Transcripts For CSPAN2 2013 Miami Book Fair 20131124

[applause] a number of you know me from previous years. Its hi pleasure to be here to welcome its my pleasure to be here to welcome you and on behalf of Miamidade College, the college that really puts forth maximum effort in terms of solen b tiers volunteers from all its constituents, students, faculty and staff to make this book fair happen as it does every single year. And for the past 30 years. Id like to thank our sponsors, there are many of them, but in particular o. H. Aryan know and American Airlines for their sport. Id also like to thank our friends, many of whom are seated right here in front. Thank you so much for all of your support this year and for the past years that this fair has been made possible in part because of your generosity. The end of the session, as you know, the authors will be signing their books. Theyll be autographing on this floor on the other side of the elevator so you can proceed to that end, and you will also have an opportunity to ask questions after the authors have completed their presentations. So wed like to keep this fair be going for 30 more years, dont we . [applause] so lets do it together, and instead of asking you to turn off your cell phones, what id like you to do if you have not already done so this weekend is to take out your cell phones and text mbfi to donate to Miami Book Fair international if youre so inclined. Doe that it to 41444. Thank you donate to 41444. Thank you so much. Please consider donating 30 in support of the 30 years the book fair has been in existence making culture happen here in our community. Its now my pleasure to introduce dr. J. P. Austin, a local physician, and he will make the formal introduction of our authors. Thank you. [applause] good morning. Its an honor and privilege for me to introduce Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the authors of double down game change 2012. Im a political junkie. I mean, i do medicine sometimes on the side, i think. [laughter] but this second book of what i think of now as a franchise really is really inside baseball at its best. The original game change, i think, was the most insightful book of the 2008 cycle. And double down does the same for 2012. I think its a home run. It takes you into the weeds. It brings depth and background to the events that you saw in the [inaudible] its a book full of of details, juicy tidbits, insight and, yes, even some gossip. When the democratic operative told cnn that ann romney was, quote never worked a day in her life, end of quote concern you guys remember that you guys remember that the romney team wasted no time in saying how appalled they were. But if you read the book, youll find out that the romneys were actually very happy that this happened and delighted because they thought it was a real huge political gaffe. President obama and his team, did they consider dropping Vice President biden . Well, read the book and see how far that discussion went. [laughter] what was behind the Clint Eastwood disaster at the Republican National convention . [laughter] you have this older man on stage in prime time without a script. What can possibly go wrong . [laughter] well, what was going on in the background you have to read the book to find out. [laughter] you know, i asked John Heilemann backstage, you know, how do you get people to talk . I mean, its amazing as you ive read both books, and my wife whos in the front here has read the books as well can how do you get people to say these things . Its amazing to me. But amazing book. I hope, you know, you guys are here, obviously, youre going to want to read it or have read it. Ladies and gentlemen, its my pleasure, really a privilege to introduce Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. [applause] jp, thank you for that gracious and kind introduction. You read it just like we wrote it, so we appreciate that. [laughter] we are gratified and excited and thrilled to be here in miami. Weve been on tour for the past two and a half week weeks and weve been in a lot of different cities, and we can say without any equivocation that this is absolutely the favorite place weve been. We love miami, and were happy to be here. [applause] i promise you, i have not said that in any other city weve been to. Thats the first time ive said it. [laughter] this is obviously an august forum and a great event that happens every year. Being invited here is one of the most great honors that weve experienced. The only thing that compares in the last, since this book double down has been published has been the fact that weve just received the endorsement of the north korean government. [laughter] and youre laughing, you think i made that up, thats not a joke, its true. A couple days ago a strange, i got a strange google alert on my phone that said something about north korea and double down, so, of course, i looked. And the headline of the Washington Post article said north korea endorses double down as proof that, quote the u. S. Is the root cause of all sorts of evils. [laughter] now, as an author, theres Nothing Better than a blurb from the north korean state news agency, and in truth there really is one book club more powerful than oprahs, and thats the kim jong un [laughter] we love to take questions from the audience, so im going to talk very briefly, hand over to mark, and then well get to your questions and comments and address whatever youd like to hear us talk about. We wrote a book, as jp mentioned, four years ago or three years ago called game change. Some of you may have read that book or seen the hbo movie. [applause] if you preferred the movie to the book, just keep it to yourself. [laughter] much as we love that movie, the book was our baby. This, in this book we tried to do roughly the same thing that we did in the last book which is really just to write about the high human drama of running for president and the people who put themselves forward in this extraordinary american spectacle, one of the great competitions in any sphere of life in our country or any other. Marks going to talk more about how we go about doing these books, but we did set ourselves a little bit of a high bar in the fact that the first book our subtitle referred to 2008 as the race of a lifetime. So, you know, you head into 2012 and people ask, well, how are yo probably going how are you possibly going to top the race of a lifetime . Hillary clinton and barack obama competing to become the first woman or africanamerican to be nominated by a party. We would often say theres not going to be as much drama in 2012. First of all, there was. President obama himself told his aides on Election Night that he felt this election was more consequential than the 2008 election. Back in 2008 people were voting on a hope and on a dream and on a kind of the historic promise of his election. And in 2012 theyd be voting on his record, and theyd be either vindicating or rejecting what hed done and giving him a mandate to do more. He also felt that he had done a lot over the course of his first three years, whether you like the things hed done or not, whether it was passing Health Care Reform, reregulating wall street, passing a huge stimulus, those were big things he did, and we held that if the republicans won in 2012, they would roll back and undo all his pleasurements accomplishments. So he thought the stakes in this election were much higher. A lot of republicans in 2008 were disspiritted, and by the time you got to the end of 2008, there was not much drama or suspense around who was going to win that election especially after the wall street crisis in the fall of 2008. In this election republicans were really energized, and today thought defeating president obama was the most important thing to save the country. So you had two energized sides playing for high stakes, so there was a fair amount of drama inherent in that. There was also a fair amount of the other kind of narrative in this election. There was a lot of comedy in this election. [laughter] certainly on the republicans side there was some comedy. You will all remember herman cain talking about whos becky . Michele bachmann confusing the hometown of john wayne and serial killer john wayne gacy. [laughter] those were, you know, kind of funny moments. Newt gingrich, a southerner, of course, finishing his epic political career by taking a tour of americas zoos and being bit been by a penguin. [laughter] not necessarily the most wonderful way to end his career. And, of course, even the candidates that were not inherently that funny, a lot of people dont think of mitt romney as a funny guy or rick santorum, but we report in the book about john mccain who is often a funny guy coming to his decision about who he was going to enforce and saying to governor romney that he had made his decision at that point, it was between mitt romney and rick santorum, he felt like the republican nomination had come down to the dog on roof guy. [laughter] so there was some humor there. Im going to spend the last couple minutes that i have left, im going to tell you a little bit about one story from the book that has both drama and comedy and consequence and profanity which, of course, as you can imagine involves the clintons. [laughter] we write we wrote a lot in 2008 about bill clinton and and barack obama and their complicated relationship. In this book theres a lot of double down one of the big story arcs is the relationship between bill clinton and barack obama. And the first book in some ways was the love story of barack and hillary. This book is in some ways an even more unlikely love story of barack and bill. And it starts after three years in which the two guys really didnt talk very much, and president obama didnt really want to hear from president clinton. President clinton wanted to talk, as he often does [laughter] but they didnt really have much collaboration or discussion until the fall of 2011 when president obamas, his term was at its kind of low ebb politically to that point. His Approval Ratings were down around 40 after the republican debt ceiling fight. He was seen as weak by democrats, by republicans. Twothirds of the country thought the country was on the wrong track. He looked vulnerable, and in his state of desperation, he and his team did something they thought they would never have to do which is they started courting bill clinton, they start thed a courtship. And that began, as they often do, on the golf course. They went to play golf at Andrews Air Force base. Now, president obama has a very obama attitude towards golf. Im president of the United States, i want to get up and down, play the game, get back to work. Two and a half hours at the most, maybe three if im really not playing well, but thats it. President clinton has a different attitude towards golf, hes a retiree, so hes got a more lose yourly pace, and he famously taked a lot of mulligans and thinks the golf course is a place to expound and preach and joke and tell knock knock jokes, all kinds of things. And this golf round did not go particularly well, and they did not finish 18 holes. President obama said i like him fine, but in doses. [laughter] that was not a particularly propitious start to the romance. But over the course of the next few months, the guys got closer and closer together. President obama got to see president clinton speaking about him at fund be raisers where he spoke with passion and eloquence, and ultimately, president obama decided, you know, that he would give one of the three nights of his convention as you all remember to president clinton. That night, first night was Michelle Obamas night, the last night was obamas night. The middle night should have been joe bidens night, but instead, president obama decided to give president clinton the chance to get up there and place Barack Obamas name in nominationing and then really make the case for Barack Obamas term and the case against the republicans which president clinton did extraordinarily. And it was a big moment for president clinton because after 2008, a lot of people thought he had lost a step. Maybe he couldnt go out there and throw the high, hard one. He wanted to show he still had his fastball, and he did show that that night in charlotte. A very consequential speech as well as a riveting one. President clinton showed he had his president ial skills, and he also showed he had the skills of punditry. You know, by the end of the campaign, president obama and president clinton when superstorm san key was bearing sandy was bearing down on new york city, president clinton and president obama were here about to do a joint event together, and president obama decided he had to go back to washington because of the storm and things were getting serious. And they were at a hotel here in florida, and president clinton said you go back and be president , ill pick up the slack. Theres been some rockingest in the last few days. President clinton made it, that was not helpful about the Affordable Care act. People wondered on getting maybe dicey again but then we saw last week president obama getting president clinton the medal of freedom. When he gave him the medal of freedom referring, said thank you for all of you guys youve given me oath on and off the golf course. [laughter] that lightness is there. Ill finish by saying president clinton, i said he was a great pundit. When we think about 2012 would like to think to try to see the world through president clintons eyes. He was asked in such a number after the 47 tape came out and president governor romney was struggling, one of his friends and what you think of governor romney . President clinton said i think hes a nice guy buddies in the wrong line of work. [laughter] he said and he should not be speaking to people in public. [laughter] similar conversations where president lives and what you think about president obama . Reflecting on how the great gift governor romney has given to present obama. Clinton said that he was kind of there are no children in right now but i will give it to you straight to present an city the president obama was like you and the dog with two decks. [laughter] which there is a thing that bill clinton thinks is the luckiest thing you can be. [laughter] and i can say a lot of times i have to figure what it is about being a to dick doc. Only bill clinton knows. Im going to stop with that me because i always youre a dog with two penises. Animal genitalia is my specialty. [laughter] welcome, mark. [applause] thank you all. Were both really happy to be your at the Miami Book Fair. Ive been you here a few times. The cspan2 cameras are here and i knew that john was by going to end with a story but ive spent most of my morning and tuesday what brian lambs reaction going to be how we are helping to program the channel. Im going to talk for a little bit because the likely time for q a, and this was we concern we want everyone to start the question. Nothing is off limits. You can ask about the book or journalism or anything you want. You can ask about the details of the obligation of the Presence Health care law or what we learn and reporting about the details of the clintonclinton s marriage, whichever interests you more. Alternate ask is you do all your questions in the form of true or false. [laughter] if you could could defined in that way, its a little faster. Im going to talk about how we do these books. In terms of the craft and the process. I do want to do one quick housekeeping thing before them. I want to get a sense of make up of the audience. Of going to ask you a couple questions, ask you to go by share of hands, you can close your eyes as you vote. Raise your hand if you voted for president obama in the last election and. Okay. And ration and 80 voted for governor romney in the last election. 123, four, five. All right. I need to congratulate you all about the standards of most groups. Youre a very Diverse Group of people. I think thats great. If you need help getting out afterwards, let me know. Come back stage. Nice that youre all interested in politics. Second question i just want to get a sense of the book. How many of you have not read again yet . Regime. How many have read it . Not very many. Moment i talked for about about whats in the book because so few of you have read it there i dont want to give away the ending. Mike im just going to talk more about the process than whats in it. We had as john said a great challenge in doing a second book because of so many elements of the first book that were pretty compelling. We had great characters to write about. Our joke was if you got a campaign where Rudy Giuliani is the most interesting candidate you know youve got a group of interesting people to write about. You have the john and elizabeth edwards, john mccain, sarah palin. This time there some Different Group but there some characters who carry over and we like that continuity. What we tried to do is to write about not politics the way a lot of people write about politics. Polls and focus groups and details of every primary and caucus by the relationships between people and trying to write as much as we can with empathy through the eyes of the candidates and their spouses and families as they go through this extraordinary process. John makin one of the key relationships is between president clinton and president obama but there are lots of others. Chris christie and mitt romney is a pretty important relationship. The relationship between Hillary Clinton and joe biden is a really important one, and they were competitors in 2008 when joe biden ran for president and then the white house, worked very close with Foreign Policy but a lot of speculation about whether they might run against each other in 2016. The ivory coast personally. Weve written about that in both books. One example, they say i love you to each other. Of Something Like even the cheney census dont do these days. [laughter] shows you how close they are and to try to tease out again just a people relate to each other because they are human beings. We try to write for insiders as well as for general audience. We hear a lot from people who are not interested in politics who have read the book, who say that like them even though they dont normally like to read about politics and thats very gratifying but we hear a lot of times from inside, people who worked on campaigns or candidates themselves. John did an interview with the governor huckabee the other day and governor huckabee said what people say to us privately which is we capture as close as others can, as journalist dan whats not on the facts of what happened but kind of the feel of it, the tactile sense of us like to do with an exhilaration and the pressure and the often heartbreak of being involved in a president ial campaign. With a particular focus on the candidates rather than on strategy and strategists and tactics and all that. We like to break news in the book. And to try to get a little attention for what we do. Really what we tried to do is to write a sense of the history of what happened by focusing on the big Unanswered Questions of the race. In last time we had to set up Unanswered Questions at this time we had a set, too. We think its important to capture that when we do. Some people complain, theyre so much coverage of election and your vote doesnt come with out for a full year after the election is over. It takes so long. I tried to gently push back and say look, its taken George Kurt Busch won a 100 just write about roseville so kind of a little bit of slack. But it is important to get those questions answered as best we can in real time. We do some elections during the campaign. The both of them immediately after because theres not a lot written down in campaigns. The are some notes and recordings we rely on but peoples memories fade, and if you want to get to the heart of both the facts and the feel of what happened we think youve got to do it as quickly as possible. A year is by the stench of a 500 page book relatively quickly. But in this case one big question were interested in was out governor romney end up as the nominee . Have a lot of weaknesses. Naturally the candidate of the establishment the way most republican nominees are with a lot of people in the establishment of the Republican Party anxious to find someone else to get them in the race like governor christie or governor daniels, former governor of indiana. And governor romney didnt have widespread support from the keyboard although he had support from both a relatively low ceiling on his overall support. Why didnt people like governor christie run for president . Government dana so might as well been strong candidates. Them why didnt they run and try to sort of answer that question . Another question was why did the republican candidates including governor romney force the endorsement of Donald Tarullo . He thought about running himself which we write about but the real reasons why mitt romney focus on getting the trunk endorsement of the day he got which was kind of a bizarre day, out in las vegas whos happy kind of. We tried to explain the question of why that was so important to him. The president ial debate, a lot of focus on president obama why he did so poorly in the first debate against governor romney in denver. And then a couple weeks later on the eve of the second debate we write about the process by which he recovered to do far better in the second debate but it was not a smooth process, and the question of why he did poorly in the first debate had ended up doing well in the second debate we thought was a big unanswered question. Mentioned earlier, Clint Eastwood, how he ended up speaking at the republican convention, why he got invited, why do leading up on stage with nothing and the teleprompter. How he thought of doing the routine he did. We thought that may not be the most of toward the important question of the whole campaign but, in fact, he ended up getting so much Media Coverage for his strange bob newhart imitation talking to the chair that it overshadowed a lot of the press coverage governor romney big acceptance speech that night. While its a quirky story in some ways about celebrity intersect with politics it have real world consequences. So what we did is pretty oldfashioned in the sense that involves a lot of reporting. We did over 500 entities for this book. They tend to be long into the. As with the first book we received extensive cooperation for which work will quite grateful across the board from democrats and republicans. We just ask people to tell us our stories. Their stories. Theyre basically World History and if you do 500 interviews, thats a lot these days. Thats a lot for almost any standard. 