Cspan where history unfold daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. It is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provid provider. Good afternoon. Welcome to the gaithersburg book festival. My name is julian and a resident of gettysburg and gaithersburg representing district 17 whichat encompasses rockville and the city of gaithersburg. , gaithersburg is a city that probably we are pleased to bring the event made a part of the generous support of our sponsors and volunteers. When you see them around and theyre Walking Around here, please take time to say thanks. If i could get right to this event but first a few announcements. A please find all your devices. I will wait. [laughter] silent all devices. Thank you. If youre on a social media today and we hope that you are, please use the gds gaithersburg book festival, gps. Your feedback is valuable to us and there will be a survey available at our tents and on our website. By committing a survey youll be entered into a drawing with a y 100 visa gift card. I encourage all of you to enter into that survey. At the end of this presentation, mr. Shirley will be signing books and copies are sold in this tent and around the grounds here. Take advantage of having renowned offer mr. Shirley here. Take advantage. A quick word about buying books. This is a free event but it does and i emphasized does help. The more books you sell, the more publishers will want to sell send their authors to speak with us. Senior policy imposed help support one of the worlds greatest independent bookstores it benefits our local economy and support local jobs. So, if you enjoy this program and you are in a position to do so, please, buy some books. All right. Le let me introduce this esteemed panel that we have here. Tackling the familiar or that which we believe to be familiar is a challenge for even the most seasoned authors. The task is even more daunting when the player is an icon and the hero is many. Done well, the best books, often illuminate the subject which we are familiar and they provide texture, context, new ones andl. The really good ones, however, t speak Craig Shirley and pantry is that buck. Hes the son of a charter members of the new york statean conservative party mr. Shirley comes his love of reason reagan and conservatism honestly. Reagan rising the decisive yek into the celebrated man. It chronicles the journey of a man who suffered a defeat in 1976, puts himself up, andco becomes a new leader of a new brand of conservatism. Presidency perhaps offers the perfect backdrop with which to study reagans ascendance. RePublican Party is struggling to define itself, reagan rising offers meaningful insight into the development of the philosophy that has served as the touchstone for conservatives across the country. Reagans optimistic and unifying philosophy still aspires to this day. As a special aside in researching what i say in this introduction i learned that mr. Shirley plate and its rental role in having the support of the cross as the states port of maryland and for that, im sure he will always have a special part in the heart of all marylanders. Join me in welcoming Craig Shirley. [applause] interviewing mr. Shirley today will be one williams a man who needs almost no interaction. Emmy award winner and fox news container since 1997, he is a celebrated author in his own right. Mr. Williams has been a prolific chronicle of the civil rights expense in general and the black experience in particular. Eyes on the pipe, American Civil Rights years 19541965 and Thurgood Marshall an american revolutionary. There are a ton more books but for the second time i truncated to those two. Finally, as im pleased to announce the democrats have a threeone majority of registered republicans in our county. E to i so, find welcome to friendly territory. If you ever need a respite from fox news we welcome you here with open arms. Gaithersburg, welcome with me one williams. Is a pleasure to be here with Craig Shirley who i have known since the early 80s i did not know about lacrosse and that is fabulous but i wanted to start with a very basic question for the people who have been so kind to come into our tents at the gaithersburg book festival. I wanted to ask why did you write this book because the written extensively about reagan before . Thank you. First of all, i guess if your friendly territory im behind enemy lines. [laughter] im retired from all that anyway. I didnt think that for making us wait we ought to rename this tv show. [inaudible] i wrote this because its an important part of American History and a pertinent part ofn reagans history dates never been explored before. Winston churchill, Martin Gilbert with Winston Churchills most famous biographer and most important biographer wrote a dozen books on churchill andnd various aspects of his life. One of his books was called the Wilderness Years and it was about that time in the late 20s, early 30s when churchill was cast