to have you here director at the library. and we have a great speech today for presidents day weekend. the day in the life of the president. how many of you are members raise your hand. oh, wow look at that fantastic so those of you who aren't members you become a member today you get a 25% discounts on paul's book which you can buy in the store he will be ding a book signing immediately after the program. so you can -- get a new become and -- have him sign before we go today. we have a new kick the that will be opening in april. i want to tell you about it's called art of war. it's an exhibit that look at poster art from our collection we have about -- 3,000 posters in our collection. and we're going to be doing an exhibit starting april 21st, and then the art is quite remarkable by some of our greatest artists norman rockwell and andrew and others so we do hope you'll join us for that. now we're lucky today paul is beth a -- working correspondent with the west wing reports and reports from the white house on a daily basis. and he's also tremendous historian he's deviled into the history of both the white house and the life was presidents and today is going to give an overview of what it's like being in the white house. but more importantly offer some context on what's beginning on today and how we got here so please warm welcome for paul brennan. [applause] >> well thank you very much. how many are members i didn't look around, wow -- you've got some including two of you. well thank you very much it is such a great honor to be back here i was at the library i guess -- two years ago. very special place. and i appreciate the invitation, paul and the nice introduction thanks also to cliff and c-span crew for coming today so we're going to go about 35, 40 minutes or so today and i'm going to talk about a couple of presidents. there's not enough time to talk about the -- everybody i don't think will talk a little bit about the white house. and if there's anybody taken the white house tour a couple of you? yeah. a lot of you. good. and because over the times we live in i've been doing these talks for a couple of year i always get a lot of questions about president trump as well. some hate him, obviously, people in both camps we're going to talk about him as well and what i think -- history holds for him we're going to look at president trump doesn't matter so much what i think. i'm going to look at him through the lens of history which had i think is a much more valuable perspective. of course you can't talk about the presidents without talking about the man we -- honor with this beautiful facility here for franklin roosevelt a wonderful president, obviously. he's ranked as third greatest president ever no surprise. only behind lincoln and washington everybody seen this picture, of course, o the classic shot of franklin roosevelt the cigarette held at the angle fdr exuded optimism and confidence and he did so at a time when americans needed it most. that i think is really one of the great qualities that makes a president great. and roosevelt had that. but what are some of the other on this president 's day weekend what are sol of the other qualities that make a president great? well, in 2017 c-span they do it every time a president cools in they did a survey of historians around country ask is them to rank all of presidents from numr one to 44. trump is number 45 but really only been 44 presidents over cleveland, of course, counts twice. these are categories that -- they used. public persuasion rices leadership. economic management, international relations, relations with congress. moral authority, administrative skills. did they pursue equal jt what was their vision. it they set an agenda? for that vision and finally maybe the most call quality of l con texas within their times off ten a very different variables, of course. but the his historians took all of these pour them into a blender call puree and rankings of who ten presidents top ten presidents are and here they are. no surprises -- here, tben again this is c-span survey top ten, lincoln, washington, franklin roosevelt as you mention theodore roosevelt great and ran in the roosevelt family opinion dwight and thomas jefferson john psm kennedy ronald ray begun and rounding out top ten greatest presidents, lyndon johnson. of course bottom of scale and who are the ten worst presidents again this is according to c-span's rankings -- martin van buren, chester arthur hoover, william henry harrison. you know harrison was only president about a month so not sure how bad he wasn't there long enough to do anything. john tyler, of course, succeeded harrison. harding, franklin pearce and andrew johnson and james buchanan i think does deserve to be at the bottom. i'm going to come back to that in -- just a second. so i think -- i think we can all pretty much agree that these ten folks belong where they are. i'm also asking an awful lot what is the best preparation for being president well there's really no one thing. that qualifies you for being president, obviously, many presidents have taken very different routes to get to the white house. a lot of presidents, obviously, have been lawyers. a lot of presidents have been governors i think you look at who has done what lawyers and governors are feoffed pretty heavily and my own -- sense is bag governor is probably best experience because it gives you a decade of experience that dealing with a