Some point, right around this time, probably a little more. Clinton and gore had their public split. Reagan and bush were never that tight. Nixon never had anything with any of his Vice President s, so this is unique. Its closer, longer term, friendlier, more respectful relationship. Host i want to pitch forward on this particular issue because of the potential tension between the Vice President and Hillary Rodham clinton over 2016. How has the president tried to manage that issue and that question . Guest well, its interesting. He enjoys he wants to give advice to joe bid bide how to do this if biden wants to do it. They dont talk about it as much as they had before. Theres in some ways the staff has taken advantage of what they assume is bidens at least interest level in it enough where some of the constituency groups that need the president there, they have the president is done with it. Biden is happy to do it. Some ways they allow him to have that. I think barack obama this one of his negative legacies he is leaving the Democratic Party as an infrastructurewise, in worst shape than he got there, and its amazing when you think about the infrastructure he was able to build for himself and never able to translate it to that. I think in his host you write he treated the Democratic National committee the way some of the bane companies treated their companies,. Guest load it up with debt. Host but use the ability to borrow mo. Guest lite inwith dote use the money for your campaign but they never invested in the Democratic National committee. They viewed themselves as so outside washington they were going to grow their own policy orient version. I to almost wanted to be their own political party. Host one of the cure use things about his presidency, the first democrat since roosevelt to win a majority, both times, twice, not just once, and yet he is seen as somebody who keeps the party at arms length, has not been a party builder, doesnt seem to care about the party. How do you guest that is what comes across, and thats how you want to knee why really he has problems with congressal democrat inside thats what they see. The white house will say but we show up to events and help them raise money for their entities. But they have had different versions of what is called ofa, obama for america when inwas for the president , and then organizing for america, and then organizing for action, but they always wanted to start their own entity that they believed they may be right, that the Obama Coalition is unique to obama, but reagan tried to the Reagan Coalition was unique to reagan, but it became a part of the Democratic Party excuse me the republican party. He used it to build the republican party. The big criticism here is he has never used it got better in 14 but a little late in the game. Early on that, almost sued the dnc as a toxic place. And part of it was they were the nonestablishment figure in the primary so the automatically assumed all washington institutions were clinton institutions and, therefore are theyre not going to help a clinton institution. I think that with some staffers that burned. That was burned deep in them. So, that i think was part of the motivation. Were not going to play the all those people that are members of the dnc, theyre clintonites. They didnt want to ticket over and didnt want to take ownership of it. So i know i got off on a tangent here. Goes back to 16. I do think it will be interesting with obama look, i think he would view the third term as total vindication and dent care if its Hillary Clinton or joe biden. I think he would be working harder for joe biden. I dont i think joe biden would be asking for more help. Hillary clinton isnt going to ask for help. She has to walk a balancing act and doesnt so, hell be as helpful to her as she wants. But i get this the sense there would be more of a personal ownership of biden as the nominee than there would be for hillary. Host one thing you say is one positive legacy of the president will be the way campaigns are run and won. Why is that . Guest well, he certainly is redefined if you met a campaign, republican or democrat, that isnt trying to emulate some form of the Obama Campaign from 2008 and 2012 . He has redefined the idea that, analytics are a huge part of this. You cant just rely on Television Advertising anymore. You have to have a wholistic view. You should make your technology be connected with everybody. Dont teen your tech book separate and dont be afraid to find people outside of the world of Political Consultants to find the experts. In that respect it made the entire industry rethink itself. And you saw i dont care itself was a republican, conservative republican running in kansas or a liberal democrat running in california in each of those cases you had them using the obama template how to run a campaign. Host you say the president is frustrated by efforts to pin him somewhere on the ideological spectrum. How does he see himself . Guest i think he believes he is a progressive but he is a practicing ma pragmatist. I says bill clinton and barack obama, you give them ten issues, and you tell them theyll get to the same compromise but get there differently. So, whether its how they do their personal politics or w where they come from on. I think what bothers him he doesnt believe he is as liberal as his opponents think he is but this goes to the fact that his negotiating style has been sort of again, go book to this. Its very rational on one hand. This is the minimum im willing to do. And he lets people know right away, and the washington ims he doesnt mean thats the minimum. Thats his opening bid. And so that where is he has had some disconnect issues. Host you also write about a couple of different points in the book the issue of communications, and the difference between candidate obama and president obama and the power of speech, and his own frustration during his presidency at not being able to communicate more effectively. People think of him as a very effective communicator, remembering