500 interviews and set being in our expense not just quantitatively different than what and for most chosen but qualitatively different because over time your we and giving people, comparing stores, trying to weed out things that like these are some sort of bias on the part of someone you talk to or bad memory. And try to weave together an area that is compelling and accurate and benefits from repeated discussion with people about important events and as we go through with the something awful, because the accumulation of the discussion gives us a sense, almost always doomed people would not for a couple of decades or just short of that, gives us a sense of again whats important to tell the story of what happened from the human perspective. Not as i said before chronicling every caucus, every primary the charges include things we think of most interest, the most compelling with humor and withdrawn and with a sense of importance of what they cant them into the country, what it meant as i said before to the people who ran. A lot of challenges in this process and less than the first book was made into an hbo movie, people assess on a pretty regular basis, if this book will be made into an hbo movie. Its possible. We part had some discussions with them about the challenge if they end up making at least part of the book about the relation, about the relationship between president clinton and president obama. I think casting that dog would be a big challenge for them. [laughter] but as with the first book theres a lot they could base the film on. We look forward to thinking about that potential project and also about 2016. One of the things weve stumbled into which we didnt anticipate is there is that continuity between the books. At the end of the book would write about looking forward to 2016 and the president s legacy and what it will mean to be the democratic nominee, whoever it is, to succeed him at the complexities of the. And plenty of people in the book are people who will be on the state in 2016 whether they run or not. Governor perry, governor christie, rick santorum, paul ryan, mike huckabee. These are all people we have written about in one or both books and maybe part of the narrative going forward. If you think about the books which we try to get in a novelist style, undergirded by high journalistic standards, we think some people like them because its kind of to think about the same cast of characters, some stepping off the stage into small role but other people stepping forward with that continuity has been rewarding for us. Im going to stop in part because i want to make sure we leave enough time for q a and in part because that is the longest ive spoken in the book tour without someone yelling july, which always throws me off. Its super nice of utah get up early to talk to us, and we will take questions do. Theres a microphone there. Into. [applause] im going to moderate the q a. Please keep your questions brief, if you can, so we get to as many as we can. About. My name is maryland, and my question to either one of you comparable to you, is what do you think hillary claims of strengths and weaknesses for president ial bid are . Thank you spent i think if Hillary Clinton decides to run for president , and neither mark nor i assume anything about that, that that is inevitable although she is clearly states are looking at, i think our strength are overwhelming in terms of seeking the democratic nomination. And who knows whatll happen in a general election. Her strengths is she seeks nomination are she has an incredible hold over those of the democratic coalition. There are many, many women elected all folders officeholders who believe its time for a woman to be nominated by the Democratic Party as president and have high regard for Hillary Clinton. She has a historic this relationship with africanamericans, latinos and union households. Thats pretty much the universe of people who make up the democratic nomination electorate which i think that in combination with her extraordinary ability to raise money would mean if you run shoe be almost entirely unchallenged. She may face a token challenge but she will be given the democratic nomination, something close to acclimation. A general election as a totally different kettle of fish and would depend a lot on who the republicans nominate. The first step i think would be close to in the bag. Thank you. Thank you. You were talking about 2016, and my question is about the latins, which were an important factor in electing president obama, and were a detriment to the republicans. As ive heard, they kept saying they dont want to court the latinos. What they want to do is present what they are, republicans, the people will come to them. Do you think thats a good strategy . Thats less a true false question and more like a doctoral dissertation. [laughter] im going to try to give you a short answer. Look, the president had horrible political times since the election in trying to get anything done. s Approval Rating is down and its a perilous time for him. At the same time the republicans have done much to increase, to address the problems that caused him to lose the last election. Cause of them to lose the popular vote and fight for the last six elections including the hispanic vote. Republicans might decide to work on in a way that would help them with that rising electoral group. I think that theres lots of reasons why democrats have done better with the latino vote, but clearly some of it has to do with the most basic question of all in president ial politics and some extent National Politics which is the question of does this person or the party care about people like you get and if you follow people in the Latino Community as most other groups that the president did just the portion about what, young people, single women, africanamericans, that question is one in which he and his partner have dominated since president bush left office. Whether republicans can do better with latinos on that question simply by talking about their programs rather than customizing to the Latino Community i think is an open question but however they do it in style and substance i think thats the problem they have to slow. Since the election i dont think theyve made much progress, particularly winner so much focus on the latino media which the president campaigned tracks were closer than i think the republicans did on republicans in the house not being willing to afford with the copperheads of immigration bill. Thanks for coming. Its great to see. What do you think of the political future of the well read sarah palin . [laughter] you know, i think mark and i know that the end of 2008 thought that had governor palu for all of her problems she had in 2008, had government then decided to pursue a different path, which is to say not quit the alaska governorship and take up a serious course of trying to remediate some of her substantive weaknesses, shes not a dumb woman and she could have gone to school and learned a lot about should not a dumb but she has some weaknesses. National domestic issue of Foreign Policy. Those are all things she couldve ordered she decided to abandon the alaska governorship and not do any of that. And i think became someone who is very wellpaid, someone who has a relatively small on the scale of National Politics. Ardent, small following. That at this point i think the notion that should ever be able to seek National Office again without, given the path shes chosen, is i think largely off the table. But i think she enjoys the popularity she still has, and shell probably be able to live a very comfortable and marginally influential life to take to the platforms that should really occupies on Cable Television and on facebook and she will continue to be a presence in our lives, if not an essential presence, going forward. Surprise there wasnt a round of applause for that. [laughter] ive misjudged the audience against. [laughter] they wanted me to say she was on a slow boat to china. [applause] it seems to me that since the day obama was elected, the republicans single goal has been to say no and to appeal to perhaps racism anything that wants to see them fail at all costs. And yet obama seems in response very indecisive. My question is this. There are a million things that obama can do administratively without having to go through congress and yet he doesnt do that. Instead, he, for example, says lets have Immigration Reform, which all of us are for which isnt going to happen. My question is, why, instead of doing a lifechanging administrative things he can do, doesnt he do them . I think, ill dispute the premise of the question a little bit. I think hes done some. I think hes pressing on his team to tell which once more he can do. Doing some of them runs the risk of angering republicans even more and obstructing things even more, and understand your point of view is how much worse can it get. It can get worse. They can start trying to block everything from happening. And the third thing is the president as we write in the book, in the context of his debate preparations, things like a lawyer. And so theres a relatively frequent occurrence that things are present that he might be able to do, and his view is if my sense of the constitutional scholar is i couldnt actually do that fairly and legally i wont do it. Thats going to be the way he thinks for the rest of his term because thats just what he thinks. Theres something admiral about that, but at the same time it does frustrate people like you to believe hes done having these me reasonable prospect of getting republicans to do things we should separate focus on whatever they can get done, and i think it things continue on a trajectory that are right now you will see a fair amount of fat. And how did you get together for your first project . How did you divide up the work . Do you ever have a very strong disagreements during the process . By accident, evenly, and no matter. [laughter] [applause] but john may want to answer it in more length. Spent i thought that was awesome last night. [laughter] we basically decided to the book in 2008. We decided the book in 2008, we have never written anything together prior to the. We had known each other for some years. We both thought that there was something to be done about the 2008 campaign. We tossed around ideas about a movie script. We talked about running primary color styles. Neither one of us have skills in those area either screenplays or fiction. We ended up laying on the notion of trying to do nonfiction. That leads into the second and. We saw the race in very similar ways. We saw the gap in what the coverage, what daytoday coverage left out in very much the same ways. So we had a very quick with bandwidth shared since about what a book like this could do, which mark said, the high human from of running for president. We are astonished all the time that where to go to dinner, almost not at all. I could count into books now and 800 interviews, over the course of the last six years, thousands of hours i can count on one hand the number of things were on that sunday was important that should go in the book and market disagree, or vice versa. When it comes to whats important, whats revealing, whats dramatic, funny, regulatory, whatever, we almost always see eye to eye. 99 of the instances which makes this doable. And evenly as the last answer. People are shocked sometimes learned that we do all of our interviews released again 95 of them together. We found that the idea of like splitting up labor, it would not be dividing and conquering but it would be dividing and telling. Would have to go back and read each others individual interviews which would have to do if were both going to be fully on board where we were in terms of what the net look like. We would probably still be reading transcripts, and so sitting to the interviews together, getting a constant evolving unrolled shared since about where we are headed, what we want to pursue, what do i do so office light is essential. And also makes it a lot more fun because the truth is, and i think we get more out of the interviews that way because in any given interview, theres the ability for both of us to be able to be hearing what these people are saying in real time and be able to judge where to push, where not to push, the credit of the person. We are able to back each other up, and thats really invaluab invaluable. Theres been a lot of Media Attention about the republicans basic living dead, democrats have lost momentum. If you look at 20 to nice with of some kind of fluke events, hurricane, good economic report for obama, some crazy Republican Senate candidate really crazy. Who otherwise would have on to a basic is a 50 50 election, statewide a lot of extreme republicans like in florida all over the country dominated politics. So my question is this. It seems like in recent years the republicans have been more and more hardball, more extreme, filibuster. But whenever poll numbers go down, the democrats poll numbers go down right along with. Seems like theres almost nothing policy wise or tactic wise that the republicans can do thats far out where the democrats really benefit that much. And i guess im wondering, why . Why do the democratic poll numbers always is there a problem with their brand or what is at . Im glad this gem is when a tshirt that says dont blame me, i voted for kerry. No one here feels blame for the. Thats another complicated question obviously. I think that even partisans in this country who feel very strongly about the president being, before he got sworn in our pockets or buttons that the president is too liberal or is incompetent, even for people in those camps believe that washington is broken, that the two parties are not serving the public answers for a variety of reasons. And i think its difficult now to get any lift in either side because both parties are kind of together. We quote the president in the book, coming out of the debt ceiling fighting the budget in 20 level which led to kind of low point of his present up to that point although now its the good old days where the president felt like hed been wrestling with come in the mud with big eminem afford what happened everybody gets dirty. And i think it was the promise and pledge, the goal of president clinton, president bush and president obama all essential to the First Campaign in the widest to change that and to elevate themselves and our politics, and all three of them failed. This president , again not all his fault by any means but this president has in some ways been the biggest their by most metrics Political Science is used to measure partisanship. Is really a puzzle. And while i said a lot of partisans are concerned about this there are a lot of people who are not particularly parts and or engaged but look at the mess in washington and just kind of spread out their disdain for everybody. So its a challenge, given the dynamics in our Politics Today to fighting the other side which partisans urge everyone to do this as one of the previous questions did, and still elevate yourself with a wider electorate. Because once you yield to those to do with your base, very difficult in terms of policy and rhetoric to elevate. Its a real puzzle and i think everybody in the country who cares about that not just any partially but because we want our country to have a functioning government should be encouraging politicians of both parties, which would change the dynamic, i think we spent enough years bemoaning the dynamic and how horrible that is in terms of our National Image as well as getting things done. I think its time to try to fix it. My question is, i was fascinated by the Romney Campaign surprise on Election Night, despite what a lot of analytics, and metrics were saying coming and. Why do you think he was so blindsided by the results that night, especially when they started coming in by the quickly . How much do you think a role groupthink played in that, you know, him of being surprised and his campaign being surprised . There are two big reasons. Yes, the fact that governor romney and congressman ryan along with many of the people around him thought they were going to win right up until election day. Part of it was one of the heirs that politicians sometimes succumb to an some reporters succumb to, which is the illusion of crowds to their president ial candidate, youre out on the road, the main thing you see everyday, all you do is you go from event to event. In passed in 2008 john mccain in the last days of the election would have very small crowds, a couple thousand people while president obama was getting 30,000 people at his events. Governor romney was in a different place. He was getting crowds as big as president obama. He would go to colorado and see 35,000 people. Cincinnati, ohio, a couple nights out of Election Night, again 30,000 people. They did one event in pennsylvania tonight before election. There were 40,000 people there. So we thought of the crowds and energy indicated to him, in his gut instinct you would win. Republican pollsters across the Republican Party were all measuring the wrong electric had convinced himself elected in 2012 would look more like electric in 2010 with an electorate in 2008. President obamas team was determined and spent a ton of money to make sure the electorate would look like 2012 more like it in 2008 with a Rising Coalition that was dominant again in 2012 and they succeeded the republicans turned out to be totally wrong. Thank you so much. Lets give our authors a round of applause. [applause] and they will be autographing on the other side of the elevators on the same floor. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] this is booktvs live coverage of the 2013 Miami Book Fair international, and the next panel is due to begin in 15 minutes. Thats George Packer who just won the National Book award. Jeremy scahill, and dan balz. Now as you can see we are following Mark Halperin and John Heilemann to the sign in a. Mark halperin is wearing a microphone and will be able to listen in as he signed books with in talks with some people that were in the audience. But we also want to get your reaction to what you saw Mark Halperin and John Heilemann talking about as a reaction to the election 2012 panel. This is live coverage in miami on tv. As we went for John Heilemann to get started lets get some, get you calling them. Here are the numbers, 202 5853890 for those in the eastern and central time zone. 202 5853891 if you leave if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. David in hopes sound, florida, just up the coast, what was your reaction to that panel backs. Caller my reaction was not out to my reaction. They were actually fairly objective and answers. But even they had to express their new discussed with that audience. The audience is that were getting at these book festivals are disproportionately to the left. This is particularly true here in florida we have a purple state. That went for obama this last time but very, very, very, very narrowly. Yes, that audience would have you believe that florida was overwhelmingly in favor of obama, that simply wasnt true. And i think that the organizers of these book festivals have to have an affirmative Action Program to reach out to conservatives to take part in these audiences, and not have been so disproportionately to the left. I am right up the coast, yet i will not go near that place because of the hostility that i would engender if i dared show my face there. So thats my reaction. Host david, thanks for calling in. Lets listen in as Mark Halperin and John Heilemann signed books. We dont want to have a traffic jam. Classic edition. Spent its great seeing you guys. I love your stuff in new york magazine, to. Thank you, sir. How are you . Spent where did you grow up . Grew up here and they went to brandeis for college. Spent thats very nice. [inaudible] that was a good episode. Hello. Thank you for buying this. The want of this made out of someone or just signed . Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for buying these books spend absolutely. Thanks for coming. The mic, not baba louie. Weve got to do this or do. We have traffic jams. [inaudible] we will be back. Thank you. Very nice of you. Thanks a lot. And as we continue to watch mark alpert and John Heilemann signed books after the talk of the Miami Book Fair, we want to hear from fred in washington. Fred, what did you think of the authors . Caller i believe they are well oriented to the current scene, but im disappointed in the audience, and why we never hear questions, which would be hard for these people to address, about all of the events and the amount of money that comes out of Corporate America and goes right directly through lobbyists or through campaign pledges into our congress, and how much influence that has on this malaysian that we are involved in malaise. Thats my only comment. Im reading currently a very good book on this subject by one of their colleagues, hendrick smith, who stole the american dream. And it documents very well, you know, what the influence of money is and where the money is coming from, and i would say the single primary reason for the problems that we are having with this country now. Including host thank you very much for calling in. By the way, Hedrick Smith was covered by booktv. You can watch that online at booktv. Org. Theres a search function up in the upper left hand corner. Lets listen in again to Mark Halperin as he signs books. Thank you. