anyway and people in washington are like whos going to do the easter egg cut. Well, he to let you in on a secret, but the first lady is not in a room dying easter eggs and weaving baskets. Are sure they can handle that without her. Host Hillary Clinton . Guest hillary is half my book, so you should get the book because i covering her in 92, when she is chafing at the very word first lady and she wanted to be called first mate which sounds more like a pirate ship. You can see in my stories and columns through the years the evolution of how i feel about her, so i highly recommend my own book their. Host you refer to the white house during the clintons time as motel six in hundred. Guest yeah, i thought it was offensive the way people were buying the link in the air force one and i think that money has always been that grasping this, has always been a problem for the clintons even now that they have like 230 million or whatever she still felt the need to do 675,000 Goldman Sachs speeches, which, i mean, at that point its a psychological issue work she clearly feels that they have to keep stockpiling money maybe because she was the breadwinner when they got started in arkansas. Host james is calling in from washington. James, you are on book tv with maureen dowd. Caller good day, maureen dowd. Guest good day, james. Caller i feel like i walked through a Looking Glass somewhere around evening on november 8, and has been wondering whats been going on and im in a alternative reality all of a sudden. You know, there is a great deal of concern regarding the amount of russian influence in our government through the election and now how much is here to stay ask how much has integrated itself into the fabric of our governments machine . A gate great deal of the important people seem to be ignoring its totally. They refuse to answer host thank you. Lets hear from maureen dowd. We have Looking Glass. Guest james, cant tell you the number of times i have written the word Looking Glass into a call amendment taken it out because i have used it so often and you are correct. Its alternative universe and like bizarro world with alternative facts and i have to tell you the russian story is the strangest thing that my colleagues and i have seen in our careers. Its inexplicable and they are going to have to its a just strange to see the republicans twisting themselves into pretzels to try and be aligned with donald trump position in this romance with Vladimir Putin. W started out thinking that he could see into Vladimir Putins soul and as john mccain said the only thing you see when you look into his soul are the words kgb or letters kgb, so i think it is a bizarre, bizarro world a situation with this relationship with the Vladimir Putin and i think we will have investigations and get to the bottom of trump relationship with the russians and his aides relationship with the russians and i agree with you 100 . Host do you hear from your readers . Guest i am super super sensitive, believe it or not, so its hard for me to read they can be very tough sometimes on calm this and its funny because when i let kevin right i call him he loves host your brother. Guest he loves that nasty comments. Keyframes them, but i think i would be debilitated under the pillows if i read all of them, so i dont. I would love to hear what readers think if it was not obscene, but as you know the internet has coarsened society and particularly women on the internet, so its best morning me not to see that stuff. Host peggy dowd wrote in her chapter in the book about how her convertible top was because she had a goldwater sticker on the car. Guest exactly that was exactly writes and things have obviously only gotten more and more divisive to the point where relationships are breaking up over trump. Siblings are not talking to each other over trump , but i have been used it to my conservative family for so long that we are just use it to each other now. The low point came during w because i wrote seven years worth of collins against the iraq war and one time i came to thanksgiving and my older brother michael said to me if there was a hurricane you would blame it on w and then there was, katrina, and i did. I have already been through low points and now, we joke. Host craig isnt also oklahoma to go ahead with your question or comment for maureen dowd. Caller pleasure to talk to you. I was looking at it from a sociological point of view and i was curious if you examine it in that way. Meaning i have never been a person to support any kind of like pro man, pro women, is of any side. I believe in unity and people working together, but i think when trump was elected and he had to be elected by a lot of women as well as men that it seems like there was a piece or truce called in the sense of say not that men are in charge, thats not what trump winning met, it meant that its actually contrary to the 90s ideology is actually okay for a man to be strong and to lead. Its like it became okay now to be a man. Im just curious sociologically what you think of that. Guest craig, well, my second book is about gender politics, so im always paying attention to that and i think in a way President Trump does not get enough credit because he has survived all of these things that were