the campaign of 08 or 2012 but wares the disconnect and why was he frustrated. Guest he is frustrated because the campaign had a very simple premise, and its actually worked in both the reelect and the first one. When they ran into a problem, he gave a speech and it would fix it. And for the most part, when you were talking bat political campaign, that did work that way. The race speech. It worked that way in some ways. You look at framing the economy, the president ial speech about framing the campaign. So, Campaign Speeches worked for him. And it was would stop the bleeding on in political problem he was having. So i think he learned the wrong lesson, which is when he has run into a problem, give a speech and it just that hasnt worked. This is where i think i cant fully judge this. Are we living in an era where no president could manage the way our new media climate goes from crisis to crisis and forces the idea that a president has to respond to everything, whether theyre missing girls in nigeria or a bombing in sydney, australia 0, are plane shot down in ukraine, let alone an oil spill in this country where a central focus, where is obama . Wherees the president in and this way so,. Host your feeling guest i want to wait until the next president to see if theres a better searity. Dont know if this is a manageable media climate. Im open to the idea i think theyve been unique live not goodded at it. Theyre slow. As fast as they were to respond to things when there were crisises in the campaign, theyre more methodical now as president and as head of the government. Theres an arguement to be made that methodical is a good thing. You dont want to be rash. But i think that theyve never found that touch, like when to be immediately on top of something. And its funny. Watching them handle ebola. I think ebola they were very out front and tried to be as out front early on. Nobody noticed when they were out front early on, and then the ebola cases and they still took on water. Not a lot. The campaign year, made it worse. I think if it was a noncampaign environment for the most part, the infrastructure of washington would have said he handled ebola pretty well. Host your last sentence is this the way to get something done obama was saying, was to go it alone, just as to some extent he always had. Theres a certain poignancy. Guest i know. You think i dont consider myself an im still learning as a writer. Theres a lot better writers, people who have written about obama. But that is the lesson he has taken from his presidency. That he cant make washington work collectively. He thinks its washington fundmental flaw. I dont think he believes theres much he could have done differently to change that. I argue differently, obviously, in a lot of this book, but look at how he is going about climbed climate change, immigration. Hes going leave office with neither problem fully solved, but he wants to make progress and the acknowledge way he knows how to do it is to go it alone. Host chuck, congratulations. Thank you for sharing. Guest thank you. Booktv and primetime continues friday with books by 2016 president ial candidates. At 8 00 p. M. , former arkansas governor mike mike huckabee, discusses boy god, guts, grits and gravy. His look at american culture. At 9 00 p. M. , dr. Ben carson on one nation, what we can do to save americas future. At 10 00 p. M. , senator marco rubio on american dreams, restoring Economic Opportunity for everyone. And at 10 25, Hillary Clinton on her enemy memoir, hard choices. Book biz president ial candidate on cspan. On the next washington journal, New York Times healthcare correspond marge got sangercast joins us, talking about whether the expansion of Health Insurance actually cults healthcare costs. Then sharon ebberson of cnbc on the 80th anniversary of Social Security and what the future holdings for the program. Later a conversation on the u. S. Foster care system, with the director of policy reform ands a row advocacy of the annie e. Casey foundation. Washington gorgeous each morning on cspan. Cspan is in des moines for the iowa state fair and road to the white house coverage of president ial candidates. Our live coverage is on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org, as the candidates walk the fairgrounds and speak at the Des Moines Register soap box. Heres the schedule, friday morning, jeb bush jeb, starting at noon on saturday, republican Rick Santorum at noon, filed by democrats lincoln chef fee achieve tee, and the bernie sanders. Cspans campaign 2016. Taking you on the road to the white house. This sunday night on q a, institute for policy studies fellow and antiwar activist, phyllis ben net on the war on terrorism. Who i isis . Why are that so i zoo so violent . I think what is more important in some ways, because its something we can do something about, is what is u. S. Policy regarding isis . Why isnt it working . The welcome go war against terror jim . Are we just doing the record wrong or wrong to say there choo she a war against terrorism at snail think those are the questions that in some ways are the most important and that will be the most useful. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific, on cspan2s q a. Next our booktv programming looking at the white house, features white house course respondent april ryan. Its about an hour. Jojo april ryan, dont think anyone, any africanamerican reporter, has covered the white house as long as you have, and now you have taken the clinton, bush 43 and obama years and written about them through the prism that is important to your listeners and that is the issue of Race Relations in the united states, and i have to ask you, when you first arrived at the white house in 1997 guest yes. Host did you imagine that you ever bely to cover the first africanamerican president . Guest never, and never. Just saying that im getting chills as you said that. In my home, we have pictures of john kennedy host this is growing up. Guest yes in baltimore. Pictures of john kennedy and Martin Luther king, and we have seen unsuccessful attempts by africanamericans to become president. And ive heard from many people right now in this town who may not want to say that theyve said this but said president obama had a special kind of juice and must have because so many years we thought a white woman would get the position first before a black man, and to be able to say that ive covered the first black president is just amazing. Host timing is everything in life, and you actually, i think, first met him hundred he was senator. You were covering the white house . Guest yes. Host what happened. Guest during the bush years. Theres a thing called stakeout, and we all all the reporters gather outside after the meetings with the president or principles and they come outside of the west wing door, the front entrance of the west wing, and they stand at a bank of microphones and at this time it happened to be the Congressional Black Caucus that has judd obtain the newest member, senator barack obama from chicago. And everyone was looking for senator obama. And i couldnt see him. And i was so excited about trying to get an interview with him. And at that time, it was interesting because i kept remembering, where is he . What is his name . How to say his name. At that time he was new. I think i transposed his name and he said well, i said, where is i dont even remember what i called him him said, first of all get my name right. And i was so excited to see him. He was the rock star in chief. This is not about me personally. This was about me as a report trying to get to him before anyone else, and that is the thing in this business. You want to be the first with the most, and way was so excited to get to the new rock star on the hill that i couldnt get his name right. It was a mess. Host he wasnt you write in the book he was not particularly popular within the Congressional Black Caucus help was a senator, all the rest of them are house members. Did they resent this newcomer. Guest they did. He was an enigma. Someone who had tried unsuccessfully for congressional seat against one of their fellow members, and theyre very loyal to one another in that group, and because they are a small group on the hill and theyre very loyal to one another, so that was one strike against him. The second strike was he was a senator. He was a black senator, something that rarely happens in this country. And he also was on a different schedule than the house. The senate and he house on different schedules. So when the Congressional Black Caucus, which is mostly house members would meet, it was not on his time, so she asked to be placed in the front part of the meeting and many times they ignored him. And he was left to leave the meeting without presenting anything. And it was a lot of hard feelings there. Host do you think that talking about your time covering the white house can you talk a little bit about how you explain in the book how you were treated as not only an africanamerican as a black reporter but a woman reporter. Still not a lot of women in the press corps. Lets start with those that first year when bill clintons second term and you arrive at the white house to cover there sitting in the Briefing Room every single day. Guest it was rough because i replaced the first africanamerican to become the president of the White House Press corps, bob ellis union, whose shoe0s hard to fill. When came to the white house, many people resented the fact it was bob there anymore. And i can understand that. He worked with so many of the veterans there. Also i think coming in and really pressing on urban and africanamerican issues, which clearly wasnt done that much, as much as i had. It rubbed people the wrong way. That wasnt on the agenda on a consistent basis, on a daily basis, and many people were wondering, is she militant . Who is she . What is she . We havent seen her around washington. So he is a strange kid. And i felt a little bit of that and got a lot of pushback from within, from within the press corps. People were very by being such a new by nuby, not being in washington, coming straight out of baltimore, there was a lot of pushback and people were, how did she get into this interviews with president clinton . How is she doing this and the ills not in the pool. I got a lot of pushback. Host whats break it down into three categories because you right about your interactions with other reporters and your interactions with president s, but of course, press secretaries, too. Talk about a couple of those moments. Start under the bush admission, tony snow was a new the new press secretary. What happened with the tar baby comment . Guest my gosh. The first day. The first dame he came into the press briefing. He was rock star the chief. So many were there there i couldnt get in any seat. Typically when youre in the white house in briefing area, youre downstairs doing your work and you have your designated seat ask and you think you can wait until the last minute. That wasnt the case. To my surprise when i came upstairs, every seat was taken. It was standing room only. So i was on the right side of the Briefing Room against the wall. And there was a question posed to him by abc, and he was explaining what was going on, and then he said, im not going to held or touch that tar baby, and i kind of shrinked because that is something thats something that host that phrase. Guest that phrase was very sensitive. Its racially insensitive, and host from an old brer rabbit story. Guest and i actually have that book just to remember. Just to remember that this is what used to be. But it should not be. And i couldnt believe it. And when you think of you think that, the tar that the ran pit buts together so the fox wouldnt find the rabbit. And i said, okay. So then unfortunately, there was a reporter standing in front of me who turned to me and said, shut up, you tar baby. And i couldnt believe it. After the press briefing, that first press briefing, marched up to tony snows office and said do you realize what y