aside by the conservatives in england, Great Britain and embarked on a new career of writing and doing radio commentary and lecturing. It nears reagan in many ways because reagan and 76 had been cast aside by his party and, by the way, churchill was warned about spending most of his radid commentary in his columns warned about the rise in threat of adolf hitler not theism, thing most people in england at the time were ignoring. Reagan spent his Wilderness Years writing, doing radio commentary, warning about the rising threat of the soviet union so theres a lot of parallels between churchills Wilderness Years and reagans Wilderness Years. Of course, there are many, many issues that we can get into later thats serendipitous but its also because he forced them to the four issues like prop 13 in california, panama canal treaties and other issues you are covering, i was involvedou with to come to the fore that have produced an election in 1980. Thats why i wrote this make Doug Brinkley with a traffic historian and who edited reagan diaries said that the realm of reagan scholarship is just beginning to open up and, i think, every time i start and sit down and think about regular Ronald Reagan i think a new aspect of his life, career and times that has been underreported or hasnt been covered at all. A lets put you in friendly territory behind enemy lines and talk about the elephant unintended in the room which is donald trump. [laughter] no, no. [laughter] no, no is the answer to this question. O [laughter] ic. Youve seen into the crystal heres a question, people say well, gosh, how would you compare. I wouldnt affect back to trumpet and then they say what has come of the republican and conservatism from reagan to trump. You cover the Reagan White House for how many years. For. And the reagan campaign, maybe for let me ask you is there anything about donald trump that reminds you remotely of Ronald Reagan . Know,. [laughter] okay. I will tell you that so many people in the Republican Party really folded Ronald Reagan up. With good reason and withh good reason. But then they say they are now with trump. In thats just a matter of practicality. You can be with reagan but you can also be in the modern age and say im for trump because he wasnt hillary, im fortunate because he wasnt for whatever reason hes taken on a bureaucracy or whatever else. Vi comparing the two individuals, my wife is looking at me. [laughter] are you guilty . Of course, ive been guilty for 35 years. Look, reagan was intellectual, reagan was thoughtful, reagan was an american conservative, reagan was kind, gentle, thoughtful and even in his diaries he wouldnt swear. He wouldnt write hed write d rather than writing them. Thats how he was. There was a story that when he was president that he had one of the first second female secret Service Agents and he kept standing aside as hes walking through a door to let the secret Service Agent go first because he said my mother told me ladies always go first. Agent, the head of the Treasury Department sat him down and said mr. President , she is not a woman, she is an agent, she is a professional and you have to allow her to do her job. Reagan was very reluctant and i cant imagine anyone ever saying anything like that about donald trump. [laughter] reagan was a populace. He was an american conservative. He was committed to his principles but it is also possible. He was kind and thoughtful. Not always completely thoughtful but more so than most men and, look, dont turn to me for evidence of reagans importance in American History. John Patrick Dickens was in many ways the official historian of the american of the 20th century he will book about theca lego of the labor movement, the environmental movement, his last book and he had been in the 60s and done battle with then governor reagan over the whole Free Speech Movement and the riots of berkeley. He done a writ rhetorical battle, not a physical battle. His last book is called Ronald Reagan fate, freedom and the making of history. Pl in this book, this liberal historian, rate Ronald Reagan is one of our four greatest president s. He compares them to washington, abraham lincoln, reagan and roosevelt because they saved to free many people. That is the best definition of greatness is that the american president saved or freed many people. Cry, when we think about reagan and the Republican Partys conservatism, i think, i go back to 64 to reagans famous speech. For the sake of this audience before we take into the wilderness which is where you take him here explain to us how he comes to being. One of the greatest things between reagan and trump is that reagan has a Strong Political history before he challenges the party establishment. Thats right. He doesnt have a lot of executive experience as head of the string on his Screen Actors Guild but a couple years ago reagan negotiated the residuals which became important to a lott of old, retired actors and actresses were out of work who were still getting stipends and residuals to work from work they had done in tds and movies years ago. Studios would pay the actors and actresses one time to appear one tv show or movie and Something Like that and then he could rebroadcast in pocket all the royalties for impunity. Reagan in his last term as president of the Screen Actors Guild negotiated residuals so that they werent there images and voice and their acting wasnt sold without compensation plan. Reagan was one who did it. I was having lunch with fred barnes a couple years ago and he was in one of those washington, movies, had a little roll, dave, he was telling me about it in the movie had been rebroadcast it in hungary or Something Like that. He got a residual check for 12. 