legislature and so forth. it is really closest thing there is to being a president. a particularly the big state like state of california or -- texas something like that. a couple of pets have come directly from the senate. the two most recent examples, of course, being john f. kennedy and barack obama. a very rare, though, to go directly from the senate to the white house. there are several senators who are today -- theg about run aring for 2020 hurst is tougher time. a lot of -- presidentses have been generals mostly in half of the country hrs.. last half of the country history the last 100 years or so we've only had one president who was a general that, of was president eisenhower. of course some fight like the diggens to get to the white house only to find out that -- not so happy. being john quincy a.d. dales miserable in the white house. he said, in fact, that -- the happiest days of his presidency was first did i and the last. everything in between was -- was miserable. nixon i never had the sense that he was particularly happy in the white house. maybe he wasn't particularly happy in general. but he fought his life to get to the white house never seemed particularly happy. on the other hand there were president who is loved being president. theodore roosevelt loved, loved, loved being president. every minute and just -- showed he was exuberant every day. bill clinton i think loved being president to. not all of the time he had a rough patch or two a you know but i think if he could have run for or a third term he would have done it. he -- enjoyed it. i think that franklin roosevelt certainly enjoyed talking about how much he enjoyed being president. roosevelt i think at one point i told a friend wouldn't you be president if you could. he once said wouldn't anybody? indeed. so i think he -- really enjoyed it. through history -- i think it is so fascinating just as a way of telling stories and one thing that i do on twitter each day and now it's a book. there he is again is to talk about what happened on this particular day in history. well, on february the 17th, in fact, thomas jefferson was declared the winner of the 1800 election we were just talking about if you think by the way, that we live in these nasty hyper partisan times now well you should go back to read about how bad things were in 1800s, the jefferson adams, election was about as nasty as it gets about as hyperpartisan as it gets about about as twied as it gets. we don't necessarily live in unusual times today. people think we do but there's been times in american history where we've been i think more divided than we are now. civil war certainly is a good example of that. but 1800 as well. but also on the stage for example barack obama in office for three weeks insoud his had -- stimulus program 780,000 billion stimulus program but it's beyond sort of the -- you know ents like that i look forward in materials of telling stories about what happened. also on this day in 1974 people think aviation scares that the white house happened starting only on 9/11 not true. on this day in 1974, kind of an interesting story there was a guy in the army named richard preston who failed his robert preston who failed a army helicopter test and he failed said i'm going to show these guys so he steals helicopter in the middle of the night. goes to the white house, lands on the south lawn of the white house in the middle of the night. he must have been a pretty good pilot to be able to do that and then he gets up and tries and lands again this time secret service open fire. youyou can see chopper riddled h bullets and aside from the fact that it -- wasn't too good for his army career, he was thrown in jail for a yore and fined about $2400 i thought that's it. that's all you get for landing helicopter -- on the white house -- so those are are kind of the -- stories that i think are interesting when you sort of look at -- you know, some of the presidents in the white house. but speaking of the white house by the way, let me talk about that had too. people think that for a young -- old or country than you think and white house probably certainly most famous structure in this country perhaps in the world. but what people don't know i find this fascinating that the white house was first inhabited in 1800s john a.d.ials moved 1800s and white house has been actually a -- continuous residents for head of state longer than buckingham palace has been official residents where british royalty it is true. 1837 was when that happened a tokyo imperial palace in the lower left, 1869 in -- i spent five years working in moscow the kremlin -- became the official seat of the soviets and now russian government in 1918 been in st. petersburg but or for a industry that kremlin has been -- residents for head of state so white house has much more and chengt history than people think. ancient history and except this one george washington picked the site for the white house. 1600 pennsylvania avenue as you know and picked winning design for the white house. and this is actually what construction of the building -- looked like. this was a beautiful painting for the white house historical association by an artist nailed peter waddell just terrific. and you can see basic but contour of the building taking shape there's soft the south lawn. the what would later become the port koa in the square marine one -- here's potomac river looking and a wonderful painting that took eight years to build. 