Board of directors who are here this evening. We have martha kumar is here. I have seen martha. Anita mcbride will be here shortly, if she is not here already. David firrea is on our board several members of our National Council of white house history, which we are always grateful to have. This evening, it is my honor and privilege to introduce a really terrific friend of mine and front of the White House Historical society, mark updegrove. He served as the president and the ceo of the lbj foundation in austin, texas. He is a president ial historian for abc news. He is also an accomplished author. Mark has actually authored five books on the presidency, including this book that we are celebrating this evening, incomparable grace, jfk in the presidency. I had the privilege of recording a podcast this afternoon with mark, which we will release later in the month when the book is officially released. It was a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed my time with mark and i think you are
First, Rudy Giuliani is not the most precise speaker. It is certainly possible that he is very diplomatic of you. It is certainly possible that he misspoke here. Its not necessarily the bomb shell that just happened. It certainly points to a problematic issue. During the campaign, we know this, there was a pursuit by the Trump Organization to have a trump tower in moscow. It is going to raise questions of if not collusion, per se, or conspiracy, at least some sort of mutual beneficial relationship. If donald trump could be making money from influential russians, even the russian government if this tower were to go through. And i think what we saw from Rudy Giuliani yesterday, its a bigger picture. Sort of their new defense. Theyre overall strategy is like when weve seen the president shift his explanation whether its about the hush money payments or episodes of collusion, first it was complete denial, and now its just well, if it happened, it wouldnt be a crime. Right. Youve covered th