98. Got th i said to you know why you got that tech was he said no. You got depth of Ronald Reagan to negotiated out with studios. My point is that he had very good executive skills and very good negotiating skills long before he iran for governor. Of course, his movie career had faded, he liked hollywood, loved hollywood by 1962, 63 it had pretty much he only made one movie after that called the killers which is an adaptation of hemingways novel. He hated the movie so much he never saw. The only movie that 57 movies, i think and if the only time in 5 movies where he is depicted as the bad guy. Nd he slaps angie dixon in the movie and he hated that. He hated that. He wouldnt never see the movie. Even himself he was in the wilderness several times including after after 63 and he kind of like a professional host in Southern California interviewing introducing political candidates and various things and hes starting to develop a speech known as the speech. For local candidates but mostly for goldwater in 63, the goldwater movement started in the fall of 63. My parents were members of it. They came here to washington, went to the Jack Goldwater conventions, Walter Brennan kiss my mother left back does anyone remember Walter Brennan . The real mccoy. An . Excellent. Is hard to think of the Walter Brennan kissing your mom, hes kind of an old man but. [laughter] so, anyway, hes developing a speech but a group of southern, wealthy california businessman go to reagan and his brother neil and because neil was in at executive in Southern California and they say to reagan, we want to put the speech on television and help goldwater. They put up the money and was broadcast on nbc and there was an enormous hit, raise millions of dollars for the Goldwater Campaign and the Republican National committee. Of course, goldwater loses in a historic landslide but david broder wrote for the Washington Post and the one ray of sunlight in a dismal campaign was reagans speech. Of course, goldwaters defeat is devastating to the Republican Party. E senate the republicans are in the minority of the house, their vastly minority of health in the senate and they have very few statehouses, very few governorships and in many ways the Publican Party is actually dead. It doesnt have a coherent philosophy. So, reagan now is embarking, traveling to california and he says a group of businessmen come to him for the same group that they we want you to run for senate. He says no, i dont want to run for senate or congress. What about governor . That piqued his interest. He began going around the states taking soundings doing localal business groups and civic groups and other organized groups and getting feedback. The feedback from the people was good so, thats when he decided to run for governor of california. Now, hes completely broken from hollywood and now fulltime and he caught himself not just a politician but a citizen politician. Lets go forward from thehe time to choose which is the title of the speech which remains an amazing speech and you can go on youtube and watch it, very clear, theres a landslide for johnson over goldwater and he comes forward in time through time he spent as governor and now were in the nixon era. Here comes Ronald Reagan to challenge the party at a moment when the party is shaking and things arent clear but they want gerald ford purchased the establishment candidate. In this book you take us through some of these difficult shows for a man who is popular, who says in keeping with the real conservative ideology of the time but finds his party is somewhere else. The party is still in somewhat the wilderness. The Republican Party kind of from 1932 up until the late 70s doesnt have a coherent philosophy. The democrat have a coherent philosophy and are also the party of optimism. The party of hope in the party of the future. Franklin roosevelt runs for president and happy days are here again and john kennedy says we need to get this country moving again for the Democratic Party from 32 until basically 76 and beyond is the party of hope, optimism and the future and the Publican Party is the green eye shade, eager spinach, villager but it budget party. Their message is basically me to his him. Those are a