232,000 dollars which had is about -- about 75 million in today's terms. and not that the white house is on the market or anything. but it's real estate and everything today appraised about 400 million dollars so quite a -- quoit a good runup are. so as i mentioned john adams moved in on november the 1st 1800 this was what it looked like top -- picture here, obviously, a side view and this is ramp how he came in a little this guess out on to the -- the south side of carriage would roll and you would go in and what you don't see here is famous and north south they did not exist then but they would be built about it shall a quarter century later. no balcony no port, also none of the either no shot of outlook and about -- 1800 or so that is the entrance. now we see this is a -- painting from about -- the mid-1820s. here are famous age you see these on tv where the president welcomes to his office and everything but east and west, that was thomas jefferson's idea but they were not original to the building. so that is -- sort of a jefferson force was architect that was his creation. now let's go inside for a second. this is a modern day floor plan of the state floor and you've taken the tour so you know the famous rooms east room which is biggest room in the mansion and the state dining room and in between red, blue, and -- the green rooms. and when you taken the tour today that is pretty much all you can do downstairs a little bit too. but in jefferson stay this is a floor plan of the jefferson era it has, obviously, quite different. i'll go back for a second so there's the state dimple today right? well in jefferson's day that was a library. he actually used it as his office so his office is today's state dining room. and what we now call the east room they call the public audience chamber here's another peter waddell painting, in fact, this is what jefferson office looked like and jefferson, of course, was very much the renaissance man perhaps no one -- has ever been the president quite like thomas jefferson here are his -- his map hads and he had a globe and he had a huge library and everything, and even had right there -- even had a pet mockingbird named dick and bird would fly around and jefferson trained bird to land on his shoulder and sometimes feed the bird from his lips. believe it or not -- thomas jefferson. he's a quiz for you. no is this person in the painting here with him anybody know? anybody -- no. that's a gentleman by nail of mary weather lewis of louis and clark fame. when jefferson who was widower died 1972, e he came to the white house and he needed an assistant a trustworthy assistant he knew the lewis family i think from his piedmont region down near shaar is lotsville he wrote to lewis at the time an a officer and would you line to work with me in the white house and he was -- so here we are, and lewis actually and jefferson were so close that lewis actually lived in the white house he lived tben in what is ted's east room. had a couple of room on the south side. and they kind of partition rooms off and sort of a -- sailing cloth from a sailing ship. sort of thing. so one of the rooms was his bed chamber other one was his offices. so all day long here's jefferson working down the hall and here's lewis and all day long he would walk down the -- what hall of plotting screaming running concern and everything they went to church together took a lot of their meals together, of course, the crowning achievement -- as you know -- was the louisiana purchase in that, of course, is how we best know the mary lewis but that is -- that's him right there talking with -- jefferson. so that's what they did the louisiana purchase. let's jump ahead now. this is really the first known picture that we have of the white house. this is taken it is believed in 1846 this is during the presidency of james k. and he was such a workaholic he only took a couple days off in his entire four years. so as his picture was taken just probably inside working. he really only took just a handsful of days off. this is looking out on to the south lawn, and as you can -- see here, no balcony on the second floor we have that balcony today, right? ... >> lincoln at this point has nine or ten weeks to live but with this photo it has been called lung -- colorized so abraham lincoln in the flesh. to me this is a remarkable picture he is only 56 years old. if you look at him in 1860 he aged tremendously. his son will have died 1862. even from the depression they call that melancholy but that was depression. if you look in his eyes you can see the sadness that he always carried with him. it is a sad picture but beautiful you can see lincoln in a way that photos do not convey. that is an incredible picture nine or ten weeks before he was assassinated. but this sets up an incredible story about the lincoln that people don't know. the only way you can see this room is to get an invitation of 270 electoral votes. on the modern floorplan that is the lincoln bedroom. that he slept there but not so. in his day it was his office. with is a painting and you can see here the wall he would track the progress of the civil war. he got a ton of death threats so he could look out the windows onto the south lawn but through the half built washington monument. it is two colors the reason is during the war they ran out of money and had to stop construction. so they had to stop so this very authentic