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Hi, how are you . Great. [inaudible] thanks so much, thanks for buying the book. You laughed more than anybody else at the event. Your inspirational. In a, i enjoyed [inaudible] in about five, six measures of the next panel will be starting here in miami. Dan balz, George Packer and Jeremy Scahill are all on the panel. George packer, the unwinding just won the National Book award at this year. Jeremy scahills dirty wars. He will be joining us later in the day for a calling program and dan balz, collision 2012. So that panel would be begin in about five minutes. Next we wanted from gary in paducah, kentucky. Gary, good morning. Caller good morning. I really enjoyed the panel. It was a great discussion. You know, the problem i see, you know, im just a layman, okay . But the first caller we got what he comes off so partisan that he could be not welcome at the book fair because hes a conservative, thats what i see wrong with the country. I mean, we are all americans. Its just destroying the country just to keep us polarized. You know, i love cspan. Honey, ive been trying to call you for 15 years and i finally got through this morning. I cannot believe the. I love cspan. Have a great day. Host gary . Gary . Gary, before you hang up, how would you describe your politics . Thats too bad. Gary hung up after 15 years. Wanted to talk to him a little bit. Cindy in colorado. What is your reaction to what you saw . Caller i definitely want to read the book. I have a kindle. I have already downloaded the sample. The gentleman, the republican or conservative, whatever you want to call him, that put down the fair and put on cspan, doesnt watch cspan. And i do, i watch it, its like book again for me. And all the want to say is, conservatives could show up at these him and also maybe conservatives or republicans dont read. Im baffled. Baffled i his comments. Host thank you, cindy. Jp is also calling from colorado. This time from pueblo, colorado. Jp, you are on booktv on cspan2. Caller hi. I like the panel. I was amazed at how quickly yet house is simply they answered the question about how they met, how they Work Together and get a fight. Quick three word answer, just impressive. It reminded me stomach if im ever in a situation to think two quick. But addressing the first caller, the last caller who suggested that maybe conservatives dont read, obviously they read that they dont rate the same things. And i think the quote from jon stewarts bill would be really appropriate to that first caller. And that is simply you dont have to be stupid to be conservative, its also true that most conservatives are stupid. And ill leave you with that. Host jp, are your politics, do you consider yourself a liberal, progressive, what . Caller , well i suppose i would have to say that i consider myself liberal. I dont believe its a dirty word. But that doesnt mean i dont respect conservatives of old like william f. Buckley and barry goldwater. Theres something going on in this country where they just abandoned all reason, chance of reality over objectivity. Theres something so visceral in the conservative movement. And i blame the media, not cspan, the media for a good part of it. Deregulated equal time were abandoned back under reagan i believe, and the ownership of the Media Company narrowed to so few people. I think big money and self interest is really influencing a lot of media, and host jp, thanks for calling in this morning. All these callers from florida know what a Beautiful Day it is on the east coast of florida. This is live from miami. This is the 30 day no Miami Book Fair international. The tv 15th year on the air weve covered this live from a portion for all 15 years. Hundreds of authors attend. The last caller was correct. Dick cheney was here yesterday. Were going to go back now to chapman hall. Coming up airball at the washing post and the National Book award winner this year, jeremys bay hill, dirty wars. A break to welcome you here this morning to miami books are international. Those of you joining us to Chapman Center in the lou harrison and absurd as a volunteer for many, many years. Its happy anniversary to the 30 years here in our community. [applause] we are very grateful to art software in particular, American Airlines and always shall. Id also like to recognize the friends of the fair, many who are here in our first couple of rows. Thank you so much for your generosity in support. We look forward to your continuing to be a friend for many, many years. Miami Book Fair International and Miami Dade College work handinhand to bring this book fair to us every year. Its a wonderful, cultural affair that thousands and thousands of fairgoers are enriched by each and every year. Thank you all. Come in, have a seat. As you now, our sessions are being streamed live by cspan. Please help us keep this they are going for another 30 years. We usually ask you to turn off your cell phones, but we are going to ask you keep them on and take the nod and make a donation if youre selling high. 30dollar donation to recognize 30 years book here has been at this end to see what tax mbsi to 41444, we would be most grateful for your generosity and support. At this time, as some of you are still getting seated, i would like to bring to the podium someone who might follow introductions of our author. His name is mr. Robert weisberg, a longtime civil rights attorney here in our community. Mr. Weisberg . [applause] been a good morning. Its a real honor to be here today is to be able to introduce George Packer, Jeremy Scahill and dan balz. [applause] going to server does do a quick little introduction of each of them right up front and then we can get charity. George is on the end of the table is a longtime staff writer for the new yorker magazine. His 2005 book, decide date on american iraq based on event that led up to 2003 invasion of iraq and what happened afterwards was recognized for the New York Times book review of hong kong bucks were cloaked about your church is also the author of novels in the play betrayal powertrain offbroadway for five months in 2008 and will tell an award for outstanding play. This year, church of the faithful book is published this book in large part details narratives from various people in describing how institutions of the country of change in the late 1970s to the president and how that is impacted americans. In preparing for this, i looked at what individuals, authors, others had said about the unwinding and prominent and accomplish others have described the unwinding as original comment i said, courageous, essential, unique, irresistible, extraordinary, gorgeous, exurban comella gave him a sweeping, powerful. I could go on, but you get the point. This past wednesday church was awarded the National Book award for 2013 for nonfiction. [applause] for those of you dont mind the National Book award is described as a book that the oscars consumes. Next to Georges Jeremy i have to follow that . [laughter] Jeremy Scahill this investigative journalist. Jeremy has been a longtime contributor to the new program democracy now and correspondent for the nation magazine. As a journalist, jeremy is reported from all over the world, including afghanistan, iraq, somalia, yemen and the former lucas audio. He has twice won the prestigious george polk award for and reporting. In 1998 for his investigation in the chevron corp. s role in the killing of two nigerians and environmental activist and in 2008 for his New York Times bestselling book, blackwater, the rise of the worlds most powerful mercenary army, which exposes the private military contractor blackwater. Jeremys investigative work has led several congressional hearings and is also resulted in jeremy testifying before congress on u. S. Covert military actions. Jeremys newest book, dirty wars the world is a battlefield is a monumental book which takes the reader inside u. S. Military covert action, worldwide and the consequences of those actions. Dirty wars has also been made into a documentary which jeremy cowrote, produced in a rebate. Jeremy frequently appears on various Public Affairs programs, Public Affairs programs, just as rachel nadeau, anothers. [applause] next to me right here is dan balz. Dan is chief correspondent at the Washington Post. He has served as the papers national editor, political editor, White House Correspondent and southwest correspondent. Dan is coauthor of 96 title storming the gates, protest politics republican revival. In 2009, didnt cowrote with the late hans in the bestseller, the battle for america 2008 paris of an extraordinary election about the 2008 president ial election. And this year, dan wrote the book collision 2012 election in america. Collision 2012 provides incredibly detailed, rich insight into both the Election Campaign and makes for fascinating reading. In 2011, dean received the white house course on its association or miss but the word for deadline presidency and National Press club award for political analysis. Dan is a regular panelist on Washington Week in the daily run down and a frequent guest on other Public Affairs shows. Please join me in welcoming george, jeremy indiana. [applause] so, we are going to do a little curly mouth. Quite soon we can turn it over and get it going both ways. The year 2008 came up in each of the introduction and he was then i began to think about a book that would try to understand what happened that year with these huge pillars of american the economy and our society collapsing. From automakers to banks, Housing Market, commercial and investment banks and in a sense, the political system which seemed to be on the cusp of a new era of reform with the rise of barack obama had a thing proved more illusory than real. I had just come back uncovering the iraq war for several years. The failure to american institutions was on my mind before that. I wanted to see how the lives of people at home or effect did by these forces. The more i thought about it, i realized this is really the story of my adult life. This doesnt go back to 2006 or 9 11 or even the clinton years. This is a generation long trajectory that led to the epic events of 2008. There are a number of phenomenon that he can around the late 70s that have been made things shaping our lives from wage stagnation in the middleclass to deindustrialization of the outsourcing of manufacturing, the decline of labor unions, Information Technology and the Consumer Internet and consumer computers. Political polarization and the return of the Republican Party towards the extreme right. Along with that, the ability of washington to really function as it did when i was younger. Above all, the rest of inequality, which all of these first is have contributed to economic inequality cosigning paradoxically with greater social equality. More groups included in american life. More stratification along class lines. So this is a big, big story. Theres many good books from which i learned a lot attracted historically, politically and policy, economically. I tried it first to add my own version of those books is a pile and quickly grew exhausted with the thought of it because its such a huge topic. I have big ambitions. To write a big ambitious book, you need to find a small way into a tiered you cant take it on whole or also drown in it. So over the course of the next two years after to disney, i began to travel around the country and made americans in different ways. Sometimes serendipity, sometimes through design, his lies were part of a story, who were sort of on the receiving end of debate global and National Forces and decisions because these are not just blind forces. These are political decisionmaking Power Centers like wall street and washington that have created the greatest inequality weve seen in a hundred years. The moment of clarity came when i read i dont have to write a big history. I can tell the stories of these people. Dean price in the piedmont region of north carolina, a truckstop entrepreneur who had a sheen of gas station and fast food joints that began to crumble with the financial crisis in the recession in turn for salvation, almost religious salvation to the fallow tobacco fields all around him and began to see canola as the answer, which could create bio diesel fuel instead of imported oil, which made it impossible for him to compete with the big chain and also the oil thrown out at night by all the barbecue joints that could also be turned into bio diesel. Tammy thomas who is a lifelong Assembly Line worker in youngstown ohio, while that figure is in a death spiral. Faster and larger magic in some ways than detroit as a result of the death of the steel industry. The pillars of the society that depended on it. Her job went overseas just issues getting close to her retirement and she remade herself as a Community Organizer right at the moment the Community Organizer became famous as a president ial candidate. Just comment and who is a lifelong washington operative, which some like a fate worse than death and in some ways the days, but in fact, his career is tremendously eliminating and showing forces that have shaped washington over the course of this generation long history. He went from being an idealistic army be to a rather cynical obvious, we realize the real game is in lobbying and did very well out of it and with the financial crisis, saw all that was wrong with that money in washington kind of coming back to haunt him and all of a sudden he went back into government to try to enact real wall street reform legislation in the senate as the chief of staff to the senator who took a waitandsee. That didnt work out, but the effort is golf was worth recording. These people had crossed my radar and became the protagonists of what became the unwinding. The hard part was to figure out how all this fits together. Theres the whole story of tampa, florida, not far from here. It is huge rises of this housing machine of growth monster and then total collapse. Almost overnight you could see it like the looney tunes are going out into midair, thinking the Housing Market is Still Holding it up and then collapsed. Sit tampa stories the big part of it. Theres also a Silicon Valley aspect of the book because you have to look at Silicon Valley has this weird anomalous Success Story in the middle of so much trouble. In addition and forgive me, but i had a lot of material to corel. Theres 10 famous americans whose stories i wanted to tell because i wanted this to be mostly from the bottomup. You also have to look at the tops of society to understand the people in forces that shaped these years. Newt gingrich represents politics. Demott represents business. Robert rubin financed Oprah Winfrey and her team them and on. At a certain moment, as the deadline was looming, i had to figure out, what is all this . Ive got more than i can handle and jeremy absher had moments of truth along the same line. Its called overreporting and you have to do it. If you are efficient, it means you are not deep enough into the story. You have to lose yourself for a while. And i was lost. But then i begin to think there must be a way to tell these stories without conventional forms because what i had was too unconventional to say. And i looked back in Literary History to one of my favorite works of american fiction, the u. S. A. Trilogy for a guide to how to tell a big historical story. His trilogies about the first three decades. To do it in the way through peoples lives. That gave me the confidence that you could create something coherent out of all of this polyphony. Its a very kaleidoscopic work. So when you read the unwinding as they hope youre well, you leave them for a while. You need Newt Gingrich all of a sudden. His presence might seem odd at first and then you begin to see this is the late 70s and early 80s. Here is Newt Gingrich who maybe did more than anyone to create the toxic political role that we live in. You then go back to one of the care received that before and so on and it takes you 35 years through their life stories and the largest story of america to reach the present. I cant say its a story of shining success because it not, but i dont think its depressing in the sense that these people have tremendous energy, humor, creativity, a kind of growing object to be about themselves, which is coming in now, the only benefit to getting older. It is i have to say kind of middleaged story. Obvious people come from. Worn around the late 50s or 60s and i needed that because i needed their lives to carry the weight of all that history that you can send the late 70s and leads to the present. So that gives you a brief mouth of the unwinding. Im going to turn it over to jeremy and then we can do the questions. [applause] did you interview Newt Gingrich . I am new to the Tampa Convention last year and had one question for him. He is at the vips did not have the benefit. Transition from it into serious journalism. [laughter] you know, when Newt Gingrich as speaker of the house, he would hold his daily speakers briefing that i believe with erudite cspan. He canceled it eventually because amy goodman, my mentor from democracy now confronted him on Live National television about his purported use of the word to describe Hillary Clinton, who at the time was the first lady. The Washington Post did a piece on it and the catalyst gingrich cant ditch bitch comment. We are in a moment right now, not just in this country, but globally where theres an emerging war against journalists in an country is theres a direct work and struggle us. In mexico, almost every week journalists are gunned down, either by narco cartels or by force is associated with mexican government. There are several dozen journalists missing right now and area. Austin tice, a Young American who went to Georgetown Law School and was a marine who then went on to be quite a good reporter for mcclatchy newspaper has been missing for over a year. James foley and other independent reporters just passed the oneyear anniversary of his eduction somewhere in syria. Journalists are regularly murdered in amalia. In yemen. I tell the story of my book. There is a german missing of the della hershiser a, who is the first journalist in the world to report that the obama admitted duchenne had initiated a Bombing Campaign in yemen. In december 2009, president obama authorize the Cruise Missile straight on what he was told was not paid a Training Facility in the village of how much of the end that there was a target that the joint special Operations Command, the elite units of the u. S. Military, the people that killed Osama Bin Laden trek to senior al qaeda figure to this particular place and there was a Training Camp there. Of course obama and his administration began expanding the use of what the nice drum, but they didnt have any drugs available for the operation because they were being used in pakistan at the time. So the author is to Cruise Missile strike. These cluster bombs, which are basically like flying landmines. I first saw the aftermath of the cluster bomb attack in yugoslavia in 1999 during the nato air war over kosovo over the issue of kosovo. The niche marketplace in serbia was hit by cluster bombs that around and people were shopping at the green market. I went there in the aftermath of that inside human beings shredded in the ground by these weapons in most countries in the world agree they should be banned in the United States continues to use them. For the launch Cruise Missiles and cluster bombs on what they believe is an al qaeda Training Facility. The Yemeni Government issues a press release the next day, saying that its forces had carried out a series of strikes against al qaeda targets in that they killed 34 al qaeda militants. The United States sends a note of congratulations to the Yemeni Government and directed all inquiries from reporters to the Yemeni Government. This reporter went to that village with tribal leaders who had gone there and took photographs and video of a plainly looks like a massacre. There were three dozen women and children that were killed in that operation. There are 14 women and 21 children to be precise. There is still no clarity on who the ultimate target was not operation or if anyone from al qaeda was even there. But when he took these photographs, he also was able to discover parts of the missiles manufactured by General Dynamics and said they did the United States. We ultimately went in films as ourselves and interview people who survived. When Amnesty International got a hold of those photographs, they had munitions experts look at the end determine there is no on earth that is a Yemeni Military action had to be the United States. This Yemeni Journalists began talking about a covert u. S. War in yemen early on in the Thomas Administration and he was writing information was published in the Washington Post and broadcast by nbc news. He was on al jazeera regularly. In the course of doing his reporting, he was subject it off the streets one day and taken to a Political Security Organization Holding so in yemen and was savagely beaten and driven and tossed on the street with a warning that if he didnt stop talking about the u. S. Bombing in yemen in this particular i think you he did was incredibly brave thing it was the right thing for him to do. He went straight from the beating he received to the studio said the News Organization and went on the air and said i was subject to a yemeni intelligence operatives and they beat me and threaten me and told me if i didnt not talking about this they would be imprisoned for good and im going to continue reporting on this. He continued to receive threat and eventually his home was