Book festival even if you cannot be there. [applause] ladies and gentlemen welcome to the center. [applause] i am Jeffrey Rosen the president of this institution. This is such a happy day to celebrate the great collaboration between the National Constitution center and cspan. [cheering] cspan has an inspiring nonpartisan mission to bring unfiltered information about the u. S. Government to american citizens and that coincides with the National Constitution centers mission which i want all of you to recite along with me to inspire our guests and viewers. The National Constitution center is only institution in america, chartered by congress to disseminate information about the u. S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. That was very well done. [applause] i was thrilled to my friends and colleagues susan who is head of cspan came just a few months ago and said we have a great new book on the president , lets launch at the Constitution Center. Were here to do it and its an honor to welcome back the great founder of cspan brian lamb. Americas greatest interviewer i was honored to interview by him from a piece of this book as were my colleagues and welcoming him back. Is so meaningful. It is a special pleasure to welcome back to the center because susan has been here so many times, she is among many other virtues of philadelphia, born and bred in her relatives are here. Please welcome susan. [applause] think a much innocent light to be back to the Constitution Center. I was have the bad luck with enthusiasm. Its hard to replicate but were delighted to be here once again and welcome you all here, as you heard this is my hometown in addition to our Wonderful Partnership with the Constitution Center and we have a shared mission of informing you about your government although we do it in different ways, im also delighted to have my family members here which makes it a special occasion. Thank you for coming today. The cspan 40th anniversary. 1979 and march the house of representatives went on television for the first time in the Cable Television industry crated a Service Called cspan to Bring Congress into living your years ago, its a notforprofit company in our mission as jeff said, to give you unfiltered access to can decide for yourself about whats happening in washington. Sent were in home territory, the folks are our largest cable affiliate and have been on the board of directors since the founding in their tremendously, and import part of what cspan is today. So many things to them for what theyve done for these 40 years. When we talk about cspan 40th anniversary said what will we do to celebrate this in a meaningful way, i decided to do this book which is called the president and his subtitle is noted historians rank americas best and worst chief executives. The reason why it was an important thing, it allows us to showcase two very important aspects of our work over the years. First is a survey of president ial historians in the second is a real treasure trove of interviews that we have collected over the 40 years and many of them done by brian a president ial historians. Here is a look at the names of people who are included in the book who are part of the collection here. Youll see familiar names. Theyre very well known contemporary president ial historians. Three panelists today, the idea was to bring together three of the president ial biographers were featured in the book to talk about something other than the president s who are on mount rushmore. Jeffrey rosen has written a biography on William Howard and he is interviewed by brian and as you know in addition to his work he is a professor at Gw Law School which made him interested in the work who went on to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court and we have known him as a journalist which he is in his heart and soul since his early days in washington, author of six books. Michael wrote a book called the forgotten president and he will be talking to him about a number of them and in our book hes a chapter on jimmy carter. He is a philadelphia area journalist and worked at the daily news in ky w in his president ial biography, its my favorite title of all the biographies. Worst. President. President. Ever. James mckenna reaches from the Southern Tier of the state, we will learn more from Robert Strauss and why he is the worst president ever. The organizing principle for this book was the second resource i mentioned and a survey we have done a president ial historians, three times, we did the first one in 2000 when bill clinton was leaving office, the second when George W Bush left office and the third in 2017 when barack obama was leaving office. We worked for three known historians edna heppner, Douglas Brickley and Richard Norton smith, 20 years ago to put together the survey with ten leadership qualities, we sent it out to 100 historians, with worked hard for geographic and diversity over the years so we can represent different points of view as they are judging them. Heres the qualities that the president is judged on. You might think about it as a conversation will come on full. Public persuasion, crisis leadership. Economic management. Moral authority. International relations. Administrative skills. Relations with congress, visions and setting an agenda. Some reason i always think about george h. W. Bush when the vision comes up. I pursued equal justice for all. In the final one they wanted to add because office of the presidency has changed so much over the course of history. Performance in the time in which he served. Why do we do the surveys . We do them because i was standing at the register where the books are being sold and i heard a woman saying why is he on the cover of this book. I dont think that was such a great president and that is why we do the surveys. We want people to get involved, interested