sort of problematic. He survived feminism, liberalism, the aclu, he has put new life into journalism with an actual newspaper wornout with the times and the post and i think i got into politics covering Geraldine Ferraro and they thought there would be a big wave of feminist passion that would help the ticket and there wasnt and i called a lot of women afterwards and interviewed them for a magazine piece and i think its a mistake to think women will vote in a block like africanamericans do and young women especially were a rude awakening to the clinton campaign, you know, when Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem when out and was like you zero it to feminism to vote for hillary and they were like no, we dont we will vote for the person we are not going to vote for a woman because it shes a woman. Thats what feminism was met to a cobbler shall exactly what these young women were saying to give them the right to vote for whoever they wanted to, not an identity politics, so i suggest you get my last two books because one of them is all about exactly what you are talking about and that was the funny thing about covering the campaign because it was this like Billie Jean King bobby ring battle of the genders because trump was so most like a caricature of a macho man. You picture him coming out of a steam room in vegas with Frank Sinatra 1959 and he had mike tyson and don king and holidays macho former felons as his celebrities and then hillary because she had not pushed gender in 2008 was really pushing gender in this caricature way where everything was like a Slumber Party with lena don him and katy perry and Mariana Grande day, so it did make a funny gender contrast. Host maureen dowd previous books are called bush world and are men necessary . She won the pulitzer in 1999 for commentary and her most recent book is called the year of voting dangerously. On the cover is that the famous escalator from june, 2015, that donald trump and Hillary Clinton are coming down . Guest thats a funny, we did that escalator, the guilt escalator, but then went to resubmit came to visit trump and he held her hand its sort of came out that hes scared of stairs, but i guess hes not scared of stairs where he doesnt have to move on them, but its a funny image, the escalator for someone who is scared of stairs. Host tina, pennsylvania, good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. I just did notice that marine was saying something about how nice this is trump is and what a nice person she is and yet she is not living in the white house and shes okay with that. However, i have been wondering if her public and other people also would feel that way if moshe obama had done that. She had very young girls. And if the next person that gets into the white house also had a spouse who would just decide thats not for me. Guest you know, there are a lot of things that if the obamas had done it, you know, i dont think they would have survived. Look out when the sarah palin family came into that convention and her daughter was pregnant and not married, i mean, the obamas had to be like caesars wife as the first africanamerican and michelle was very conscious of that and i think she did a fearless job of having i went with the obamas to cuba and i was very proud to travel with them as the president and first lady because they represent and of those girls are amazing and they represented america so well and i think Michelle Obama did a virtually perfect job as first lady and i think she knew as fox and everyone was saying that her performance was equally important to his in terms of how history would view him and i think she was wonderful and i agree with you that they were judged by a very different narrator and there always conscious of that. Host and from the year of voting dangerously maureen dowd writes that president obama made us feel good about ourselves. Michael, lets call, go ahead. Caller thank you to cspan and ms. Dowd i have two things. One, it seems to me that we are all licking our wound after that elections, those of us who are to the left and it seems to me they are looking to the answers as to how this how it could donald trump get elected and i think in my mind the elephant in the room was personality. It was celebrity. Its what people today because of the media and because of our access to quick information, they gravitate towards his personality. The democrats dont seem to see that, that hillary did not have that dynamic personality it seems to me and i would like your opinion, dont the democrats need 2020 with an incredible personality to win in the second thing host we are almost out of time, i apologize. Guest michael, i agree with you 1000 . I think the democrats ignored that at their own peril. In this age you can already see all of these celebrities like oprah and mark cuban and maybe George Clooney are sort of and Howard Schultz are circling around because they think it back i can do it i can do it, but i think the democrats often times have nominated people with hall monitor personalities like al gore and hillary and john kerry. Test test. This panel coming up is called freedom of the press. It will contain three authors who will be talking and that panel will begin in just a few minutes. It is live