raided in the middle of the night. In front of his children, he was snatched by commandos and disappeared for 34 days. Eventually he was brought into a Political Court in yemen to sit before a tribunal in a process that was developed specifically to prosecute journalists are activists who committed crimes against the dictatorship who was a u. S. Client basically at that time. He was charged with being a facilitator for al qaeda and propagandist for al qaeda and they fabricated all sorts of evidence against him. Every major Media Freedom organization in the world in several Major International human rights organizations condemned his prosecution, condemned his trial and condemned the court where he was prosecuted as a total sham and he was ultimately sentenced to five years in prison. He was in prison for about three years. I started reporting on a story and i went and investigated on the ground and interviewed also said people who knew him and i read every possible article i could read him. This Yemeni Journalist puts to shame the reporters who sit in the front row at the White House Press briefings. [applause] he was an actual independent journalist are the reason i say that is his. He was interviewing leaders of al qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula, dangerous individuals. At one point, one of the major bomb makers who was believed to have been the person that came up at the end were bound to elegy. He meets with him and he has been put on a suicide vest see what it feels like. They were joking they were going to detonate it with him. He writes about the senate peace. He did multiple interviews upon where ill ask you, but you mom who left the united seats in the tm and it started creating videos and was fascinated to number 20 lebanon director or some president obama. If i were working for u. S. Intelligence, i would want to journalists like that interviewing al qaeda figures. You have to understand who the enemy has. If you perceive the sinister enemies, you want more information, not less. The point in getting at is he was not a terrorist. He was not an al qaeda facilitator. He was critical of al qaeda as an organization, but he was fascinated by george is talking about getting lost. He was fascinated with this movement of people and who they were. The individuals who run it. How did they end up becoming leaders of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . Fischler hsiung told an english language and yet he was facilitating a process for those of us in the last could have a deeper understanding of the figures were being told we have to be frightened about in our nightmares every night double blow up airliners or attack our embassies or try to go after Public Transportation systems. He gets sentenced to five years in prison. Theres a huge outcry in yemen itself and tribal leaders to basically control the politics in yemen forced to get peter to issue a pardon and he drives a pardon in the Yemeni News Agency does a story saying Ali Abdullah Saleh and his generosity. That day, the dictator gehman receives a phone call from the white house. Not from some underling staffer at the National Security council, not from a Senior Adviser to the president. Not from john brennan whos in charge of the drug war and counterterrorism program, but from president obama personally. President obama held that the interview had that the United States, which is a major funder of humans counterterrorism operation in the yemenis listen to, that the united gates is deeply concerned about reports that this individual is going to be released from prison and a dictator gehman rips up the pardon and he remained in prison because of the direct intervention of the Nobel Peace Prize winning constitutional lawyer who said he was going to run the most transparent of minutes richeson history and be a friend to journalism. He kept by his intervention a Yemeni Journalist in prison for over a year more because of his direct intervention. When i called the white house and state department and spoke to the National Security council spokespeople, i asked them to produce one shred of evidence that he had anything to do a terrorist that other than reporting on it. They would comment. They said they stand by their position and want them kept in prison. He remains there for three years and was eventually released about three months ago. He is still under a state of the fault house arrest in yemen right now. He cannot leave the capitol. He is not allowed to have a passport. Im going on with iona craig reporter to geneva to receive a human rights award on his behalf because hes not allowed to have a travel document right now. So when you look at this one story in the intervention of the leader of the free world is weak on the specific case of the new look at crack of whistleblowers and egregious use of the espionage act to go after individuals who are providing information to journalists or the public, people like Thomas Street who worked at the embassy for decades and did what they claimed they wanted Edward Snowden to do, which is not take documents to hong kong and give them to journalists, the collector chain of command if you think abuses taking place. Thomas did that and they still went after him and try to ruin him as a person. Thomas trick works at an apple store now. He was air force mma career imbues himself as a deeply patriotic american, a career staffer at the National Security agency. They went after him for doing exactly what they set Edward Snowden should not. He watched that and did what they watched to the nsa guy. They try to destroy him. These are the people targeted at the same time that Donald Rumsfeld and Jose Rodriguez to brand the program are on a book tour. That says a lot to me about the priorities in our society. The stories i try to tell him dirty wars are the people caught in the middle of the work, but also the men and women passed by the president of the United States is hunting down people whove been declared enemies of america and also telling the story of the Movement Like alshabaab and amalia are al qaeda and the arabian tenants who benefit from the perception that u. S. Is a gratuitous enemy and uses drones with impunity and will assassinate their church at the crime away from any declared battlefield. Unless you believe in bizarre interpretations of the authorization for use of military force for justification for a war on the world. Its been 12 years 9 11. I was sitting on people come you should go back and watch the speech that representative barbara lee of california gave him the original blank check was written for the Bush Administrations global war because she was the only member of congress that voted again the authorization for the use of military force. She was trembling. She was receiving threats at the time. She got up and said we cannot become the very first they claimed to be against in the world. I fear we are throwing our values out the door by granting the president this kind of sweeping authority. If you remember what it is safe in the direct aftermath of 9 11, the climate that existed for her to do is incredibly brave. History has vindicated her. At president obama second and maturation, much of the media focus was about the beyonce lipsynching Michelle Obamas bang. The president obama said in that beach, we cannot and do not want to exist in a perpetual state of war but there has to be an end to this at some point. That day he authorized it drove strike in yemen and theyre creating the disposition matrix, an algorithm to ensure the assassination will remain a central component of what is called the u. S. National security policy. At the end of the day, we reach a point in some countries we reached a point where we are creating more new enemies than we are killing actual terrorists. Its not that states dont have a right to defend themselves. Its abrogation of former threetime. Like minority report with tom cruise or recategorize people after theyve killed them even if we have no idea what their identities are. President obama when he talked about 600 days after i were a lucky was killed, president obama finally admitted publicly the u. S. Had in fact killed anwar a lackey. On that day, his frustration for papers defending the idea that alawlaki was like a sniper and if we didnt take him out, innocents are going to die. In this particular case, they had been under surveillance in a village with 10 houses. And yet theyve redefined what the definition of imminent is and in this department of Justice White papers basically anyone involved with anyone we think is the terrace represents a permanent and iterate and it appeared of course one person has the right to take out a sniper. They try to take them alive. Few people in the world would dispute that. The same is true if theres in a plot to blow up something and you have to take this personnel. Most reasonable people agree that such an event. We are engaged in preemptive strikes. You dont need to get an indictment against a sniper is pointing a weapon at a bunch of innocent people. But why did they never eat an indictment of anwar a lucky for the crimes they alleged he was involved with when they start to put him on the kill list two and half years before they killed him. To me, the question of the assassination program, drone strikes, nsa surveillance is not so much who is Anwar Alawlaki, it is to where we have a society . How we treat the most represents a bowl of our citizens says a lot about who we are as a society. When a president like president obama who campaigned on the idea he was going to be a transformative figure, that he was owing to reverse the direction bush and cheney had taken the country and, when he is assuming almost emperor like authorities to decide who lives and dies around the world, americans are not americans. Thats dangerous for future. If its a frightening precedent. We are at the moment now are the congressional Approval Rating is about 11 . I think the vast majority of americans are completely angry with those who represent them are supposed to be representing them in washington. The nature of our partisan politics in this country is completely bankrupt. At the end of the day, the premier issue in our society, no matter what your priorities are, whether its access to womens Reproductive Health care for immigration or the war or the environment, it all comes back to the insane amount of control over political process. Its a legalized form of corruption and bribery. Until we confront the unrealized illnatured beneficiaries of what is called the war on terror are big corporations, nothing will ever fundamentally change in our society. With that, i will tell you i give razor blades out with my book. Anyway, thank you very much for having me here. [applause] during the introductions, somebody made reference to the kinds of place is that both george and jeremy have reported from, exotic and dangerous places. I spent most of my time in places like des moines, iowa and charleston, South Carolina and other strange places like that covering campaigns. The segue from there to here is an interesting one to me. That is jordan and jeremy have both played out Serious Problems that this country is facing and has space for some time. The question is, to what extent is the political system capable of confronting those in dealing with those . As god said, i wrote a book with Haynes Johnson about the 2008 campaign. That was, as everybody can remember, a unique campaign, an Historic Campaign because of the election of the first African American in the countrys history. It seemed to be a special moment as george indicated that there was this feeling that in one way or another, because of expectations about obama and because of the kind of aspirational message that he carried through that campaign, that we might be at a point where the political system could turn from the kind of politics we have seen through the Bush Administration and back into the clinton is ration. The polarization and often gridlock and break through that. When i decided to try to hook about 2012, one of my biggest concerns was he always toured with the very rich story and a pretty clear story to tell the rise of what haynes and i caught the most unlikely president ial prospect in the history of the country and how he got to where he had been to the oval office. My fear was the 2012 campaign but never produced anything as compelling as what we went through in 2008. In going through it, there were moments when it was obviously bizarre. The whole republican nomination process was as my friend and colleague david merrin is that cried out for Hunter Thompson two, poet. It is obviously a much different campaigned in 2008. Farmer negative, not aspirational in the least. The campaign about some very big issues that was in fact in very small ways. Neither candidate take engrossed in the moment of the challenges the country was facing. So when i got done with the reporting and was beginning to put the narrative together to tell the story, the conclusion i came to us in many ways 2012 is a more important election in 2008. More important not because it solved the problems. Like the contrary. But it told us much more about who we are as a country and where we are as a country and by the politics of the country are in a sense frozen in the polarized as they are. Jeremy is talking about things that most of us knew nothing about. I was writing a story about something that everybody knew everything about. When you write about a president ial campaign, you are covering territory that is very well trod a people like me on a daily basis, chewed over and talk about on Cable Television ad nauseam. The challenge in trying to tell the story of a campaign thats been told and retold so many times is to try to get behind it, get beneath it and get above it. My approach on this list to try to tell the story in two ways. The first is to try and tell it from the inside out. No matter how much we know in real time in president ial campaigns, there is a lot we dont know. It is one of the things i learned in my brief time covering the white house back in the first Bush Administration. My colleague covering the white house was a woman named and every who most you have ever heard of, but was perhaps the best White House Reporter in the modern history of white house coverage. She died of cancer at too young age, but she was 18 nations vacuum cleaner if a reporter, who gave feedster every administration she covered. One other thing she she said to me as i was coming on to work with pairwise the reality is we only know about 10 of what going on at any given day and our goal is to get 20 or 30 or 40 . Theres so little you know. Its the same in president ial campaigns. Theres a lot that goes on beneath the decisionmaking and debates and choices that the candidates the next task have to make. Part of the goal of telling the book is to pack events we watched in real time pulled them apart and put them back together in a multicarat weight to give some context. One of the ways i try to do that was to spend as much time as i could getting people in realtime to talk about events that going on. I did a number of interviews for the book that were embargoed until the book came out, which is a little tricky when you report a real time for the Washington Post, but nonetheless quite doable. Another thing i try to do was to the extent possible get the voices of candidates into it because my feeling is unless you have a sense of how they actually see the campaigns and again sometimes in realtime if not afterwards, that there is some a mistake. We talk about what candidates are talking about are doing ours in without ever having any real wonders they have what they are actually thinking. Among those who agree to talk in real time was Newt Gingrich, who approached me. I said to his staff back in the summer or late spring of 2011 that i wanted to sit down with him with some frequency. He came up to me at a dinner one night and he said to me, im ready to do this he said. Ive got it all figured out. Not just the campaign, but the next eight years. Within three weeks, his campaign imploded as we all remember and went through several rebirths. But finally imploded to the end. I was able to give governor romney a talk at some length after the fact which frankly surprised me because losing candidate often dont want to be prodded and poked by reporters after a Bruising Campaign because they know the questions are mostly why did they run such a bad campaign and why didnt you do this . He was interesting in two ways. One was to acknowledge some of the he had about whether he was the right candidate to be the republican nominee and said to somebody like jeb bush decided to run he might not have run. I think when he saw the field as it actually assembled and included herman cain and michele bachmann, he decided he was probably the cost of that field and probably better able to take on the president than anybody else. He also acknowledged she had real doubts about whether he fit within the new Republican Party. The party taken over the house of representatives in 2010 that it shifted to the right, that was then much more dominated by the tea party and had then. He struggled with that up until the time he became a formal candidate as to whether he could get past some of those obstacles. This is the republican obviously a southernbased party. Hes a northerner. Its an evangelical base party. Hes mormon. Its a very conservative party in the nominating process in his conservative from massachusetts, which is different than being a conservative for texas for example. So he talked about that. The most interesting part was when we got to the 47 comment that Everybody Knows about it was a crippling moment. I dont think it was a decisive moment in the campaign, but a crippling moment because it crystallized the argument that the Obama Campaign has been making about him, that he was a wealthy plutocrats who is out of touch with ordinary americans and did not understand the lives of any of the kinds of people george reported on in the unwinding. When we talked about this time i said to him he said but i was trying to save the country is polarized. 47 will vote for me in 47 will vote for the president and theres nothing i can do to get them. I said the use of these are people who feel completely dependent and feel government owes them something and they will never take control of their own minds. He said i didnt say that. He jumped up and we were in his home outside of boston. He jumped up and went to the kitchen counter where it was charging, unplugged it, pulled it over and said anything was because i knew we were going to talk about this. He went through the house. Nothing which contradicted what i said because the video that was released by david coyner met jones made public showed what he had said. People had read the transcript annuity said. He could not bring himself to acknowledge he said that. My take away from out was whatever had come out of his mouth, he did not want to believe reflected the real mitt romney. Yet as we know it was a crisp glycine moment that in fact created a blockage. I think in the end, there is probably no way he could win the campaign. This certainly after that event that made it much more difficult. I tried repeatedly to get president obama to agree to do an interview for the book. Yet unto interviews for 2008 a and one in particular was a very, very rich interview in which he talked about his philosophy of leadership in how hed been guided by lincoln on that. I wanted to sit down with them, not to go through that mr. John at any given moment or why he did so badly in the first debate. I had to say what asked him about that, but am i to get him to reflect more on where the country was after his reelection and what he had taken away because he can be quite thoughtful about it. The white house declined all my requests. He made a decision that they made a decision to not purchase paid in any of the books going on to cover the 2012 election. If theres one whole, im sure theres many holes in the book. If the absence of his voice in the book and i regret that. The other way i tried to tell the story is the outside man, rather than the inside out. The inside out story can tell us about who we are as the country and about the politics of the country. When you think about all the energy we put into this decision for this debate for this decisive moment for this episode to try and talk about what is the fact in the course of the campaign, which are important and deserve attention, we forget Larger Forces that determine the outcome of campaign and tell us about who we are. I thought there were three big factories that i wanted to bring to light in helping to tell the story. One obviously is the economy. There were a couple aspects of this. One is simply the political question of the economy appeared with the economy just good enough to allow president obama to win reelection or was it just bad enough to make it almost impossible for him to win the election . Economy obviously was not good at 2011 and 2012. The soldier then at the New York Times wrote an article with the famous headline a year before the election called his obama toast . In which he talked about the various economic paths the country might take in prospects or a promise reelection. Political scientists monocles delivered whether obama was guaranteed election or defeat as a result of the economy. In the end, what we saw was the president was able to turn the cam pain from a referendum on peoples attitudes about the economy at that moment, how they felt about their own lives and how they felt about his stewardship of the economy and turn the Election Debate into a choice of which of the two candidates individual voters that would do a better job for them in the future. Which of these candidates understood your life that are then the other . It was an important strategic department. The other aspect about the