and passionate about our own history. We live in a society where we do that. Our email is filled every day with the top ten of this or the bottom five of that. In doing this, although suit this is historians, it provides a basis for you to get involved and have conversations around the dinner table about whether or not you think the historians did a good job of raiding president s. So who is up and whos down over the course of the time that we did this . Andrew jackson we heard his place on the 20dollar bill for the next several years. He has gone down in our survey over time, he went to 13th place in 2002. Woodward wilson 610 to 11th. He is gone for 26 to 32. In grover cleveland, 17 to 23. Im sure historians will have perspective on some of the things our society has changed of why the historians are not looking at them or clinically. Dwight eisenhower, when we first did the survey in 2000, now hes a fifth. Bill clinton the first survey was just coming out of the impeachment process, 21st place in the next he settling at 13th position. Finally this is interesting, from 33rd place to 22nd one of the things that we found over the course of time is the big biographies the become big bestsellers. They influence and use the historians have as president s and theyve had a couple of those in recent years. The top five overall will not be any surprises, Dwight Eisenhower and fifth position, Theodore Roosevelt and forth, frequent roosevelt and third in George Washington and secondplace and guess who is number one, Abraham Lincoln. In the bottom five, john tyler, he went on to join the Confederate Congress after he left the white house, the man without a party why he was in the white house and also buried with the Confederate Flag on his grave were in harding we are learning more as years go by, he was in the 40th spot, Franklin Pierce, New Hampshires only president , 41st position, he had a very difficult time with sexual and is him and he came into office with a you briefly put, they have three sons and two died before he was elected to the presidency, the third son 11yearold benny was riding on a train with his parents in New Hampshire making their way to washington and the train had a tremendous accident and benny was throwing out of the train and was killed. The president carried his son lifeless body back to the train and thats how they started the early presidency and he had a hard time assembling his cabinet and his wife spent much of the years in the white house in writing letters to her departed son. Its a very difficult start in the difficult time in our nations history. Andrew johnson, the first president to be impeached, all the bit of that because of time and then James Buchanan, worst president ever. Quickly on the modern president , Ronald Reagan is only one in the top ten in ninth position. George h. W. Bush and the 20 spot, he is father and son duo as well. I think itll be fascinating at the end of the term presidency when we survey again because we went through three days of National Scene setting of the presidency. President ial funerals are a tool that they used to put the image for prosperity. We witnessed scenes being repeated throughout the three days of the funeral. About integrity, here is him and being a decent man. Itll be interesting to see where he is next time. Bill clinton at 15, George W Bush is in 33rd spot, the last survey he was one spot lower and in the bottom ten, he moved up out of the bottom ten of adding another president to the mix. He has really difficult things for the assessment of time and itll be differen interesting tt happens with his rating. Barack obama in his debut in 12 position, a good start to his assessment. The idea was to get to interested and showcase the work of the wonderful historians. We have an incredibly rich website attached to this book. Every one of the interviews from which this is drawn, you can watch the video and all the chapter references. If there is a reference to sectionalism or certain were we have linked all them. You dont have to do the work and you can go through history other interested in learning more. So these other three president s with the historians and i will turn the podium over. William howard, his high score was a ministry of skills, does that surprise you . Lowest score public persuasion. Total score 528 out of 1000. Jimmy carter highest score equal justice for all. Does that make sense . The lowest score, crisis leadership. Total score 506 out of a thousand and James Buchanan was in the cellar for all of them. He had either 41, 42 or 43 in every single category. He was so low he was 30 points below andrew johnson. His high score was 41st position and a ministry of skills and his low score and seven of the ten categories was a number 43 spot. 245 out of a possible thousand. I cannot wait to tell stories about this man. I will sit down and enjoy the wonderful panel along with you. Thank you for your attention. [applause] you will have cards passed out for you to ask questions which would be the last 15 minutes and everyones books are going to be available after words if youre interested in learning more. I want to tell you about our book, it does not make any money off the sales, all of the very small amount of royalties that we get from the sales goes to cspan Education Fund which makes free teaching material for high school and middle school teacher. If you buy a book you help support teachers. Thank you for your attention. [applause] only one crow with you. He said the only modern president of the top ten for somebody like me, eisenhower. [laughter] lbj and fdr are still modern in my life. [laughter] i want to start off, thank you susan and this book will not be here today without her editing. Let me start with a historian. Would you start off by telling us a little bit about why you got into the