Then with the spread of the coronavirus and onto the election 2020 will continue to be a process of change and is here with us today to discuss his book and thoughts on america. We now invite you to join a virtual program. With the Reagan Institute director. Speaker gingrich, its just terrific to have you with us here at the Reagan Library. Plan to view a live and in person once the pandemic is behind us and you are able to travel again we would still love to have you out to the Reagan Library. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am a huge fan of the Reagan Library. And i cannot remember a time that we just did not have a wonderful experience. I can assure you as soon as i get back to the west coast i will be dropping in to see you. Terrific we love to have you. I have known you for years. You are an intellectual. You are and imaginative guy, mr. Could you ever have imagined the way the United States finds itself today in the middle of the pandemic literally to stop in its tracks . No. When i first started writing trump and the american future, future, everything was going well, lowest unemployment, and then you start with with the chinese virus now is being given a different name for political reasons and then the first time i have ever seen countries deliberately create a depression. Them politicians deciding what you can and cannot do. And worried economically with george floyd and then all of a sudden the country comes apart at the seams. If you wouldve asked me if i could have imagined to put all that together . The answer is no. I have written a bunch of novels i dont know i wouldve had the imagination. People would have said it wasnt believable. And in some ways resembling the late 19 sixties and with that personal kind of turmoil. I was trying to think back the closest experience america has had in the last century. And the pandemic initially arrived people were comparing the economy to that. And whether or not you think world war ii and the attack on pearl harbor and the nation mobilized a very different way that maybe the closest experiments experience. I have written things for publication to say this is largest mobilization of persons world war ii i wrote a piece because i was over here in italy and i saw this for six weeks before washington they wrote a piece is that whatever you are planning to do, aaa you dont understand how big this will get. But then to actually change the conversation leading us to the large bills that they passed in the efforts to stabilize the economy. Its a big challenge right now. We are politically is divided as we have been in a long time one professor princeton says attacking those slaveowners from lincoln the level of vitriol and the nastiness and the degree of hatred is like even with our friends with roosevelt. And of course how do you mobilize a country if its equally split . A lot of people all of a sudden decided with social distancing as long as you are ideologically pure and doing the right thing. It is a very strange and complicated time. The core being is that america finds itself in a cultural civil war. I know you are a civil war historian can you explain that to us . We recently wrote a newsletter entitled three generations of brainwashing. The core is reagans farewell address the one thing he deeply regrets is not being able to institutionalize teaching favoritism in American History and hes really worried we are losing the ability to talk to ourselves about who we are. So when you go back to realize he gave this january 1989 hes amazingly prescient about where we are today and i suspect as governor of california with the radicals at berkeley he had an instinctive how bad it would be. When you have that view and how to treat other people and those that despise america and when you refuse to stand for the National Anthem is not because youre repudiating racism but the United States. You have a surprisingly large number of people its almost like the radical generation of the sixties now 50 years to grow and strengthen to gather force so we are in a very deep cultural war over the next halfcentury. Mee work pretty closely you turn the work into your publisher as the pandemic had struck in the major way. We do have a chapter on poverty we probably dont have a strong a chapter as we have in recent america. But i only had to redo the book once for covid and once for the selfimposed depression it was pretty wild. The most complicated book i have ever written. You cover the waterfront is just amazing. You have to turn it all the way around but the back half of the book you cover at all. Had you finished it next week that you would double down with the issue of racism. I do podcast every week which are free and then a do a newsletter. Maybe a sound too much like an intellectual but the real big moment is when the New York TimesReporters Force the firing because he published an oped. And i thought if we got to that point on the left one conservative opinion piece was such an act of heresy and then tweeted shouldnt all lives matter . And then a professor at ucla must have was then suspended and then the letter that is about nonviolence but then said to america and then not to repudiate america. This is truly cultural. Black lives matter if you look at the organization with the destruction of the Nuclear Family why do they want to destroy the Nuclear Family . I care im not sure. But its in there. And you realize they want totally different america and the congresswoman from minnesota with the somali background how you can leave mogadishu and i think thats one of the great things she left a society which is a disaster. No sense of individual opportunity, very oppressive behavior for women to come to the freest and most open society in the world and shes angry. I dont get it. I would be curious trying to get a friend of mine does she really think mogadishu is better than minneapolis . Because she behaves like the terrible injustice. That conversation and debate with issues of racism of course