lot of the conservatives. [inaudible] we can manage government by the democrats and will do it better. That was basically their pitch. It was a very inspirational pitch, honestly. Thats why theyre in the minority from 32 up until 68 and even beyond actually. It was an aberration. Reagan comes forward and the early leaders of the concerta Movement Like bill buck and others have a coherent messagehe that was based on the founders and constitution which had been kind of pesticide or at least put on the sidelines from 32 on. I have to go backwards is that 322 the 60s most americans believed that government isliev working and government is working for them. It didnt solve the Great Depression but it did a good effort and people appreciated it. It did defeat the empire of japan and the nazi germany and built the interstate highway system. It did build roads, bridges, Public Education. At one point where the finest Public Education sense of the world, 40s, 50s and 60s but by the 60s government is starting to fail, the government doesnt save john kennedy, president kenny. Government doesnt save Martin Luther king jr. Government met doesnt send robert kennedy. Then in the 70s government cant remove the vietnam war or stop hyperinflation or stop high interest rates, government cant stop gas lines. It seems that carter runs in 76 as basically an outsider and was not okay with the idea ofhe heg government. Hes a reformer and would clean up washington. He though after the corruption and will cut taxes. Hes really much more of aa populist, almost a conservative who sees that people are frustrated in the 70s. We dont believe government is working for them anymore but reagan sees this and carter attacks it from somewhat of the left but not really. Reagan is on the right which is why they emerged as the two most interesting candidates of 1976. 6 reagan could come to the convention, lose the nominationt for gerald ford and by delegate votes of 269 in kansas city. For a lot of reasons the mississippi delegation, the ohio delegation, the new york delegation, reagan is convinced that ford has not stolen the nomination but not one legitimately entirely. But this really wets reagans appetite to run again even though at the time he 65 years old. A lot of people said look, even around the track twice, youve lost twice, you gave it your best shot, you gave it the Old College Try but now its time to step aside for the 1980 let some new fresh blood run for the nomination. And this is reagan saying no. No, we are running. You didnt mention ford in much detail here but tell me what is his view of the gerald ford chris reich is for cearley the establishment . Ford and reagan dont like each other much. Mrs. Reagan and mrs. Ford cant stand to be in the same state with each other. Thats how little they like each other. Gerald ford, sent to the presidency by the 22nd amendment when next and puts him after he resigned and theyre taking kickbacks here in maryland and still taking kickbacks even when he is Vice President of the United States. Nixon needs somebody who will placate to the party but not someone is going to threaten h him, not going to cause them to look over his shoulder so he quickly deduces that gerald ford fills the bill. Gerald ford, lifelong dream asas we speak of the house and by 1974, that never can happen so becoming Vice President was a night capstone to his career. Then the smoking gun tape is revealed in july of 1974, nixon its all in the news now and everyone knows. [laughter] i said there was an elephant in the tent. There is a smoking gun six months ago, what cold are you talking about . They know. Anyway, nixon is revealed, the cia halts the fbi gazing into watergate is ordered by nixon and that spelled the end of Richard Nixon. Gerald ford ascend to the presidency but gerald ford has no republicans made a investment in gerald ford. No one has voted for gerald fora so he has his hold on the Republican Party is very tenuous. He wants to run for 76 but he 7 confuses nixons appeal with nixons policies. He was, by and large, fairly conservative but not as conservative as reagan. As [inaudible] thats the train coming through. He pursues all of nixons policies and continues data and the fiscal policies any appoints liberals to the bench and this is an opening for conservative challenger for 76. Some looked at it as reagan was serious. Then the reality is that carter beat ford by a narrow margin, extremely, less than 2 . Ford gets 240 electoral votes and if he carries ohio he wouldve had it. Carter carries ohio in 1976 by 6000 votes out of 3 million cast. He carries of course, theheml teamsters theres a lot of suspicion that the teamsters woat they wouldnt do that, with a . [laughter] let me just quickly say, the fact that ford came so close with seem to indicate that there is a shift but reagan, now definitely in the wilderness in your book, persists. Yes, he does. He mainly creates a political organization, citizens for the public to advance