writing history. I was a journalist who worked at the daily news and among other places, but i was always interested in, my father taught me statuettes of the president. So they were sort of my guide and soldiers. He brought the facts about the president , and it tells you when their mother died and all that sort of thing. So based on statistics i was always involved with that. And im also a contrarian as my wife will tell you in to write about the worst president was much more fun to figure out who the best one is. Its a good question. Im still trying to figure out the answer. I think a couple different reasons. The first is im a law professor, in my field, focuses on the Supreme Court and im fascinated by other institutions that are intertwined and do a lot of presidency, congress. So i have been interested in how president s impact the understanding of the constitution and develop over time. I think of myself of a child of watergate. I grew up in the shadow of watergate initiates a lot of my understanding and particularly the conflicts between president and congress. And out of the shadow we get jimmy carter. But we also get nixon and ford and it changes a lot of how we view laws these days. Thats another reason i got answers. As susan said emma journalist the heart so i only write on deadline and two assignments. The first biographies i wrote were assignments for the american president series. I did not know either of them before giving the assignment. I really designated with the writing history because when i was a kid reading biographies was the most inspiring thing. I had read a lot but i remember going to the library of congress and the first time in the Adams Building and being so full of wonder to think all of the books of the world were in the billing. In learning more about adams and jefferson and reading biographies, and about the kid with the glasses who read and learn leadership to leading, the amazing fdr biographies and about how another boy found his books that i was ignited so much to the stories and thats why find biographies to be an inspiring experience. I want to go back to robert truss book, i want all of you to jump in on this. It does not have to relate to James Buchanan. He waffled about everything. Why did you say that . At some point, the book does stop on the president is we have to stop. In most of our great president s, made the decision they were all great decisions, i would say that the japanese internment wasnt a wonderful decision but sometimes it comes to a head and buchanan would be open to diplomat. First of all he was the best party giver of the middle of the 19th century. There were positive things, he was a really nice guy but he was always trying to please people. And he is a diplomat like i said, the ambassador to england and he was really good at having him over for lunch. So i say there are certain things that were good about it. But he did well. Your book after the carter chapter came out was about 13 presidencies, 2012 men, any of the other 12 besides jimmy carter and im not so sure you would call them that. They were wallflowers that i think one of the interesting things we learn about, is precisely because they werent wallflowers, they were too strong, they were stubborn. Sometimes stubborn and really constructive ways. I would not say they were stubborn and the destructive way but he was not a waffle. He came in with a strong sense of what he wanted to do and part of the problem, he did not listen to other people. He thought use write about different issues and it turns out sometimes what was good or bad or popular and that became a story of the presidency. I read about this, he died 30 days after becoming president. But in the 30 days, he was stubborn, he had to be stubborn in some respects he had to push against henry clay and harrison did not want that to happen. It turned out to be the defining moment of the presidency. In a lot of president s become a popular because the not listen to other people, not react to contacts or events at the time and lose the presidency and lose the historical judgment. Do you think is right among the list of the 12 . Sure. As a president ial leader in the cspan survey is right, it is low but for Ministry Skills it is incredibly high, the incredible power if you want a book about the constitutional legacy, hes only person that is written is the same book about provisions. As michael said, characters who are not great as president have a very strong constitutional vision. It was heroic and seems all the more questions trying to defend the constrained presidency and congress added time with the new populist presidency was rising up. The question of waffling, if you know it you know it, you refuse to engage in the arts of public persuasion. I will not play for popularity. If people dont like my vision so be it. They would write legalistic speeches and expect that would be persuasive. I was trying to think about the different between waffling and deliberating. The great president s took a while to make up their mind. Waiting so long before he felt the market public was ready for world war ii. In change in the war from preserving the union to eradicating slavery. The real place is a lack of deliberation and is not the only way of voting, you cannot refuse because youre too sure of your principles in advance and i think that was the case for th them. Youre in the book that Jeffrey Rosen wrote about, i cant remember if there was a quote or what you call it, they called him a great heater. , he wrote about him, did you see that . He had his moments and in those moments he could be hateful. It did not work for him. One of the more famous, i think that in did up working more for brenda than taft. He was a reflective of his time and he like many people reacted negatively. There are others he is used to. And to some exte