are important i wonder what you think of the evolution of the argument where this new phrase is coined systemic racism that you are racist you just dont know it. First of all you have to acknowledge now very famous affluent summit in the senator from South Carolina to introduce the bill and said i was stopped six times last year. So in that sense we have to start by acknowledging its more challenging for those inherent difficulties you have to overcome. So is it more important for blacks to succeed or whites to feel guilty . Now for some bizarre reason the left has decided that you are guilty feeling bad about feeling guilty and i said in an interview with the audience i would be a lot more sympathetic to a multimillion on multimillionaire if they want to leave the league and find Charter School to help children succeed. But im totally unimpressed for those who want to impose on the rest of us there particular viewpoint but the nice thing about the left but they cant contain themselves because they on the news media the California Assembly passed that is the number one goal of the california black caucus and the california legislature. But they just have to do it they cant stop themselves pelosi 3 trilliondollar bill includes 1200 per person for every illegal immigrant in the United States. That is overreach on a scale i suspect going to item after i like this if they had some ability to be self disciplined they would be dramatically more dangerous. I got a galley copy of the book mr. Speaker and i think your title trump and the american future building a Better Future and as the book hits the shelves that you can change the title and update to solve the great problems of our time. Why the shift . That we needed to shift to a more open and problem solving before the depression and then continually to solve things. And now for those that are so uncomplicated i think trump himself can be the solution i think he can be the solution but it will take americans to get us out of the ditch. And then to see the acceleration of this phenomenon. And then to improve the future by destroying the past. What do americans say on that front . And with the recent article with three generations of brainwashing. We have lots of people who are so badly educated they dont understand and doing a street dance they have done before. The Russian Revolution of 1917. And if they could read not just 1984 but animal farm and understand orwell, who had been a prescient and was in the brigade in the spanish civil war when stalin decided to wipe it out. And then there was mussolini and hitler interesting he puts 1984 in britain. Is not describing moscow. The tendency of the society will be to create a totally false story. And everything that doesnt fit the story and thats what these people are doing. Should the suffragettes almost all of whom who believe in traditional america have the statues pull down because they were not adequately sensitive to 100 years later would emerge and then to create the framework that people could say their rights came from god. So anything less than a figure who advance the cause of human freedom. So what youre dealing with is a mob. And to set up patterns that are totally unacceptable. There is a 7foot tall statue of lenin. Some guy bought it when it was being thrown away. I dont object to lenin being there because thats a great opportunity to teach people what a monster he was and how many peoples lives were destroyed. But as a conservative can i knock down lenin . This is crazy. And with that cultural warfare. And then to see things coming together think its a very dangerous pattern. And its what they know that isnt true. I would like to touch for just a second to metal and the election. And that President Trump would make the point he won fair and square. So at the present time so without knowing it at present and then to intentionally stoke the fires. They are as they can. And then to live in the dominant country where there are people who would like to knock us off. And then going back at the 44 page memo for harry truman written in 1947 outlining this. It is an amazing document. Just like the red school on the red scare to say that mayor is a communist. That in the thirties there was enough nazi concentration originally with the nazis and not the communist but then after world war ii now they were going after the communists. And one of the reasons reagan got into politics so i looked at all of that. And then just to centralize elections. Right now they are at the county level and have huge disadvantages but its really hard to read get is to decentralize. Now on the other hand. With twitter or facebook or what have you, the ever russian tv station. I dont think there is a comparable chinese station are newspapers. And a huge fight and then interfering with the american system. It is good the administration is set up teams to work on this. A very serious and dedicated patriot. Is it fair to say pre pandemic that the race in 2020 was President Trumps to lose that may be now not so much . He has a fight on his hands . When i first set out to write the book i thought he had an advantage and i wouldve said at the time and now its up in the air. If the economy starts to come back enough then i think the president has a huge opportunity if the economy stumbles and it feels like whatever his magic words and he doesnt have any more than there is a problem. The challenge for the democrats i did a newsletter the other day. And then talk about pelosi and schumer and no supervision. And for the moment it is truly ironic a candidate is so weak the moment he starts campaigning it would be so painful. You make a point in the book that President Trump made a bet that the use of social media could be the news media. And using those tactics for several years. Do you think that technology is such with his grasp on social media and to give that advantage and then to balance of power . So without social media trump would have been driven off the field so as early