painting to look across the weather -- the river to see those confederate campfires so the enemy was pretty close during the war. so he did not sleep we think is the lincoln bedroom then where did he sleep? this is what it looks like today see the curtains then and now? almost the same. this is what it looks like 2007 i think laura bush was the last to give it a sprucing up. but it was gutted in totally rebuilt during the truman era as a tribute to lincoln so he never slept also never slept in that bed. it is authentic that mary lincoln bought that we are not certain he actually slept in the bed so where did he sleep? he slept here. this is the floorplan of the lincoln era it says lincoln office and lincoln bedroom at the end of the day would go through this private passage built for privacy but also for security. walking down the passageway to the library him and mrs. lincoln had bedrooms right next to each other for the entire four year duration they were pretty much confined to that small area on the second floor. that is the president's bedroom bedroom this is looking out on the south on. today still the site of the presidential bedroom that is where president trump sleeps today and the real lincoln bedroom. i tell people if you don't like trump it has always been there. so there is mr. lincoln again. so this sets up a couple of stories that i think are amazing about lincoln. everybody knows what happened when he went to for the inter- ford theater john wilkes booth shoots him and then runs away and lincoln dies the next day but people don't know that is not the first time they crossed paths at ford theater. a year and a half before in 186310 days before the gettysburg address, lincoln went to ford's there was a show at the start of that show john wilkes booth, they were at for that the same time a year and a half before the assassination. during the play he was in character i forget who the character was but the character was angry and shaking his finger in anger at lincoln in the presidential box. the person with lincoln said he sure seems to be a angry at you mr. president he said he sure does. a year and a half before the assassination and unbelievable story. just an incredible story. after he died he was body was taken back to this room. at the time it was called the prince of wales room what people don't know about that room it actually has a pretty morbid history mentioning william harry harrison died in 1841 his second son died in that room 1862 and lincoln himself was autopsied in that room 1865 so that creepy history for that one room here is what it looks like today. it is the dining room. so sometimes i wonder when i go into the white house early in the morning sometimes i will see a shadow behind the bulletproof glass it could be bush or obama or trump and i wonder what really happened in this room? i'm pretty sure they do but it just goes to show you the rooms and the character and how they have changed over the years and over time. so now jumping ahead jacqueline kennedy turned that room into the dining room in 1961 she wanted more privacy for carolin caroline. so you might know that jacqueline kennedy when she came into the white house took on this huge refurbishing job you wanted to restore the authenticity of the building so she worked with curators and historians with artwork and furniture and carpeting everything scattered to the wind and she brought that back to the white house and she was so proud of this on the anniversary february 14, 1962 the americans a two or on bs. the super bowl gets two thirds but she had close to half more people watch that they and the super bowl so just to put into context how big of an event that was. but what people don't know about that is after she refurbished the mansion itself she wanted to refurbish west wing. she went to president kennedy and said i would really like to redecorate your whole office and he said fine. it had truman era and carpeting with green drapes with caroline by the way he said do what everyone in the workers told them that to refurbish the oval office he had to be away today's to do the job but it turns out from the scheduling standpoint the only two days was the third weekend of november 1963 the weekend they went to dallas. so on friday november 22 at very dark day, they go to dallas in the motorcade and we know what happened after that and literally right then on that day the day that the president was shot, the workers put in the color of that carpet was a deep blood red. this is how the kennedy oval office looked every single day of his administration except the last one when they put in that carpet. jacqueline kennedy it was no conspiracy. jacqueline kennedy picked it and came in the next day as her husband's coffin was laying in the east room and she had to leave she stayed in the white house just two more weeks never returned until 1971 when president nixon had her privately to look at the portraits that were being unveiled. she never went back because it was too painful. what is fascinating to see that on that day in daniel patrick moynihan who turned out to be a great senator looked into the oval that day it is if anyone knew person was coming in. now lincoln and kennedy don't have that much in common. but they were gifted or chores and gifted with their words but the one thing that i find interesting is they both had an eerie fascination with death and being assassinated. lincoln of course had a