his conservatism and to help candidates running for office. He embarks on a radio career is doing five minute radio commentaries, five days a week and hes literally recorded them at the corner of hollywood and vine in los angeles at the studio and he records a fiveminute commentaries that go out to hundreds of radio stations on either reel to reels tape or on 45 record albums. This is before the day when you could send out a soundbite via the internet to a thousand radio stations. A these are five minute radio commentaries and at one point, 55 Million People every week are listening to Ronald Reagan. He had a twice a week, which is being carried by hundreds of newspapers so, in the mid to late 70s you have to be under iraq to not know about Ronald Reagan. Did it work . Sure, he becomes, after ford loses, reagan becomes, in fact, thats a good question. He becomes the de facto leader of the Republican Party. One of the big issues that many of us remember are the panama canal treaty. It was an issue in 76 that the panama canal was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. My grandmother i remember she was so furious that carter was going to get rid of the canal to the republican panama and it i didnt realize until later how important it was to her because she grew up with the canal this is a great example of american exceptionalism. We succeeded where the french failed and its very important psychically to my grandmother and millions of americans like her that the idea that carter would turn over control of this to panama is just infuriating. This is also at a time wheneric american is waning and its influence. We lost vietnam, were losing to the soviets, americas day is over, plus, we have all our problems at home here. It comes at a terrible time and reagan, course, is campaigning against first gerald ford and jimmy carter giving away the canal treaties. Reagan is starting in North Carolina and 76, pounding the lectern saying we built it, paid for it, its ours, were going to keep it. People go crazy over this. He keeps it up as an issue. Even as carter becomes president he still going to continue to transfer control of the panama control zone. He cas carter goes on National Television to make the case to the American People why its important to give over control of the panama canal and he singled out for criticism Ronald Reagan. The president of the United States singled out one person and one out of 240 Million People and says Ronald Reagan is a private citizen. The next day cbs news calledday, private citizen Ronald Reagan and says would you like a half hour on National Broadcast time to respond to the president ofo the United States. That would never happen today . So, reagan jumped at the chance and goes on and gets a halfhour speech responding to the president of the United States attacking him over the panama canal treaty. Lets shift from attacking the president to his fight then, with the public republican establishment in george hw bush. Its that the party is split. It has been split since the 50s. You know, and 52 eisenhower and robert taft, taft was mr. Republican the conservative outsiders and then nixon in large, goldwater and rockefeller, then, again, nixon and rockefeller. Theres always a split inside the Republican Party between tht conservative outsiders and the modern insiders and this, of course, happens again in 1980. Reagan represents the conservative outsiders and bush represents the more modern insiders and this is the fight over the nomination of the future party boils down to these two individuals. Tell us about it. It was a seesaw battle for a little while. Reagan kind of coasts. H hes at his worst when hes noto challenge. He does his best when someone is challenging him. He was competitive. Mike dever told me his mostal competitive as obese he ever knew. Reagan needs to be challenged otherwise he doesnt rise to the occasion. So he doesnt take the george bush challenge seriously and he ends up losing the Iowa Caucuses in january of 1980 which was a stunning, stunning upset to the political world. Its enormous, its huge. Reagan had been a radio broadcaster in iowa all through the 30s. He was from nearby illinois, a local hero. George bush is from new england or texas and he is less ties to new england than he does to any prep School Spirit you mean iowa. Yes, iowa then new england. He beats reagan and that night tom pettit of nbc goes on National Television and says we have just witnessed the political funeral of Ronald Reagan. Reagan is out. Thats it. Five weeks later he scores an enormous comeback in the New Hampshire primaries and we all remember the debate, payments National Debate im paying for this microphone, mr. Green, even though his name was. [inaudible] that starts the beginning of his comeback against bush but he goes to detroit, the party is still divided and he needs to pick up bush to unify the party as they always have, nixon pics large and eisenhower pics nixon and in order