economy is the degree to which with all the focus on the middle class in terms of messaging, hunkered over the focus was on the middle class in terms of a. This is an area i think if there was negligence on the part of both candidates, it was their inability to rise to the moment, to come forward with some fresh ideas, some new ideas. The kinds of problems george has described in the book have been with us for a long time. If there is a solutions, somebody would have promoted then and put them into place. The political system has insofar incapable of even coming to any real debate or discussion about them. Thats one fact here. A second factor is changing america. The new america we are in, and america we see and change over a period of several decades, one that is more diverse, one that is tolerant, one in which the share of the white vote to clients with each president ial election. The share of the white vote is still the dominant share of the electorate on any given president ial election date. But it is kicked down from roughly 89 or 80 in 1982 now 72 in the last election. The degree to which the republicans awoke after election day and discovered they had a problem with hispanic voters was in some ways astonishing because it is a problem sitting out there looming for many, many years that occasionally they have done well. Jeb bush did pretty well down here at the hispanic vote. His brother did well in texas in his reElection Campaign. Monica says the basis, if not then well with hispanics and they do very, very badly with africanamericans. As long as the country is changing, that creates a head when he can the Republican Party and trying to win president ial elections. That was an important fact or that the Obama Campaign understood throughout 2011 and 2012 in the Romney Campaign either didnt want to accept or didnt believe. Its hard to know which was the case. In any case, this is a problem that hurt them badly. The third big fat, which we followed it to this morning is the redblue divide, the polarization that country is in. We talk about red america and blue america in some ways and cliched terms. In fact, red america has gotten louder and blue america has gotten bluer. The number of states closely divided in this past election was a handful. Only force teeth with a margin of the erie was five points or fewer. If you go back to previous Elections Come and this is historic low. What weve seen this many states are no longer competitive in president ial races. They are either very poor very red. We know in many ways the degree to which as many people look at the opposition, people are no more people dont feel any more positive about their own political party. If you much were negative about their political party. As i asked republicans that romney rallies are democrats at obama rallies, whats the consequence of this election . What is at stake . What you think happens if your candidate loses . The answers were almost always apocalyptic. Particularly among republicans. Their fear was that barack obama was selected to a second term, the america that they knew and cherished would go out the window, would cease to exist. Many democrats i talked to felt that if romney were good and republicans continue to hold the house of representatives at the progress the country had made over the last 30 or 40 years would be routed, reversed and we would go back to a different kind of america. Its that kind of country we now live in politically. If you look at 2012, you can see a Straight Line from that campaign to where we are today, to everything weve seen over the last few months with the government shutdown, the Nuclear Option which is put through in the senate. We are in a period of depolarization. Campaigns in the sense the longer resolve those differences. Used to think we would have a Campaign Comes bigscreen president ial campaign designed to answer and resolve some of the differences and that voters to push the country in a clear direction. What we saw after 2012 was that didnt happen, that the lines had been so hardened through the course of the campaign in part because of the way our modern campaigns are now waged in the negativity and demonization that goes on that it makes it impossible for either side to begin to come together after those campaigns. So for the time being, i think what we saw in 2012 is the future of elections in this country, which is the basis for the subtitle of my book. People asked me if it got around to talk about the book, is there a way out . Is there an easy way out . There obviously is not an easy way out. The only way out is it will come from the voters and at this point, voters are almost tribal and their allegiances to Republican Party or Democratic Party. A lot of people call themselves independents. I dont know what it would prompt that were forced out. We are likely to kind of stay in this period of gridlock in stasis at the national level. So, thank you. [applause] thank you. At some time now for questions. I has to get behind the microphone and make your questions short so we can deal with as many as we possibly can. Yes, sir. Of a dress to me to explain the difference between the bush cheney approach to plan extraconstitutional foreign activities and the obama approach. First of all, you know, people sort of vast, is obama worse than bush . Lets remember here that under bush and cheney was like murder inc. You actually have players in the white house to be at the geneva is quaint and you have these black sights were set up in the reverse engineering of what was called the seer program survived if they race to escape which was established by the u. S. Military to prepare american soldiers for torture at the hands of a lawless enemy. The reverse engineer the program and start to use them prisoners they were interrogating. In answering your question, i dont want to understate in any way how reprehensible the policies of the bush and cheney error were. And they paint a picture for obama of a world where there are hundreds if not thousands of concurrent threats against american interests, against indices, against aircraft, against tourists. And in a unified voice said to obama if you dont continue these programs, in fact if you dont expand our authorities in certain regions of the world like the Arabian Peninsula in east africa we will get hit again and we could get hit on the american homeland. You have political advisors like axelrod and rahm emanuel im not saying they didnt care about whether they would be a terrorist attack but there iraq concern was are we going to have a second term. Obama want to get away from largescale military deployment outside of his initial search in afghanistan but in general wanted to move away from that. And i think it became very appealing to the idea that you of these incredibly trained forces that are able to operate discreetly, the blast radius of a hellfire missile fired from a predator drone is much smaller than the blast radius of other platforms out there. I think potentially they adopted a posture theyre going to wage an aggressive, preemptive campaign using drones and small footprint military operations. At the same time obamas on to these executive orders very early on in his administration and wants guantanamo shut, he wants to dispel the blacks i. He says publicly and then leon panetta says we are out of the business of running secret prisons. So what obama did was go back to what was the clinton era perspective on condition and detention of prisoners in sort of the asymmetric battlefield, and when the guantanamo problem arose and guantanamo of course womens open and there are prisoners on Hunger Strike and people who have been cleared for release were still rotting away, obama did know what to do with people they would get on the battlefield. In large part of the focus, they didnt want to put them in guantanamo for all sorts of reasons, a large part of the focus became killed rather than kill or capture. So i would say that a lot of what obama has done and his team has done is to rebrand the bush era programs or to tweak them a slightly because i feel sometimes were watching obama debate him his former self when he gives major addresses on ashes to to do. You flashes of the men who clearly is incredibly uncomfortable with the role he is having to play in the world and then you have this guy who was putting a stamp of legitimacy on actions that a lot of liberals would be calling for impeachment over if a republican had won in 08 or 2012. I would say that obamas team perceive it as a smarter war, they killed bin laden and his it would lead to subject american personnel to been killed in doing this. We can use technologies. At the end of the day, and i think we wont be able to analyze this for a decade, my sense is were creating a ground war for pretty serious blowback. And i think part of the message thats been sent whether true or not, to large sections of the most moral is it doesnt much matter who the president of the kind is because a guy like obama what do the things that hes done. [applause] i have a question. Would you say patriotism [inaudible] and number two, are you aware why obama breached from his promises . Was from some Global Finance is . I would be very curious to hear georges take on this. Patriotism from a virtue did you ask . In the snowden case. With the snowden issue. You could answer it in a general sense. Has patriotism trumped a virtue . That so big. Those are two such big things, and whats the relationship to each other . I mean, i have to dont think theres much patriotism in this country. In the sense that very few people are willing to sacrifice very much. In a sense, the story of the unwinding is the story of certain virtues that were probably more on her to end the breach the existence a generation ago. I at least have hocrisy served a purpose been. Are no longer even considered virtues like selfrestraint, like paying taxes. Like serving the country, which we pay a lot of lip service to but theres a wonderful book about soldiers coming back from the iraq war with a devastating title thank you for your service, which is essentially the way we fall off our consciousness with the terrible hardships and pain that has been inflicted on these people who served in those wars. So patriotism it is still the last refuge of a scoundrel as Samuel Johnson said, and when you think about what it really means, giving up something for the common good, i dont see it very much in evidence, especially at the levels of our deletes. Virtue, you know, theres always a shortage of virtue. [laughter] [applause] and why did obama reneged on pass the microphone to the next person. Ill answer your question. Just briefly on that, i do believe that there some conspiracy that has taken control of barack obama mentoring and candidate still. On the guantanamo issue, first of all a lot of the criticism of obama from liberals is disingenuous. Because obama largely telegraphed his passive. If you bother do anything other than just watch his stump speech. If you lay out who he chose to be around him advising them on the core issues, if you look at what his actual policy positions were, he largely has done what he said hes going to do on the areas of a cover on characters and their ethical of people projected onto him an image that they wanted to see any. But he generally has been consistent in being a pretty hawkish democratic president and the democratic president and the other on the Campaign Show that was going to be true. If you look beyond the stump speech. The guantanamo issue, big part of it is they didnt spend a lot of Political Capital on a. All of these other guys were on that team to close guantanamo quietly left the white house. And h it became a total nonisse but republicans also were blocking the funding. So its more comfortable to think part of it was they were fighting other battles and obama didnt want to allocate his Political Capital to fighting that battle, which i think was wrong at the end of the day but i do think its more confiscated and some has threatened them in the oval office that if he doesnt do this easily to get bumped off by the cia. My question is for Jeremy Scahill as will, the previous question is, regarding especially in your remarks are expressed a lot of frustration and like you appeal to liberals to look past their concerned with things like abortion, and really focus on some of the issues like the drone strikes and so forth and the abuse of power that we are discussing with regard, not just drone strikes that there has been so much discussion about the issue of massive surveillance and so forth. Issues that liberals were very gung ho about going after bush on and that we dont hear anything so much about. How do you think company, i feel like its a question how the media frames the issue year after you if you focus on the social issues. How do you feel the media may be partially responsible for the fact that again, the democrats get a pass on some of these issues . Well, first of all, i wasnt saying people should look past their concerned about abortion or other issues. The point i was making was that whatever issue you are concerned about, i think you can draw a direct line back to the structure of our political system and the role of corporations. That was the point i was making about that. I think you watch cable news, and i know dan and i are on regular. Im still shocked msnbc lets the author airways. I criticize him and say it looks like state media and that the coverage of democrat National Convention look like one big obama for america meet up. Fox news is a parody of itself. Cellulite doesnt need to make fun of fox news because you can watch the real thing and its much more letters than any actor. [laughter] you turn on fox and its like its a world where barack obama is a scary black marxist manchurian candidate who wants to resurrect mousy time and put them in the oval office. And been seen and its just theres been some fantastic reporting from Major Corporate News Organizations and i think those of us competitive as all the time, bash the Corporate Media write large. I recognize some the best reporters in the world work for publications like the New York Times or the Washington Post, but the problem i think is that there seems to be the default position that journalists have to prescribe what i think is a totally bold shared interpretation of objectivity. I dont think there is such a thing as objectivity in journalism. Its a fabricated construct. We are not robots. [applause] the final thing ill say about this is the most important thing to me in journalism, transparency, accuracy and are you providing a Public Service. And i think that in the culture of twitter in instagram, god forbid if anybody uses snap chat, that its like were in a ritalin society were having has to be done in 140 characters. The kind of pieces that george writes for these deep, involved, long pieces that are telling very complicated stories. If we lose that in our society they would lose something that is such an important part of the democratic process, which is we have to provide information that is detailed and nuanced to a public so they can make an informed decision and i think we run the risk of losing that if we dont forget new ways to respond in support long form Investigative Journalism. [applause] to each of you, you feel america, our empire is kind of having entered a new gilded age cut each in your own way. And dysfunctional, destructive, selfdestructive. Is it perhaps beyond the point that it can correct itself, safer huge social movements that force it to change . And it correct itself . That would be my question to each of you. Well, i mean, it depends on how you defined correcting itself. If you are looking for the congress to correct itself, its not going to happen for the foreseeable future. In terms of a Big Social Movement doing it, theres nothing on the horizon that we see that is doing that. Weve seen in the sense in the last few years, to movements. One from the right and one from the left, a tea party on the right, which had a political component and service changed the Republican Party and to force change the politics in washington. I think part of the reason were going into this period of incredible gridlock and the shutdown that we went through is because many of the people who were elected in 2010 and then 2012 in the Republican Party came with a different agenda than other people have come to washington to represent Congressional Districts in the past. And are playing by a different set of rules. There was the occupy movement, which i think some people thought might transform some of the politics of the country. It certainly changed the vernacular by giving us the 1 versus the 99 , and i think that in a sense helped frame some of what we heard in 2012. But as a Political Movement it has had much less impact. In part i think by design. It was not, you talk to someone people have been involved in it, they were not setting out to be another tea party or to create a Third Political party. The ingredients for an independent president ial candidate certainly exists today. The anger at washington which is enormous, the frustration, the disillusionment with a lot of political leadership, but it takes a couple of things. One, it takes somebody to lead that. Somebody to be the face of it in a way that ross perot was in 1992. And somebody probably who has the resources to be able to fund and run a national campaign. But the prospects are somebody actually doing more than having an impact at the margins are pretty small, for the reasons i said before. If you think of yourself as a republican, 95 of you are going to vote for the public and president ial nominee and probably the republican congressional nominee in your Congressional District and the Republican Senate in your state and if youre democrat missing. If youre an independent, you know, more than happy, probably three quarters of you lean to one side or the other. And that still dictates of Political Behavior in this country. Weve been through periods of polarization and carriage in which congress switched back and forth. We went through that a little over 100 years ago, and we came out of it, you know, at the beginning, or the end of the 19th century and the dimming of the 20th century when the republicans were put in power and had a run and then the democrats have it in the 1930s. That we seem to be in a different big now and which voting behavior is different than it was in those days. You know, we think maybe it would take something cataclysmic, that it would be 9 11, which created a sense of unity in retrospect 10 minutes and then we went back to the old ways. We thought maybe after the 2008 economic collapse we would see a change and that the political system would spawn in a more effective way and that didnt happen. And so if youve had an enormous shock in terms of terrorism, and Enormous Economic shock in need of those severely change the politics and in many ways have hardened the lines that weve got, its hard to know whats out there that would do it. I think were hitting our time here, so maybe in the interest of that we should thank you very much. Lets have a round of applause for our authors. [applause] our authors will be autographing at the other end of this same floor across from the elevators. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] our live coverage from miami continues. That was a dan balz, Jeremy Scahill and George Packard talking about american politics, american society. Want to get your reaction to that. 202 202 5853890 if you live n east and central time zones. 202 5853891 for those of you in the mountain pacific time zones. We will take a couple of calls and also put a microphone on George Packer who just won the National Book award on wednesday night and will follow him over to the assigned area. Well watch that a bit. 15 minutes before the next office tarts and then the next author is bill ayers and hell be talking about his latest book, public enemy confessions of an american dissident. This is live coverage on booktv on cspan2, the 30th annual Miami Book Fair international. We want to begin with a call from margaret in leavenworth kansas. Margaret, what did you think of that trio of authors . Caller oh, that was so actually. Thank you very much. I particularly think its important for Jeremy Scahill can you hear me . Hello . Host were listening. Margaret, were listening. Caller okay. Jeremy scahill is so important to recognize how much we are not getting, and the heroes are the journalistic i wrote a poem to marie who was killed in syria. Has been so many killed trying to get us the story, and yet weve lost our media except for cspan and bbc. We lost scene into a change within the year. Its really horrible to me commit to the point where they put a Newt Gingrich back on at a time when we had such division. I lived in chicago for four years. I used to call cspan all the time as a country that doesnt care whether youre citizen lives or dies is due. The same with the world. We americans are the host margaret, thank you, margaret, for calling them. Jeremy scahill will be joining us although later this afternoon for a callin program. So you have your chance to talk with the author directly. David, palo alto, california. David, good morning to you. Whats your reaction to that offer panel . Caller good morning. I also wanted to thank cspan for booktv, this particular panel, booktv in general. Every weekend i watched. I really like the idea of the information presented by our government, our country, our politics without all the corporate sponsors. I enjoyed this particular program as well. Thank you. Host thank you for calling in, david. Thank you for watching booktv. You can see George Packer theyre walking over to the signing area where he will be signing his book, his newest book, the unwinding. Winner of the National Book award this past week. Lets listen into George Packer a little bit. Im sorry, thats a shorthand answer. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Do you want me to sign these . For anyone in particular . No. Okay. Hi. And as mr. Packer weights or so authors to come over and sign books as well, lets hear from john in hampton georgia. John, you just listen to Jeremy Scahill, George Packer and dan balz. What did you think . Caller i like jarret. I like packer. But my question is to jeremy. Every time i see jimmy on tv, hes always bashing obama. I would like to know who does he want to be president right now. And how does he know who obama is talking to over the phone . I dont understand what gets the information from, every phone call obama makes. I mean, does he have an insight person in obamas office telling him every time obama picks up the phone and call somebody . I mean, i just wonder where he gets his information to make such a broad Statement Like that . Host john, i promise you that when mr. Scahill joins us for a callin program, we will ask him that question from you. Lets listen in again to George Packer as he signs books. Do you come every your . Every year. Wonderful. Nice to meet you. Hi. Adrian . Yes. Okay. [inaudible conversations] really . This is kind of the people who are a little older than you bet it ends with some young people that occupy. I hope it makes sense to your life a little bit. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much. Hi. How are you . Im a huge fan. Thank you, thank you. Do you read the new yorker . Yes. Im also joined the peace corps sent. Are you . T. Know where youre going . Not yet. I was in togo. A long time ago. How was at . Hard, but lifechanging. Ultimately, in a good way. At the time it was hell. Not that you shouldnt do it. I dont mind. You may be more capable of it than i am. I was a little young and unready. But it was a great experience. Good luck to you. Thank you. How are you . Pretty good. [inaudible conversations] thanks for coming. Hi. Spent i dont know if you remove any. I am tammy yeah, i do remember you, of course. How are you . This is the third book online, by the way. Youre a good customer. Is this for tammy . Yes. [inaudible conversations] would you be willing to talk to me for a few minutes about a book i wrote . I wish i had time but have to get to the airport right after this is over. If i said i was going to read it i probably wouldnt be telling you the truth. I am so busy and overwhelmed with my own stuff and my friends stuff. Im sorry, tammy. I dont want to mislead you. Thats okay. Okay. [inaudible conversations] host you are watching George Packer live interacting with some of his readers, and we also want to hear from you and get your reactions to the George Packer, dan balz and Jeremy Scahill panel. Doris, you are on booktv. We are listening. Go ahead with your comments. Caller thank you, peter. And i want to thank you not just for today but for all your commentaries over the years that ive watched you from my little house in northern duchess county. But today, the panel was so i dont think people appreciate how much i think some of your listeners, judging by their comments, dont appreciate the depth and integrity of those three men. And the significance, moral significance of what they were talking about. So i say amen, and thank all of you for bringing this, to have i dont have is gentlemen, mr. Packer is dealing with chitchat after get such a moving commentary so god bless the writers and god bless everybody searching for peace. Host doors, thank you very much for calling them. Thank you for watching booktv, and for watching cspan. Bill ayers will be starting in just a few minutes. That will be live from miami. Public enemy confessions of an american dissident. After bill ayers, Debbie Wasserman schultz will be talking about her book for the next generation. And Thomas Cahill. And then you have a chance to do, we will have a chance to hear your voices on the air. Jeremy scahill will join for a callin followed by representative Debbie Wasserman schultz and the finale for todays coverage from miami will be Chris Matthews, tip and the gipper is his book but as you can see, theres the room. We are just waiting for bill ayers to come out and then well go right to it live but we want to take one more call if we can from karen in littleton, colorado. Hi, karen. Caller how are you doing . I just want to say, i did want to say that im really impressed with the Jeremy Scahills comments about [inaudible] i dont know how you get to have somebody recognize how false they are when theyre saying oh, i didnt say that and theres like four television behind them showing them saying those exact words. How do people not understand, how do they not get how somebody asks that way isnt good for our country . Isnt good for the people, and just i dont know, i dont know what we can do as a country and also like mr. Palmer i believe said that we have to have somebody as an independent state rise up and talk about ross perot. As we take this call from eln in del ray beach, florida. Good afternoon, ellen. This is ellen. Good afternoon and thank you very much for this wonderful programming. I have been working in Investigative Journalism since reading who will tell the people and then i became a booktv fan and a few years ago i read black water and i have so much respect for investigative journalist and do to a degree i am one. I have written two books. But at any rate, back to the Investigative Journalism, these men are providing a service for our society and culture and hopefully people can pick up on what was said and run with it. We will have to leave it there because the next panel is starting. Bill ayers is next live on booktv. It is our 30th anniversary as you will know. And we are very grateful to Miami Dade College for presenting this fair. It is because of thousands of volunteers each year that give up themselves to make this fair occur that we are here today and able to enjoy it. Thank you to Miami Dade College, and our sponsors, American Airlines and ohl and thank you for being here friends, new friends, and guests that have come from out of town. This year we are asking you to consider contributing to Miami Book Fair international. Thinking about our 30th anniversary. If you are so inclined if talents to introduce bill ayers today. And that is our filmmaker billy c c cor corbin. He has produced many films and please join me in giving him a warm welcome to billy corbin. Thank you. Thank you. It is great to be back here at miami dade, not Community College anymore, but it will always be the Community College to me. I graduated from the Arts High School in 1996 and the one thousand building is where the chemistry labs were where i took class and learned to make meth for the first time. I want to welcome everyone who is watching at home on cspan booktv. Both of you. Nancy, larry, hello. When i got the call from the fe folks at the miami book care asking me to introduce bill ayers and i said what . Mohammed wasnt available . I should have figured i would bomb at the bill ayers event. It is my agent there. So basically, what would was i flipped a coin and lost to a guy who had to introduce dick chaney. He was scheduled to be here, canceled and then showed up and said i could go both way and his daughter liz immediately condemned his right to marriage. Bill just flew in today and i cannot imagine how the tsa treats you. I wonder what that is like. And before we get started i want to dispel a couple myths. Obama didnt have a close relationship with bill ayers and if you like your plan you can keep your plan. But honestly, i didnt come here to roast bill like the folks in 1970 in the time back then. I am interested in hearing how bill feels about the america we live in. An america of the nsa and where military suicides outnumber combat deaths. And i want to get this show on the road because i have to go to church and introduce jerimiah wright. I am wondering what comes first the audit or the drone. Maam, would you like to start my car when i leave today . I need a volunteer. Myself and probably many of you and people all over the world respect and admire the Miami Book Fair for its commitment to offering diversity. And if you have dick chaney and bill ayers you know you express freedom of speech in this great county of ours. And without further ado, there has been much ado actually, i would like to introduce you to public enemy or how i learned to stop loving the bomb. Please give your welcome to them. Who was that . This is my chair. Very typical. Hello, i am helen atwon, i am the director of beacon press and we have the honor of publishing public enemy and several others by bill ayers since you just heard the livliest int introduction. Bill has always written books about Public Education. I will ask bill a few questions myself and then after a while i will open it up and let you ask questions. I will begin asking how he came the right the book. I want to eco something billy said and that is a shout out to the Miami Book Fair and i am grateful to be here and you for coming. Deacon published my first book on 9112011 and we had a book tour planned. It went off the rails but then we did it anyway. And people came out in huge numbers on that book tour not pause they were supporting the book or me, but you will remember the months and years after 911 they were desperate for a public space to talk to one another and independent book stores give that. I think it is a great tribute to free speech and an issue around both of us care about and to the power of dialogue and conversation. So i will start by shouting out and thanking you all for being here and thanks for the Miami Book Fair. [ applause ] so my good friend and editor and boss, helen, right aftafte afteafter after fugitive days was published i should write a follow up of what happened after the war. I resisted for maybe 78 years Something Like that. I was not interest td in writing a sequel. And then the election of 2008 happened. And as many of you know i was thrust unwittingly and unwillingly into the president ial campaign. Are we applauding the campaign itself. Yay. I was thrust up as if public enemy as was wright, the fiery pea preacher from the south side. And i have to interject that there was a 5 Million Ad Campaign about bill and it didnt sell scombanything. I am convinced it was all of the photographs together with me that helped. If you want a picture with me, it helps, if you are running for office. I have written from 1975 to the the present. The theme that develops is what is it like to live a life attempting to the purposeful over a long life. We were surprised it is about teaching parenting than i would have predicted. But it goes back to 1975 but begins in the 2008 campaign and i would like to read from that to set the scene. I am a retired professoprofesso have students in seminar at my home. On a night in april 2008 i had a dozen doctorial students in my house and we were cleaning up and ending the seminar and one student flipped on the abc debate between clinton and obama. And he had just been bearing down on obama about this relationship with wright and whether wright was a patriots and i will read from there. Now, liz was bearing down on the general theme of being a patr t patriot. The group that bombed the pent gone has not appaologized for that. Your Campaign Says you are friendly. Can you explain your ship to the voters . I thought obama looked stricken, off balance and tonguetied but i am projecting because i know i felt that way myself. And i know for sure my students were thu were thunder struck. Obama replied this is a guy that lives in my neighborhood, is a professor and i know. The notion that this is a consequence of me knowing someone that did acts when i was eight years old represents my behavior doesnt maybe sense. Were were amused. Everyone clamoring to make sense of the bombshell that dropped into our seminar and reverberating around the country and world. A student turned to me and said that guy has the same name as yours. Why would she know . Another explained to her that is because we were indeed the same guy. Bill is the guy and we are in the neighborhood george is talking about. The students were lovely and they brought me tea and rubbed by wrist as they trickled on. No body could believe what was happening. It was strange. I will pick up after the students leave. And just so you know, my partner of 44 years appears here. The evening became more surreal. No sleep. Lots of phone calls from family and friends. Disbelief, laughter and support. And threats in some sense of for bodi boding. We were trying to regain our balance and come to terms with the sense that this cartoon character named bill ayers who looked like me and shared my name and address was about to become a punching bag and might have an impact on the national election. It felt too big and all in all too strange. Fantastic, unreal, crazy, the cartoon character had been quite and still fermenting on a dusty shelf when he was plucked from a jar of brian. He was wrinkled and smelling of vinegar and garlic but alive. He was breathing fire and more menacing and dangerous and far better known than every before. Mouth to mouth recess was made. I was burning to ask you a question. But you go ahead and read. I will read one more piece. Although you are my boss. There was a lot of unexpected love from the start. The sweetest came from a colleague at the university of illinois who was a democratic activist. She stopped by with the latest combat in here family. Her and her daughter die hard for hilly and son and husband for obama. She suspected that her husband was a bit sexist. She would smile and say it is Hilary Clintons turn. She can beat any republican they put up but obama will get crushed. He is just a kid. One day she reported the tension at home boiled over and john was sleeping on the couch. Now i am glad i am not a democrat i said. I flew to california the next morning after the debate to do work with my brother. When i got settled and opened by email i found four messages from her she spent over the 18 hours. The first was a note of friendship and love and sympai y sympathy. The secretary second was a letter she wrote to Hilary Clinton and detailed how much money she devoted and explaining who i was and encouraging and demanding that the campaign appaologize to me personally or else she would have to rethink or commitments. The third letter was another p copy and this wan fired off in angry to the Democratic Committee howard dean in which she insisted dean resolve the issue and apologize to me and attached a copy of my cv so dean can see what i am. I have this image of dean saying he wrote that . The forth and final email was sent after she had a good nights sleep. I let john come back to bed. I hope you are okay. And i was happily beyond okay. All of the attacks and nonsense hovering seemed a small price to pay for the reunion and the years ahead for those two. Im going to ask this question did you actually write dreams for my father . This is interesting. I can read a piece if you tell me the page. Rush limbaugh first on helens question, a lot of this stuff that came into the Mainstream Media was always going around in the rightwing blog atmosphere. I had hints this was coming because i have three techsavvy children who alerted me that the National Inquirer had a story about obamas sketchy friend and it had me and wright and his gay lovers. It was endlessly interesting. There has been a story and it is still a live story that i wrote dreams to my father and i will read a little piece from that. Among the laughable highlight from the lunacy tracking me through the president ial race was a photograph bouncing around from blog to blog. It was an early snap shot of my and my wife smiling in my 20s with the caption bill ayers and obamas mother; dreams from which father. They were indeed both born in 1942 and beautiful and freespirited women. But for a dedicated few, the idea took home. We were obamas parents not his pals. And it is aastonishing. It went wild in a corner and more serious analyst signed on and spoke about the vast conspiracy i was orchestrating. How could i prove the negative . One day in 2009 i was walking through regan airport when a woman asked me if i was bill ayers and i said i am and she said she is an leery. And she said she is a rightwring bloger. Did you write dreams to my father i laughed outlo loud. I asked her to quote me exactly. I said i wrote dreams for my father i met with obama 34 times and made it up. She wrote furiously and smiled broadly, thank you. And i thought i had brought a little ray of sunshine into what i imagine might be a dim and aired space. Ann posted the interview word for word and got links soaring up to three on a traffic site and then got to number one. Ann was big time in her murky cham monopo chamber. She was a hero. And in a matter of days, it got around and finally it was said it sounds like bill ayers is choking chains. If they said i wrote the book, rush pointed out, that was an example of intrepid journalism. Rush saw it as i did write the book, but my admitting i was asserting i didnt write the book. What a tangled web i have weaved. So helen i and met up and i was telling her i am back in rushs sights. You can find this. They did away with the fi fillbuster in the senate and rush said obama can do whatever he wants and will appoint ashad to the 9th circuit appeal. I can see it now. Wright and bill ayers on the Supreme Court. I called wright and said lets do it. That would be great. I think we should turn for a moment before we open up to your questions. We should turn from another aspect and that is your deep involv involvin involvement with children and education. Very quickly. I have written many, many, many books. People call fugitive days by first but it was my 18th. Most are about education and my favorite is teaching toward freedom but i just wrote a comic about it as well. I came to teaching at the age of 20. I was in ann harbor, michigan and involved against the First Teacher sitin against the vietnam. With 39 students i entered the draft board and began to destroy draft files in 1965. I was arrested in what i considered a nondirect action against the war. I was put in county jail for ten days. And i met a guy whose wife st t started a freedom school. So i marched out into my first teaching job. And from that day until this i have thought of teaching as linked to making a better world and linked to the idea of democracy that we can improver ourselves. And from that day on, i have never been able to say education without thinking of freedom and democracy and vice versa. And for me, this is a big struggle, but the struggle for publ publ Public Education is an essential struggle. And i spend most of the energy opposing the reform agenda that says education could be reduce today a simple metric single test score. Education doesnt need the involvement of the collective voice of teachers. And it is okay to sell the public space off to the private managers. I respeject those things. So i find myself fighting for a new of education on the bases of all humans are of in calculable values. And i got involved in 1965 and stopped teaching in 1969 to become a fulltime activist and antiwar. I followed by son too day care and became a teacher there, then elementary and then high school. Because i have a problem with separati separation. I am doing the same thing with my grand daughters. They look around and say what the hell is bill doing here . I cannot help it. Helen wants me to read about this day care place i stumbled upon. This woman, bj, is the hero of public enemy. Bjs kids was a home daycare and an organized enterprise. Dave lit up whether when we made the turn down the street and an entire community swung into view. I was parked there when i was hired to be an assistant teacher. Besides the hard work of taking care of kids, bj was trying to manage or business and juggling a blizzard of parttime schedules and the cash that flowed out. Tuition was based on an hourly rate, unwritten and unclear that was fully formed each day from the head of bj. My first pay day was a marvel. She pulled her bag and emerged with a handful of crumpled up 20s and said see if that is all right. I said sure. Bjs kids had a row of easels, a cozy readi readinger, corner, a brief cases, hand bags, hats of all kinds, and milk carton filled with items to create makebelieve hospitals, bakery, fire house and more. It was homelike and place to explore and experiment. And there was clay and other Art Materials tell set up. And it was a Treasure Cove of treasury and surprise. It was with a place to feast and fatten. The joy started in the morning with blocks. Build, build, build. And they moved from horizontal hundred runways to vertical bridges to entire worlds had complete with action. We had a large juice and smack table near the sink that was sto stocked and available from the time they arrived and left. There were juices that kids could pour whenever they like. And paper plates and napkins. And large serving dishes with vegetables, fruit, and cheese and crackers replenished by the staff. They said you will have roaches and mice everywhere. This is bad practice. They will eat all day and never learn the importance of meal time. None of this occurred or made immediate sense. But woe then a neighbor who practiced on eating disorders argued to persevere argues everyone needed to learn selfregulation and the question should be are you hungry . It fit with the idea that guided bjs kid. Kids need to be free to develop from the inside out. Not the other way around. [ applause ] so one of the things and part of this book is called talking to the tea party and the other is being canceled by university after university and when i am picket by the tea party i can out and talk to them. And i want to read one piece where i was canceled from the university of wyoming. I had been booked there for several months but they canceled