dream where he went to ford's theater it was a nightmare and in the nightmare he heard crying and wailing so he would go downstairs and find a body with an open casket in the east room. whose body? who died? it's the president. he was assassinated. this is just a couple of days before he was killed. kennedy had similar thoughts he had been around death his entire life several family members had perished earlier that he and jackie lost two children during the time they were married. kennedy was given last rites a couple of times he only lived to be age 45 i'm sorry 46 and six months so not too far off in his prediction. kennedy often spoke of his death quite frequently here he is in the open car he love to ride around in the open car he liked to be seen did not want the secret service he wanted to be seen. this was taken four days before dallas and as he flew home to washington kennedy said thank god nobody wanted to kill me today but four days later somebody did. in fact the texas trip itself he did not want to go he had a terrible feeling and on the morning of the assassination he said it is a very dangerous and uncertain world. but then he did say that before he was killed also after his final speech in fort worth joking how easy it would have been last night to assassinate a president can you imagine? three hours before he was. so just some eerie coincidences. also another story is here is lyndon johnson of course but 14 hours after kennedy was declared dead lyndon johnson was nearly shot as well. it is an incredible story everybody is in tense and depressed nobody knew what was going on secret service was on edge. they just lost president lbj did not move into the president for two weeks he was in northwest washington he is patrolling johnson's backyard at 2:00 o'clock in the morning and he is rustling in the bushes. there is somebody out there. he has a tommy gun he picks it up and the noise comes closer. he aims the tommy gun at the noise he was a split-second from pulling the trigger and out of the bushes walks lyndon johnson he went out to get some fresh air. fourteen hours after kennedy was shot lyndon johnson was nearly shot by a secret service agent in his own yard. it is also in a book called the kennedy detail. an amazing story. just incredible. there is a million stories to tell of the president we could talk all day about this stuff but i did want to talk briefly about donald trump. we've been talking about the history but in terms of the future will be have learned from the past. i will not give you my views or anybody that has an opinion something that is much more valuable and objective my history tells us and i will start by marine one and looking at the polls because people are biased in this partisan world we live in but they have one or two polls they like because it tells them what they want to hear fake news is the term today. the only fair way to look at this is to take all the polls throw them into a blender and outcomes one number. and then they aggregate them and as of this morning 42.1% of the people approve of president trump 53% do not. those are all averaged together which is a fair and decent way to look at this. so what can we learn from what these polls tell us? one way is to compare these numbers with the prior 12 presidents at this stage. child has been in office 13 months. but roughly speaking the average approval is almost 61% the median approval, he has even left up in the laugh couple weeks and will behind average and in some cases he is way behind so what can we learn from this? that trump said he will run for reelection. in fact on inauguration day raising tens of millions of dollars and is numbers are this slow this early history suggests that when the incumbent president has numbers this low it invites a challenger from within his party. four times since 1945 when this has happened. lyndon johnson 68, ford, carter, 80 and george bush the first one in 1992. but what is interesting is after the first 13 months in office there numbers are higher than trump's are now so how did these four guys fair? ford was never seeking reelection he was never elected to begin with but what happened? not one was left. johnson saw the writing on the wall and got out as kennedy got into the race, ford, they all won the nomination by the way. but they were weekend in november and humiliated on election night. ford held off reagan but lost to carter the general election carter faced a challenge from kennedy but was crushed by reagan that year in george bush incredible even with his approval rating was at 90% after the gulf war, one year into thirds later he was defeated against ross perot and bill clinton. so again i stress they have higher numbers by considerable margins even then what trump has now that is an ominous sign about president trump now here is another history lesson as well he is also only the fifth president to lose the popular vote so what happened to the other four? very interesting. when they ran for reelection john adams in 1828 and benjamin harrison in george w. bush? only one of them won the second term and adams was crushed by jackson harrison lost to cleveland 286 : one -- electoral votes john kerry was not too far from winning that election some people think the reason bush one was that we were at war and americans were not willing to change courses that is interesting debate but those who lose the popular vote have a second time the second