to unify the party those ticket splitting practice the faction in the 40s, 50s and 60s and into the 70s. It goes through 30 primaries of state conventions and the nomination is not just reagans for the asking. He has to fight, the street fight of his life to meet george bush to get the nomination. That fight is the source of the term voodoo economics. Yes, thats right. Reagan was pushing pepper off he had been developed as an issue in 78 it is doing radio commentary and then tax cuts become one of the centerpieces of the 80s campaign and its really the dazzling book was because he cant match it. His own tax plan was more focused on business rather than individual while reagan was focused on the individual not the business. Bush unwisely goes out and starts attacking a very popular plan of reagans that reagan is going politically well with calls it voodoo economics. Reagan was so furious over thats that he almost didnt pick up bush for his running it was a big Sticking Point with reagan why he didnt want to push was as his running mate in detroit 1980. Lets move beyond and we want to invite the questions that were almost out of time. Please have your questions ready, audience. I want to come back to this because we started craig, by talking about trump, reagan. Yes. You know, reagan actually gets a tax reform plan done and hes able to do business withes democrats, with people on the hill and he has success in terms of moving things forward. Despite intense criticism, at times, not only from democrats from fellow republicans. And the washington establishment. Right. So, here comes trump. I didnt know if you would mention the Washington Post. [laughter] im glad to. Greg, likes to skewer. [laughter] so, you get a situation now where people say, heres another populace outsider challengers specifically to the republican establishment but you say the analogy does not hold water andh im thinking is it in your book, a result of the fact that one guy could get things done in washington and so far, the other cannot . The parties have changed. There was a lot more conservative democrats in 1981 that there are today. A lot more liberal republicansdt in washington than today. Ultimately, politics are personal. On even writing about it for a long time. You see it. Politics is about the personal. Reagan was able to work with democrats to 86 tax bill, Dan Rutkowski more than oneil because oneil was retiring but go back to what i said there were a lot of conservative democrats were known as full weevils so that reagan could bring them over to the republican fold. I think also, look at raisi reas speeches and commentaries in his q a. He didnt come to washington to declare war on the media. He had tapped into the bureaucracy but he realized he needed democrats to get his program through, he realized he needed the media to at least be open to the idea it is about the Washington Post but the Washington Post editorial was often very supportive they said after he got the nomination he said reagan is our new intellectual revolution to american politics and thats something to be thankful for. Ce. Reagan put that into practice. It was personal, it was philosophical, the parties have changed and we are at the end of jimmy carter and i will always defend hes a good man. He came to washington with the best intentions but jimmy carter failed as president. He didnt ultimately understandd washington. Hing we had the recession. So, democrats knew they needed to do something and so they were willing to take a chance on reaganomics. It. Ru get back to trump. [laughter] you know, let me ask you this as diplomatically is that there were a lot of people in the 80s who thought reagan was going to be a failure. He left office with very high approval numbers but even so, american historians were raiding him very high. They are now going back and looking at the reagan presidency and hes now rated, last full of american historians had a met 13 which is too low, i think, butdo hes mentally going up over the last 3040 years. S i dont have the newspapers of eight yearsfour years from now to tell you about donald. I can tell you reagan approached the presidency differently,ce reagan was a different man, reagan had different style, theres no comparison except that both were outsiders and both were not new were new to the political system. Thats the only way i can. The two men. When people inside the Republican Party. They say that trump is the inheritor and know is the answer again . Know, trump is not the inheritor. To the extent that any republican is the inheritor of the free republicans support inside the party. Hes the inheritor of the bushes, too. Of h wws, as far as the coalition they put together to win the nomination. I dont think that trump with a he was comfortable be described as an inheritor of george w. , theres a lot of things trump is not comfortable with. [laughter] its obvious. There are certain type of republican primary voters and the issues may change