as the summer of 16 people were writing columns thing we might have to impeach him. The day he was sworn in the Washington Post wrote an article whether or not he will be impeached. So he is 92 percent hostility every single day from winning the election through today. If he didnt have a huge social media base you would of been broken. He has gotten people to think about fake news that i would have thought likely. With the current egyptian collection. People tell you expect that is fake news. And italian guy in the Egyptian Museum but that is cultural impact. And wishing he was a little more disciplined and at least the deleted 10 percent of the street before he sent them but his ability to keep pounding away i think it wouldve saved his presidency are he would have been crushed in this different environment because the media paints them in a different any candidate face with that level hostility. And always counterpunching thats how he plays it. But i get the sense it becomes as relentless as the attack as well. And just like getting off of air force one. Thats a series of jokes. There are two different stories of trump that you touch on and that he believes in counterpunching i thank you believe that when coexisting. He learned early on every time they hit him and he had them and as long as he did that he would get publicity. Because nowadays theres a relatively unknown real estate guy. And manhattan is as tough as an environment as there is. So with this deeply held belief to counterpunch but the other part is the genius of branding. Go back to the art of the deal which was a bestseller for years and years and years. Look at how many trump towers, hotels, golf courses, i saw him before as a candidate he gave me several trump ties and said the reason they were successful they are 2 inches longer than most. So his entire stick. When ronnie said something that about trump so he spends 25 minutes and the number one tv shows stayed on the air for 13 years and with that optimistic branding thats the apprentice and the trump ties and understands counterpunching but that happened 250 others. Lets talk about trumps and stinks for a minute. Working up close of the number of american president s. And then to be in a class all have one of his own to operate that federal bureaucrac bureaucracy. But if he seems to govern and learn and educate and decide purely by instinct. We will find out about five months. But the president he is most like it is jackson with the senate disruptor he had extraordinarily strong personality because he followed his own inner instincts. I was impressed with him as a person. Reagan had eight years as governor of california. George Herbert Walker bush was Vice President eight years. And obama grew up in politics and state legislature but trump is a business guy and runs a very small shop and so to have a depth of background for the first couple years were pretty chaotic and he didnt understand the legislature. Frankly and with those Republican Leaders because of the obama care thats the first thing they should do in a lost by one vote when mccain voted no. In fact i would have argued the tax bill first then the infrastructure then you can consider obama care but they went down the fantasy line. I think he learned from that. Just like people like john bolton go nuts. But trump is a genuine the disrupting figure, coming in from the outside. And then to be terrified. But that is what he was elected to do. And that commitment to make him elected. And with the language and risktaking. So compare Ronald Reagan with donald trump. Go back to thinking of the times when reagan was in the white house. But trump seems like its mma gloves off. So what do you think of that quick. I havent thought of it quite that way. I think that reagan had a remarkable sense of the role of the nice guy he had that instinctive belief. What the president should be like. And a good friend of mine just before he was sworn in had a very bold idea. That would have shaken the system up radically reagan turned and said paul thats a very interesting idea. But i wear the white hat. How somebody wears a black cat do Something Like that. So he had a sense of his limitations. But then reagan was almost always but where the real mistake that there was softness because actually he is very tough. That reagan really began moving to the right after the Screen Actors Guild and 47 and also speaking as an anticommunist increasingly because of nancys father with taxes and other issues. And then to always go by train. So reagan and it being very thoughtful. Hes not just a real estate guy or a finance guy he is a construction guy. There is a great series on youtube they mustve made in the nineties. Trump that one of his hotels doing every job. At one point he is dressed up as the guy who meets with the board but then he comes back and says thats great. But then and then with the maiden checking people in and having the time of his life. But not as the intellectual but reagan was very long term with a very good sense the trump is really and a moment. Hes very smart and is Getting Better fast. And is not he simplistic. And then operates off those principles over and over again. And what is it they thought they were doing because reagan had a very longterm. Weather formally months or four more years are the things that you feel trump has that would change about the presidency given his style. I doubted and the reason is in the next person will not fill the room the same way. Of course whoever succeeds trump in january or four years later will be more managerial and more organized. Its not what he needs or wants and that he would significantly change the presidency. And the next for years of be then big your. With the National Security council. You cover this extensively in your new book it has nothing to with confidence but everything to do with china. And because of the direction that china is going and i dont mean some anything terrible nuclear war but it just seems to me conflict i