term so history shows two ways to dismiss everything you hear about trump look at the history. that is what history tells us that my judgment spells trouble for the president. at this point relative to all of his peers those are two ominous signs he has beaten the odds his whole life to say you beat 16 people in 2016 that is the dynamic when you're running as an incumbent is completely different than running for the first time because now he has a record and more data to make a judgment so that is completely different. he thinks it will be a cakewalk in 2016 but history suggests otherwise. those are the historical points. also by the way the four popular vote losers how did history treat them long-term? how did they fare? that c-span survey that i told you about, not too well adams ranks 21st but the others are in the bottom third george w. bush considered 33rd so that's what happens when you lose the popular vote so history suggests perhaps that it could be tough. so those are the principled points i wanted to make so to look to the future it is particularly helpful to look to the past. i hope this has been instructive. i am out of time but thank you so much i am very grateful and appreciative thanks for having me. [applause] please use the microphones. >> in regards the position listed as the bottom but is the analysis against the opponent? >> that c-span and pull variable survey obviously the president had a democratic congress and i think if barack obama raised 12 and people think that is controversial but there is a lot of ranks even though the house was controlled by republicans six out of eight years. but that is a fair question. >> my question is was eisenhower's approval rating for the history tied as president or as general? >> he was elected twice so he beat stevenson in 52 so he was popular but what and with his second term, go back to check final approval he left pretty popular. to be seen as the period of peace and prosperity. but then to be reelected by that margin. >> you mentioned lincoln's depression what about calvin coolidge? >> one of the sons developed a blister on his toe and he does i am -- died pretty quickly early into the coolidge presidency. sleeping ten or 12 hours a day. with these long daily naps that is what you would do if you were depressed and had the fortune to be president even with a couple of downturns with the hands-off laissez-faire. i'm not sure if that answers your question. >> looking at earlier rankings of the president which raises the most from ten years ago? those final pulling members necessarily are not taking up like harry truman left office whether you think 42 is low or appropriate is your opinion but he was at 25% and yet today ranked sixth grade as president so those final numbers are not necessarily indicative to be a outlier he very steadily ever since and to be knocked down with the firing of general macarthur that said against the backdrop also truman he was honest and to tell it like it was people responded to that and was accountable people responded to that so look at that totality explains why. so jfk was number eight or nine some people think that is controversial to have that liberal bias but sometimes i wonder if kennedy was not assassinated what the rest of the presidency would have been like but with that camelot legacy but kennedy invented that it is interesting. [applause] give us a few minutes to relocate for the book signing. we are doing presidency signatures laid out and library is free admission today and to deal with pop-culture when that came out and people embrace that we are finally on tv. from the brownstone from brooklyn heights and parents were professionals and we see ourselves that way on tv. throw his relationship talks about the like and now we know about bill cosby his own life has underscored the separation between reality so whether the cosby show or road warrior or hip-hop, pop culture becomes away of the world and that has to be exaggerated. >> did jet magazine really put down when black people would be on tv? >> no will -- yes. in the 60s and 70s there was a listing of any black person that was so rare and so lovely that the black press wanted tell you. >> we have talked for an hour so we will have a phone call from charles and albuquerque new mexico thanks for your patience. >> caller: i think it has been wonderful but colton opening up with his his creative process and winning the national book award for poetry talks to me about that harvest time how this character is developing and crafted a certain way then he also talks about making sure the movement goes forward of that linear structure the beauty with the with the historical novel with the story development and my question that there is so much that he talked about that is interesting you have that plot and structure so sometimes you have to write those pages down. and to persevere. with this daunting task ahead of you. >> let's hear what he has to say things for calling d3 things for listening. some days you are into with the project and to be one paragraph a day. so that one paragraph is a lot so my own way to keep saying -- is saying that is 400 a year that is novel. so some days i work and see a movie and readable maybe those pages are tuesday and wednesday are saturday and sunday. and that's what keeps me sane. and you are making progress for the book [inaudible conversations] b-17. 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