one specific moment after the challenger disaster. let me stop you there and roll it for our audience. let me roll it for our audience. we ll talk about it on the other side. the crew of the space shuttle challenger honored us in the manner in which they lived their lives. we will never forget them nor the last time we saw them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god. everyone in politics and speech writing has committed that last sentence to memory, the work of peggy noonan. absolutely. and i remember it so vividly. when i think back to the reagan years, that s one of the things along with, you know, tear down this wall, mr. gorbachev. but that moment i remember because it was necessary in that moment. we had watched that this great pageant of american technology. we watched that space shuttle take off, and we had watched
shock waves continue from president trump s press conference siding with russian leader vladimir putin instead of his own intelligence agencies when it comes to the russian attack on the 2016 u.s. presidential election. joining us now is former homeland security secretary, former governor of pennsylvania, tom ridge. mr. secretary, thank you so much for being with us. you served this country in vietnam, you served in the u.s. congress, you served in the white house during the bush administration, in the cabinet as homeland security secretary. i can t hold a job. everything you worked through there, that life of experience, what did you think when you saw the president s news conference yesterday? well, i recalled my days in congress in 1987 when president ronald reagan told gorbachev tear down this wall. it was a moment of great pride not only for americans but our allies around the world and you contrast that with a performance at the press conference and
stop tomorrow, heads were exploding in washington at the time. sean: sound familiar? heads are exploding in washington. if june 12 holds on the summit in singapore happens, june 12th is historic. june 12th, 1987, is when reagan delivers the g brandenburg gate speech, tear down this wall, mr. gorbachev. and that changed the world. those summits on the connection of them. it changed our history. as possible. sean: look at what already the president without flying and cargo planes of cash and other currency like obama or clinton with the energy aid to kim jong un s father, kim jong il, this president talked to have come up at a military presence, also a relationship with the chinese president, and sanctions in place. didn t that really all contribute to kim jong un s decision here? i would think so. now the caveat is that north koreans don t have a great
behind the scenes and it really paints a picture of how the cold war comes to the end. tucker: interesting. i have an office next to yours, so i know you ve been working on this book for a while. what did you come away thinking about reagan? did it change your view of him? yeah, i think at the time, he was underappreciated. there have been a lot of books looking back favorably to reagan, but this is more reporting on history and some of the behind the scenes moments and speeches. for example, when he gives that speech in berlin at the m brandenburg gate, tear down this wall, mr. gorbachev, there were about ten people inside the white house who did not want him to say that. the state department took it out of the speech multiple times. he kept on putting it back in. and he went to that speech with it not in. and we had a conversation in the limo on the way to the wall where he turns to an aide and says you know what, the guys at state are going to kill me, but this is the right th
1987. we have a big summit coming up june 12th in singapore, and i didn t plan it that way, but there is some synergy there on history. tucker: can you imagine being the guy who took out the phrase tear down this wall ? c [laughs] i mean, i hope history treats him badly. this book is out tomorrow. these are not just the normal blurbs you get your friends to say. oh, great book, buy two copies! these are unbelievable and they are from historians. extra impressive. i m reading it this weekend. bret baier, great to see you, congrats. thanks, tucker. appreciate it. tucker: that creepy porn lawyer is back. that s the bad news. the good news is mark steyn is back. next. the good