and they may change their philosophy somewhat but essentially, the republican primary voters voted for Richard Nixon in the republican primaries in 1960 is very similar to the republican primary voters who voted for Richard Donald trump in 16. The silent majority concept . Yes, that was coined by Richard Nixon. Reintroduced by donald trump. You think then that when you look at people like paul ryan, when you look at people like mitch mcconnell, are they the true inheritors of the reagan legacy or is it someone else . Am i missing someone else . I dont know if theres anyone inheritor but i will tell you one thing. I saw mike pence give his speech today at the gross city college and he was terrific. It was a reaganesque speech. It was a very good speech. Somebody will write a contrast between his speech or a column or a piece and contrasting his speech with trumps at the coast guard academy. It begs to be written. It was a terrific if you havent seen it i would urge you to go on youtube tonight and look at it. It was a very good speech for all americans. I get the impression that you didnt think much of mr. Trumps speech at the coast guard academy. [laughter] he uses first person pronouns like hes eating breakfast. Lets go to the audience here. We have a question right here. Hang on, theres a microphone coming for you. Speaking of inheritance, would you say that ted cruz and the Freedom Caucus are political legatees of reagans . Reagan was motivated by certain things. Freedom, individuality in the future. He was a romantic. He believed in the philosophy of the enlightenment. He quoted emerson, he quoted a pain, and so much of the enlightenment is about those elements and reagan by the timef hes an adult hes got a fully formed philosophy that was centered on the maximum freedom consistent with law and order. Privacy for the individual. Anybody who articulates that or understand that is the heir to the reagan philosophy, whether its ted cruz or mike pence or mcconnell. Anyone who tries to advance individual freedom and home privacy. Question in the back. If any republicans now join liberals in questioning the war on drugs and its aftermath, the human toll is taking, if reagan was alive and mentally well today, do you think he would have some of the same reservations . Thats a tough one. Its a good question. Reagan was, in many ways, a libertarian. He did an interview with the magazine in 1975 which he said that libertarianism was the fundamental basis for american conservatism but hes also a traditionalist. Im sure that he would have devised yes, i think we should control the distribution and use of drugs of hallucinogenic but it should be done by the states and localities. We cant do it by the federal government. Thats probably closest to what this blending of his philosophy of libertarianism but also as a traditionalist. This is a powerful question, at the moment, given what were seen from the attorney general and Jeff Sessions right now. Sessions wants to go back to the war on drugs. You see many republicans including some republicans that might surprise you, who say we have too many people incarcerated in this country and its not economically rewarding and its cheaper to send them to college than to put them in jail. Im just wondering if when you hear this question you think, again, this is a departure from Ronald Reagans attitude, his willingness to work with others, to hear and respond to situations. Theres a lot of departure. Reagan was he was in for a Strong Border and he said that Strong Borders are important for National Security and National Identity but he also, the issue came up to about walls and he kind of poohpoohed the republican primary in 1980. Stay on this one because immigration is so big he said build a big wall but heavy door in the middle. But everything reagan does in his presence he has to be judged in the shadow of the cold war. When he proposed the north american to Free Trade Agreement it was to build a more solid free market system in the west to repel soviet advances and wae violate the monroe doctrine. He wanted a strong western hemisphere same with nicaragua and el salvador. He wanted free and prosperous democracies. , you covered it, it was to build strong prosperous democracies in the caribbean to fend off soviet advances to undermine those countries. Okay. We dont have time for another question. Im told. Greg shirley buck 303 it has power in this moment. Greg, thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] macbook tv is on twitter and facebook. We want to hear from you. Tweet us twitter. Com book tv or post a comment on our Facebook Page facebook. Com book tv. [applause] hello, booksellers and thank you for coming to this very special event. I know what a long day it has been for you all on the floor so in a meeting rooms and on that more appreciative that youre here with us this evening. Im carolyn reedy, president and chief executive officer of simon and schuster and it is my great