On the executive director of the center for biography at the university of new york and we are sponsored from the leave the foundation to do events like this to arts and crafts of biography and a sponsor of the National Book festival and we are here with the 20th anniversary of the National Book festival talking tonight with two notable public intellectuals Harold Voelker the leading lincoln scholar and the director of the roosevelt house Public Policy of Hunter College today we will be discussing the latest book lincoln on the verge the story of the journey that lincoln took from illinois to washington dc to be inaugurated as president. These are two very different books this is a many paragraph the and this is harolds work on the president s. And that is the notion that american politics that is contentious and downright toxic. Toxic. Lets begin with you. So with the description of the dangerous train journey and at one point you refer to the toxic climate of 1860 is a worse toda tod
Cspan. Org debates or listen live on the cspan radio app. Wilson,e back with rick the cofounder of the Lincoln Project. Why hisre to discuss group process President Trumps reelection. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today . Ps reelection. How are you doing . Guest i am good. Host remind us of the purpose of the Lincoln Project and for the viewers who want to know, where do you get your funding . Guest are funding comes from the National Grassroots with over 500,000 donors. We have a few major donors trade almost all of our fundraising as come through small dollar donations and people who want a voice that is able to attack donald trump and able to go after his campaign in a way that many others cannot. We are a group of former republicans and folks who were driven out of the donald trump iteration of the Republican Party for a host of reasons. Primarily because he has conservative principles. He is governing as more of an authoritative statist. We look at this election as a thr
Reelection. How are you doing . Guest i am good. Host remind us of the purpose of the Lincoln Project and for the viewers who want to know, where do you get your funding . Guest are funding comes from the National Grassroots with over 500,000 donors. We have a few major donors trade almost all of our fundraising as come through small dollar donations and people who want a voice that is able to attack donald trump and able to go after his campaign in a way that many others cannot. We are a group of former republicans and folks who were driven out of the donald trump iteration of the Republican Party for a host of reasons. Primarily because he has conservative principles. He is governing as more of an authoritative statist. We look at this election as a threat to the future of this country great it was our moral and political obligation to do something about it. Host you described yourself as a former republican strategist. Does that also mean you are a former republican . Do you still c
Coauthor john clark. Good evening gentlemen, welcome to gibsons. Thank you, its an honor to be a part of one of americas greatest independent bookstores. Thank you for saying that. I will mention, as one of americas great independent bookstores this book is available from gibsons we happily shipped books all over the country, all over the world or if you are local, we offer instore browsing and curbside pickup. Tell me a little bit about this book. I knew i always wanted to write a book i have a lot of ideas for books but i had to have the first book in the first book if you dont like this book i wont be writing any others but if you like this book i have a lot in my abin my head. I wrote different proposals for the publisher and got rejected by lots of publishers like a lot of authors do. I have one publisher who came to me from st. Marks press and he worked for Thomas Newman books his name is Stephen Power and if it wasnt for steve and i dont think this book wouldve began because he
Hello, my name is kai bird, im the executive director of the leon leavy centers for biography at cuny, university of new york. We are sponsored by Sheldon Whitehouse and the abto promote the arts and crafts and biography among other things. We been a sponsor of the National Book festival for some years. We are here on a session with the 20th anniversary actually of the National Book festival, the theme this year is american ingenuity. We are going to be talking tonight with two notable publican intellectuals, Harold Holzer is one of the countries leading lincoln scholar, currently the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at hunter college. Ted widmer is himself the author of eight books, professor witmer is now on my faculty abwe will be discussing his latest book lincoln on the verge thirteen days to washington. These are two very different books. Im going to hold up each of them. This is literally a mini biography, not so many, its a substantial book, focuses on 13