be a week before the talk because the tea party went nuts and threatened to burn the university down. But a week later i got a phone call from a young woman named meg who returned from military service and she was furious i was canceled. She said i am going into federal court and i will sue them. But because i care about your free speech, but might know has been violating. I am the victim of the canc cancelation. I showed up, the president of the university showed up and when the president was on the stand, he said to the federjudg doesnt security trump free speech . And the judge went furious and issued a written opinion and two weeks letter i went to give my talk. [ applause ] my family thought for me to travel alone across wyoming was a bad idea. My son became by body guard and flew into denver and drove with me to wyoming. We had a lovely drive together, but i am not sure he added much muscle. We toured the campus with meg. Sat on benches Drinking Coffee in the beautiful Dick Chaney Plaza and knocked on the president s door but he had gone home so i left him the bill of rights to read it later. I was realistic to know i had an audience of 50 without all of the drama. No pickets, no protest, lots of media and a lovely surprise. My friend curt, my sisterinlaws father, and a minister at the church where was confirmed before, drove hours to stand with me. He was dressed in a dark suit with a coller and a cross. What a griet great surprise. What are you doing . If any of the crazy christians show up and get out of hand, lord wants me to introduce them. When i was introduced i felt the l let down. Who is that old professor and where is the scary terrorist . Please come to the mike to ask questions. Or comment or criticize me or hold up a picket sign. Thank you for your service. Thank you for yours. I think you are a brave guy and i appreciate that. [ applause ] the theme of much of the political discussions have been about polarization. So i am interested if you were to sit across from a tea party buddy, what issue or in what way would you reach out to the other side on maybe a key issue such as education . Thank you very much. I think that is a central question not just for me but all of us. I actually believe the essence of democracy is talking to strangers and not precertifying who you talk to. Billy said i wonder how he gets through security. I am in the airport 23 times a week. And today a young africanamerican guy was looking at my id and said are you that bill ayers . And i said i am. And he said thank you. And he is in the tsa. Why should i assume we dont agree . I would like to answer with just a couple things. Fist of all, i mentioned that talking to the tea party is something i believe in. But i was speaking at Fresno State University and at a church in 2009 and there was a picketing line outside and i had 15 minutes before i had to speak. And i wnt up to the first guy and i said why are you picketing me and he said i dont know about you but youre a friend of obama and i hate obama. And then a guy came up with a ron paul tshirt and i said i bet we agree with a lot of things. And he said like what . And i said full gay, lesbian, bisexual rights. And i said full rights including the right to marriage. And he said no, i think that is matter for your church or religious group or neighborhood or pals. You can go out in the field and do that. Government shouldnt be involved in that. I said you have convinced me. Full gay rights, we all get up married immediately. And he said right. And the woman next to him said you believe that . And i said you talk to each other. I am going in to give my talk. But it is amazing how often that happens. I give this talk at Georgia Southern university and as i was getting up to speak this hells angel filled in. And the tea party guys sat in the front row. And i was like, i swallowed hard and gave my talk, and at the end, the hells angel stood up and said i am surprised, but i agree with a lot of what you said. But i am worried you are a Big Government nigh guy. And i said i am not. And he said i am worried you are. And he said i am a small guy. And i said lets agree we will shut the pentagon and he said not the pentagon. And i said see you are the big time government guy. I am identified with the left and with revolutionary politics, but i have believed i am in the majority of this country. I think most people want peace. I dont think most people like the incarceration state. If i could frame that properly, i am in the majority. Hi. In 1967, i marched against the pentagon. We have not changed a bit. I am just curious why you opted for the violence route . You know, in fugitive days i do an explanation of what happened to us. I was arrested opposing the war in 1965. 15 percent of americans opposed the war. Three years later the majority a opposed the war. About three years is what it takes to turn against that. We worked feverishly to educate ourselves and the world. More importantly than that the black Freedom Movement came out against the war. If you read the april 4th, 1967 speech and he says the greatest prevailing of hurt is the war. And ali said i will not fight in the white mans army. And he became world figure for refusing to fight. So the black Freedom Movement and i could say more about that. The third thing that happened is vets came back and told the truth. John kerrys finest moment was going before the senate and saying we commit war crimes every day as a matter of policy. I thought the war would end. And i was in ann harbor and we had a huge rally when johnson stepped aside. We were on the president of michigans steps and he said to the kids, congrats to your. You have won a huge victory. Now the war will end. I believe he meant it that night. I know i believed it that flight. Five days later king was killed. Two months later Bobby Kennedy was dead. And two months after that it was clear that the war would not end. But it would escalate and exp d expand. 6,000 people were murdered every week it went on. 6,000 people a week we were responsible for. That wasnt just a crisis for deird democra democracy, but a crisis for the antiwar movement. One of my brothers led a peace movement, one deserted the army, one went to the commons of the northeast and i did what i did. None of us can claim much. But we didnt know how to end the war. But we did decide after the accident with three comerads were killed we decide we would never injure anyone. Calling it war violence seems extravagent. We were extreme vandals to me. The weather name comes from we wrote this impossible to read m m manefesto called you dont need a weather man to know which way the wind blows. We might have gone down to say the pump doesnt work because we took the handles. Thank you all so much. [ applause ] bill will be signing . And yes, the author is signing on this same floor on the other side of the elevator. Thank you so much again. [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] and booktvs like coverage from the Miami Book Fair continues. Bill ayers was talking about his recent book public enemy. Several more hours of live coverage coming from miami. Up next in 15 or so representative debby is here with a book called for the next generations. She is a democratic from florida and she is in the chaplin hall arena in 15 or so. Well after that, a reminder that we have two callin programs for you this afternoon. Jeremy with dirty wars will be joining us and shultz. The last panelist is at 5 p. M. And that is Chris Matthews. All live on booktv from miami. It is Beautiful Day. Great crowd on the campus of Miami Dade College on the north end of downtown. If you are in the area, come on down and say hello. As we mentioned this is the 30th anniversary and booktvs 15th anniversa anniversa anniversary. We want to show you a little past coverage. I was with a platoon with 30 men in afghanistan. And the valley was eastern afghanistan and it was a seen of the fifth of all of the combat. 150 men were receiving a fifbt of the combat. There was hardy a day without a fire fight. Every guy i was with, including myself and my partner, were almost killed. Like a bullet hit a few inches from my head. Every guy out there had that experience at least once. It was a remote outpost and this is what intrigued me when i read carls book. It was on a hilltop with no communication with the outside world. Very vulnerable and that is what carls book is about, a similar outpost in vietnam. We were on mars out there. No runner water. No ways to bathe. The guys lived in their clothes until they fell off and burned them until they got back once a month. No cooked food. It was bottles of water, boxes of ammo and sand bags for a year. And very intense combat. And one of the things that happened out there was that the men adapted to it. And very quickly whatever the reason was they might have sdwroin joined the army, those reasons disappeared and combat became a matter of keeping themselves and their borothers alive. There was a brotherhood out there that cant exist in society. As friendship in society is based on how you feel about another person. Out there it was a brotherhood and had little to do with feelings. There are guys who hate each other, but we would all die for each other. That is a brotherhood and that is what they were fighting for. I didnt know if that was unique to this war or not. I thought it probably wasnt. Then i read carls book. Incredible book. And i started to see some of the same things and almost the same guys in his book. So i will hand it over to you and maybe you can talk about that. I was struck as well by that similarity and i have a feeling we could be talking about many others and it wouldnt be different. A little bit about the background of matter horn. I was a hew lieutenant and we were in the juggle about 56,000 feet. Same situation. It is just astounding me. Do we never seem to change things . The book is essentially about a fire supportbase that is built at extraordinary cost. And then it is abandoned and because of a mistake it is occuo occupied by their army, then taken back, then abandoned governor. And i remember reading in the newspaper how it was bulldozed about three weeks after i read the book. And i went this is astounding. And the book seemed to have in common and why you write books like this, i wasnt interested in the politics of the war. This book is about kids growing up. And i had trouble at first saying the word kids. We call them marines or troopers. Or soldiers over there. We dont refer to them as who they are. And they are usually young. And they are our best weapons. You can imagine a group of 3540yearolds saying we will take the hill and lieutenant, lets talk about this. Maybe we can have the air force bomb them. 19yearolds are extrgreat and for it. And the frontal cortex hasnt developed about foresight and judgment. And that is good for charging hills, but not in situations that require police work. And in vietnam and afghanistan we are finding ourselves in the same position. That was from the 2010 Book Fair International. And live coverage of the 2013 coverage is on your screen now. You see the cspan bus there. And inside the room is being readied for represent shultz who is speaking in a few minutes and then joining us for a callin. The full schedule of events is available at booktv. Org. As we are waiting for shultz. We want to show you more of the past coverage of the Miami Book Fair. Today, all around the world, we will put 90 million tons of Global Warming pollution into the that thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet. And all of that Global Warming pollution is trapping a lot more heat in the earths atmosphere. 25 million of those tons going into the ocean every single day. And hethey are making the ocean more acidic and interrupting the forming of coral reefs and everything that has a shell has an osteoperosis now. And the co2, along with methane, black carbon and noxide traps te heat and raises the temperatures. The planet has a fever. If you have a young child and the child starts running the fever, you may think it is a 24hour bug, usually and often it is. But if it keeps going up, will you go to the doctor . If the doctor says, well we have done the test here. The bad news is it isnt a passing bug. We are going to take action, but we can fix this. You dont say doctor i was listening to talk riadio and i think you are full of hot air. You may want to get a second opinion. And we have done that. 20 years ago, the United Nations set up a body of the 3,000 finest scientist in the world specializing in the disciplines that have to be brought to bear to understand this crisis. And now over the last 40 years they have issued four unanimous reports. And the last one was unequivocal and they are shouting from the roof tops saying we have to take action. Because the temperatures continue to rise. And the buildup of this Global Warming pollution threatens in the future catastrophic damage that threatens human civilization itself. It has been difficult for all of us to really get our arms around how big this crisis is. Partly because as human beings we naturally sometimes confuse the unprecedented with the improbably. If something hasnt happen before, we are safe to assume it will not happen in the future. But the exceptions can kill you. And this is one of them. It is unprecedented because what happened in the last hundred years or so it is there has been a radical change in the relationship between humanity and the eco system of the planet. We have quadrupled the population in hundred years. In 1900 it was 1. 5 billion and now it is 6. 8 billion. And that is a new relationship between our species and the surprising surprisingly. The combination going above is multiplied by technology give us a bigger impact than before. Weve also been a National Security crisis that links to her over dependence on foreign oil, which is a dependent it keeps rising year by year by year. Al gore from 2009. Coverage of the Miami Book Fair. That is a live picture the cspan bus in 2013 part of the street out in front of chapman hall at miamidade College North side of downtown miami. Just a minute, representative Debbie Wasserman schultz will be live in chad are talking about her new book for the for the next generation. Created our world followed via Chris Mathews at 5 00 p. M. In between those two panelists will have to call and opportunities. Youll be able to talk to Jeremy Scahill of dirty wars and representative Debbie Wasserman shultz. That is what coming up in our coverage. If youd like to see this casual, go to book tv. Org. You can also get updates from miami are twitter feed at time but tv is are twitter handle. You can also go to face the. Com booktv. Blake is there to get the updates all week long for but tv. Well, we are going to go to the room. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should be there in just a minute. She will be introduced. This is live coverage from the Miami Book Fair. [inaudible conversations] nocturne, everyone. These teachers to. Were about to begin. Good afternoon and welcome. My name is mel malou harrison. Happy anniversary to Miami Book Fair international. 30 years in this community. A round of applause indeed. [applause] are thanks to Miami Dade College for all of its leadership and efforts. All of the volunteers to students, faculty and staff who come together every single year and for the past 30 years. We can expect that to continue to bring this Cultural Enrichment to our community. Id also like to thank our sponsor as well as American Airlines and all of the friends of the fair. Many of whom are seated here in the first couple of rows. Thank you so much for your support. Those who do are not yet run at the opportunity to also join us as friends of Miami Book Fair international. Please come on in and teachers aides quickly as you can. Thank you very much. This year were at it to vitter making a special donation to the fair. You may have already heard that earlier today. Were asking you to take out years annular phone antitax mbsi to knock 41444. If you are inclined, would greatly appreciate it. Thank you and for your support. Without further ado, let me tell you that after our featured speakers beat camille have the opportunity to ask questions. If you have stuck to the mike in the middle of the room, ask your questions as to think we have possible and then step away from the mic and have a deep and your questions will be answered. If youd like to book autographed, we will be autographing on this floor on the other side of the elevators immediately following. So without further ado, id like to welcome an individual who will be introduced in our speaker. He is a former aide to senator and later in the Democratic Party. His name is mr. Dan gelber. Mr. Calvert. [applause] im going to raise the microphone and in a few minutes it will be lowered santilli. Thank you good listen, ive really had a great honor to introduce wonderful beakers over the last almost decade. Vice president al gore, Caroline Kennedy, chris hayes. They asked me to introduce george mcgovern. Im glad to be here to introduce another right wing crazy. [laughter] the truth is though someone came to me this morning and said, you know, i love your introduction. I smiled. I sit thank you for that generous comment. She said theyre always so short and they never distract from the beaker. I cant remember a thing youve ever said. I promise you i will be short. I will not disappoint you. It is very hard for me to speak about Debbie Wasserman shultz and a forgettable way. I met debbie in the late 90s. I matter at a place where i think she did almost all of it is as. It was the superstore baby loud in broward county. Debbie spent a lot of her time they are in a few years that followed because she was having a little kid, as was i. I joined her in the Legislature Must immediately and became Close Friends with her because frankly, she led a battle against so many things that are wrong headed in the day. For me, having her around was an incredible opportunity. Ive always viewed debbie as both a younger sister and i molders history. What i mean by that is the yonkers sister or little to her because shes younger and littler. But i viewed her as a big sister because of early the kind of role model shes been to me in any Public Servant who wants to fight for progressive causes in the country. This is a person of incredible passion and principles. Thats why it always looked up to her. I can tell you a watch during so many battles. I watched her fight jeb bush over the Terry Schiavo case. I watched her through her struggle with Breast Cancer. The thing that is the finder is in each of those radishes had not great clarity and great passion, but she had a vision that has been very unique. I was very fortunate to be with her in the legislature and washed her and her career going from the Florida House of the Florida Senate to the u. S. Congress to the chairman of the Democratic National committee. Its a pretty incredible story for somebody who started as an aid in the florida legislature. She is our Debbie Wasserman schultz. For very fortunate to have her coming from this community. Let me just say this before every her up here. I also ask you to buy this book. Thats why shes here. As for the next generation. Either way, it cost 25. 99. Unless youre canadian, it is 20. 99. Zero thats in canada. She will be signing your copies. I urge you to do that because shes chatty and she will talk with you about hunger and anybody who is with her once or two. She cant help talking to people because she has a lot to talk about. Let me end with this. I watched Debbie Wasserman schultz and almost every one of her battles. The thing i love about her and why i think you probably love her is that she never picks a fight with a week or so. She always picks a fight with somebody whos stronger, wellfinanced, whos fighting for some other cause. If you read this book, youll quickly understand. Debbie is about fighting for principles and with passion. My dad and i, a lot of you know my dad come to see more gelber. He said your friend debbie has got moxie. My dad is 94. Im not sure the word moxie has an used in last 90 years. But i said to him, i think thats a little bit pejorative. Moxie is a word he used to describe a woman whos got a lot of passion and principles. But the truth of the model is it doesnt matter whether woman or man. Debbie Wasserman Schultz represents fairfax the greatest kind of principle she should have in Public Service. She stands up and believes its her job to stand up for people who cannot stand for themselves, to speak for people who do not have a voice inside for principles that she believes represent the best angels in america. Thats why im proud to present to you today. To speak about her book, for the next generation, which you should buy. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. [applause] thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Its great to be home. I have to say that it is a little surreal to be doing that in front of a hometown crowd and incredibly special. , thank you so much for that really touching, incredibly warm introduction. It is for me like having my brother introduced me. We have five sidebyside for so many years and i actually met dans father, seymour, before i met dan. To have any praise from either one of them, but it is surely a Public Servant and a leader like you more gelber, as dan said, probably many of you know him is really remarkable and means that maybe im doing something right. Dan has in a great dad in great leader is someone who has chosen a path of Public Service in spite of the fact in our generation when we grew up, a lot of our friends in the 80s, which was to meet generation, chose the path of making it much money as humanly possible. Theres nothing wrong with that. But dan and i both chose a path that allowed us to go to bat making the world a better place for others every single day. Thats what this book was all about. Thank you very much for that special introduction. This book, people have said, he didnt have enough to do . You had to cram a book in, to . The answer is yes, i did because i realize, especially in november 2010, when this project came to fruition, that after the tea party swept far too many elections in that year, that they began hurriedly met or manufactured crisis to manufactured this. Every issue, every significant issue, whether with the economy, education, health care, civil rights and civil liberties, gun safety, you name it. Infrastructure investment. All of those have come to a screeching halt because of the unbelievable gridlock that their poison has caused. For me as a mom, i am a mom with twin 14yearold and a 10yearold. I have a lot of in the air. You know, so often we hear politicians, and im one of them come and talk about the importance of any issue being critical because we have to do whats right for the next generation. Only i realized that concept is not an abstract one for me. I have the next generation the backseat of my car every single day. As a mom that makes sense. But when you think about it and you im sure dont realize this, i count it. Im one of eight women in congress to children younger than 10. When we ask ourselves why the issues that are important to the next generation dont reach the top of legislative agenda, there arent enough moms with young kids just might have something to do with it. So i wrote this book so i could sound an alarm bell, so i could make sure that regular people had an opportunity to read this book and find the issues that they are the most passionate about, even if they dont realize it now, and give them a roadmap to have to make a difference in the lives of others on that issue. And because i am a busy working mom and we all have a lot in the air and i recognize our most Precious Resources what . Time. Yes. So many people perceive that the most Precious Resources money. Now when you are trying to balance work and family, when you are trying to make sure that you can make ends meet. Time is the most Precious Resource. What i did here is in each chapter we lay out the problem. I lay out my version of what i think the best solution is and they give you some guidance on how to get involved in that issue and make a difference. An ineffective way because too often people end up wasting whatever little time they do have found a way that isnt going to have enough reach and make a difference. Of course at the end, i made sure and it was really important to make sure there was a list of organizations sweettalk about and how to contact them. What will happen if someone hope you will feel motivated and excited after they read this book and take something away they want to do themselves and they close the book and get it either very busy lives. So there is a list right there for you to go back to you, to followups or you can get involved and make a difference on the issue thats most important to you. I want to read a few excerpts from the book and then im really excited and looking forward to take your questions. I think having spent three years writing it, i really want to share how i shaped my advocacy that this book represents. So i want to start and usually with the conclusion because the conclusion at the beginning as a good way to show you what this book meant to mean what is important for me to write it. Conclusion is called change what happened next is up to us. Over the course of our lives, each of us has moments of clarity when we know exactly what matters above all else. That insight gives us a sense of purpose and in that moment we have the capacity to reorganize their lives to virtually every decision that we make from that point forward circe overarching purpose. In my own life, theres been two such moments. Giving birth to my children and being diagnosed with Breast Cancer. One was exhilarating. The other was that his dating. Both of these events made me realize i absolutely must realize i must make the most to what matters me on this earth creature in whatever knowledge and skills they have for making it a better place if that had always been a mission in life. When i had children, this came into sharper focus, becoming more urgent than ever before. The house and i brought into this row 3 babies too dependent on us completely and we cannot imagine living without. Meaning we were dependent on them as well. Caring for the children became the most important thing in our lives and with that came his vulnerability. This is what my Breast Cancer diagnosis can be such a dreadful jolt. Even though my doctors are confident the disease could be defeated through aggressive treatment, i knew how pernicious cancer could be. There was no guarantee it would survive the no guarantee he wouldnt come back if i beat it. All the experiences i imagined having the children, all you wish to teach and do for them is in jeopardy. At the same time, i learned i was not alone. There is this assertive women whose lives have been interrupted that might not come to vote the same fear about the future. Names daughter was three or so at that time. With her Breast Cancer at age two, she didnt know whether she would live long enough to see her daughter go to kindergarten, much less graduate from half own college. The mr. Big ruling chemotherapy regimen, she promised god if she was given the strength she needed to outlast the disease she would devote her life to helping other young women at a Breast Cancer. She won her battle and make good on her promise they create in the tigerlily foundation. Before my diagnosis, id always been a proponent of Breast Cancer research and awareness. When i developed Breast Cancer, the work he team even more important to me. In 2009 after he shared my own experience publicly, i teamed up with her and her foundation to craft what is a nation that directed the centers for Disease Control and prevention to launch a National Education campaign designed to raise awareness. That bill called the early act was incorporated within the Affordable Care act, obamacare that passed into law in march march 2010 is a large part to a Diverse Coalition of more than 40 organizations who rallied in support of the bill. Today to appropriations passed as part of the the early to act of order grants to organizations that help you when you do with unique challenges they face in diagnosed with Breast Cancer. The task force will be creating an Awareness Campaign targeted at young women said they are more likely to catch Breast Cancer early and survive. Taking these actions come in knowing i had a role in helping future growth and women prevent Breast Cancer was empowering. With help of other act or this convoy managed to turn personal at first he into universal good. Every person has the capacity to empathize with others and be their champion. For didnt come in all of us at children, but all of us were children up on time, so we understand the consequences of decisions made at those responsible childrens wellbeing. We must recognize their obligation to make decisions in a way that will improve childrens welfare. Similarly, malice will receive a cancer diagnosis, but well have to come to terms with their own mortality. Rufus the question of whether we did enough and i like to make a difference in the lives of others. I can say there is no room for doubts or regrets. Each of us must be able to answer the universal question by saying he or she absolutely is a positive impact on the world. We cannot fool ourselves. We must really believe this but we cannot afford to postpone the purpose that defines our lives because we do not know how long we have. For the sake of our children, fellow human beings and tranquility of ours will, we must again to take action right now. That really crystallized as i hope, why i thought it was important to insert a little more work into my own life and try to motivate people to part with a lot of their Precious Resource and make a difference in the lives of others because the way we are going to make sure that this country can thrive is by making sure that we measure our nations success by how well their children are doing. I think if you took a step back and thought about how children are doing on a host of issues, all the issues ive run through in the last few minutes, were not doing that well. Whether its education, health care, energy and the end, environment, and destinations in structure, protecting children from god and other harmful weapons, civil rights and civil liberties. We have a lot of work to do them is got to stop my way or highway politics. That is a big part of what the tea party has dragged us backwards. Align the tail to wag the dog, allowing the agenda be controlled or the power people will want to washington rather than doing the right thing. I really hope this book will motivate real people, regular people to go down to your elected officials town hall meeting spend a few minutes after the meeting is over talking with the elected official at the podium, giving them a sense of what is important to you. Get involved in an organization that focuses on an issue that really matters. Most of all, communicate to the people that represent you that you want the gridlock to stop. I can say that even a feature of the day. I support my partys agenda and i represent a very progressive Congressional District. It is clear to me where mike tishman far enough where i am also. Is also clear to me that its critical we reach across the aisle, Work Together to find Common Ground, that we stopped again in an insisting on everything be in her way. So in that spirit, i wrote a chapter on civil liberties, but i also read a chapter on making sure that we could focus more on civility. The chapter is called discourse, not discord and i want to read a brief excerpt from that for you now. As we consider consequences of the deterioration in political discourse and how we reverse that course, taught to ask ourselves, how did we get here . Im attending a professional colleagues on weathers and moment in washington, this is especially vicious. I find a variety of opinions for why that is. Some blame the media for carrying the 21st of a new cycle. Others in the millions spent by pacs over the course of campaigns to last longer than i ever have before. One of the more interesting theories came from a Senior Member of congress who noted a seemingly innocuous shift in a lifestyle congressional members. Used to be when a representative is elected, he or she would move to d. C. With their families, but in their half the year. It wasnt uncommon for a democratic Member Church on the same team as a republican member. They were more likely to run into one another. This past generations of congressional members were more civil in congress because they had a sense of being part of the same Community Commissioner in at least a master view, even if they disagreed about every political question. Arrival in name on the congressional floor would make it up were to encounter the stands. In more recent years, most of the action has been commenced with the house about three and a half days a week, alternating between monday night through thursday or tuesday night through friday, meaning members need spend only three evenings in washington before flying home for a four day weekend. The 112th in 113th congress is a republican majority also seen a light schedule of congress in recess more data than in recent history, making them are difficult for members to spend time getting to know each other and build trust. Consider the members of congress swept into office in 2010 on a wave of tea party support. This has been using language in the course of debating issues and many of these numbers are reclusive when they come to washington. In january 2011 found that the new republic astronaut class in a Congressional Office rather than rent a home in washington. Joe walsh, republican of illinois told a news station its important we dont live here. We are not creatures of this town. Maybe if representative walsh or more of a social creature and washington can make when it accused his opponents of the 2012 election of exploiting Service Record as a way to get votes. The opponent flew 120 commodores in iraq before her black hawk helicopter was hit by a Rocket Launcher and 2004, blowing up portions of both her legs. Duckworth had the poise to help her copilot at the helicopter safety before passing out from her injuries. She narrowly survived a nice is to prostatic legs. Today, Tammy Duckworth is a member of congress, democrat from illinois and she beat joe walsh. [applause] this excerpt goes on to talk about enough for that ive engaged in the number of my colleagues. A republican from orlando is one of them. To try and make sure that we can go the relationships across the aisle. When i was in the legislature with dan and other colleagues in tallahassee, we did have opportunities to sit next to each other in Committee Hearing and spend time together on the house floor. You notice how to connect business on the housework today. We really are just engage in a series of timed speeches and we take turns back and forth, republican and democrat. But we are not hearing each other. Its an opportunity. No offense to seize and. They project your message to the hundreds of thousands of people watching at that moment. Years ago, they can see kerry would actually pass the bill into law. The idea was that members would gather and build relationships and trust to Work Together and reach across the aisle with give and take and eventually the product that came out of that process would be one that went into the top of the tunnel and came out the very narrow and with the diversity of opinion that represent america. Unfortunately, our process has deteriorated to such an extent that we are really not even doing anything that comes once particularly in the last couple of cycles. So dan webster and i decided to start a bipartisan dinner, ate dinner that would have no agenda. We just got five republicans and five democrats initially together and we went to dinner and started to get to know each other is little bit better. With every subsequent dinner, the requirement is the previous attendee has to bring a guest in the opposite party. Where up to about 30 or 40 members now and weve gotten to know each other. In fact, ive been able to cosponsor legislation with a couple republicans whom i would never have spoken to otherwise it not for the tenants at that dinner. It really is targeted to make sure we could find a way to find Common Ground not necessarily on the big issues, but the longest distance starts with the first steps. So im trying to do my part. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are as well, but we have a ways to go. Another thing thats been fun and also has no collegiality in the congress is after a shared man Breast Cancer experience publicly, i started the bipartisan womens congressional softball team. That may seem trivial, but when the numbers came together. Theres been a baseball game for 50 years that the republicans and democrats play against each other. Its mostly all the men. A couple women play from time to time. The women decided, you know what will we be better off playing on the same team. Fighting the common enemy, the press corps. We played the female press corps. Its easy to rally around a single cause. We raise money for the coalition and the young womens cancer organization. Weve been playing this for five years. The congressional and team is only 11. The quest for that trophy continues. But its given us a chance to be out there at 7 00 in the morning for three months in the spring every year, practicing being women, just mean girls and getting to know each other as moms and girlfriends and we dont talk about politics. In fact, i consciously dont bring up my democratic teachers just to make sure we keep everything neutral on the field. Its given us a chance to Work Together. But we all set during the last shutdown was that they just blocked a few women in the house and senate in the room, left us alone for a few hours, but of a lot of these problems just like that. [applause] so before i get to questions, i am sure the affordable character. I look forward to talking about it. But i want to share an excerpt from the health care chapter, which give you an idea why fully implementing the Affordable Care act in making sure everybody in america has access to Quality Affordable Health Care is so. In october 2009, during with so many provisions of Obama Obamacare yet to take effect still not on the right page. Here we go. In the introduction i shared with you that before i began my career as a legislature, is encouraged to sit down with the policies that mattered most. Near the top is making health care affordable. In this sense, voting for obamacare less about playing them a deeply held beliefs about the role of government and the growth for positive change in peoples lives. Before Congress Passed the Medicare Part b drug benefit in 2003 in the traditional medicare did not provide coverage for Prescription Drugs. Many seniors face a difficult choice between medicine and meals and Congress Passed party, the republican majority left a gap in coverage known as the doughnut hole. When a senior in medicares hands approximate 2600 on Prescription Medication cometh onto the into the doughnut hole coverage gap in how to pay for their drugs and hunt up some other pocket until they make 5600 in Prescription Drug spending. Some seniors never reach that amount of the calendar year, is they pay for the rest of the year until the next year. Many seniors living on fixed incomes can afford to pay their way through that gap in coverage. The affordable character faces at the doughnut hole, closing it for 2020 and saving up to 3000 during drug costs. About a year after president obama sang the Affordable Care act into law, i spoke at the democratic lock on one of the largest in florida whose membership is largely made up of Senior Citizens who live in my Congressional District. When i finished to begin taking questions, a woman id known who id never thought of is strictly jamaican roots to make a statement. She said debbie, thanks to obamacare, i dont have to ask the pharmacist for my pills anymore. I used to do that so they would last longer. Because the dog was closing i can get my prescription. I use the story generally as an example in arguing for the Affordable Care act passage. It is that in mind to seniors at the pharmacy you can afford to pay for their positions them as if they had to decide which to fill in what should leave. He was a woman i knew well who benefited from the closure of the medicare Prescription Drug coverage gap. This more clear than ever before that obamacare and safety net programs like medicare are essential to maintaining a minimum quality of life for seniors. Reforms and improve the lives of americans. My friends and constituents who worry about Health Care Coverage for sons and daughters who after graduation i know hard to find a job at an event. In years past from Insurance Companies work for you in coverage who were enrolled in their parent played at the age of 19 thanks to obamacare, Insurance Companies must let young people to remain a plan for to the age of 26. The most significant provision of Health Care Reform life protects americans for the preexisting health condition. Asserts the children are protected from denial of coverage as of september 23rd, 2010. That same protection takes effect in january 2014 because that is an individual mandate takes effect. The addition of those enrolled healthy beneficiary payments for balance the cost of covering the higher the patient to have been excluded on the basis of pretesting conditions. Under the old system, being female is treated by insurers as a preexisting condition, many women were charged premiums as a gender. This is a reprehensible practice and since my bout with Breast Cancer at a double whammy. I heard so many stories from women diagnosed with Breast Cancer at a time they didnt have Health Insurance. They needed chemotherapy, but under the old system had to choose only one because they couldnt afford the copay and tucked the ball for both. I can imagine how terrifying it must be to make that choice. It is absolutely critical that be make sure that no one has to choose a tremendous and meals, that no one has to worry about whether or not the other shoe is going to drop when facing a serious illness. As someone who at 41 years old after a clean just two months before was the picture of health on one day i was diagnosed as a Breast Cancer patient the next day, knowing i was one job loss away from being uninsured or uninsurable, on january errs, the 129 million americans who like me that in this country with a preexisting condition will have the peace of mind that we dont have to worry about the other shoe dropping his god for big illness ever recur. Whats going on right now in washington and what republicans who have sent years trying to repeal or delay or unwind the affordable character trying to do is take away that peace of mind. I am here to tell you until my last breath, i will take to make sure we will not go backward. [cheers and applause] thank you. [applause] ill conclude an thank you so much. Thats why i love living in south florida. Ill conclude they telling you that in spite of the fact that i just shared with you my views of the world and what i think we need to do to get back on track, i know that it can be done alone. I know that it cant be done just exactly the way Debbie Wasserman schultz prescribed. The only way for us to solve these problems, huge challenges, Immigration Reform and significant challenge, why are we not able to take up the legislation that the senate has passed, that clearly a majority of the house of representatives had said they support through cosponsorship if he was glad to come to the floor. Why can we make sure we make our economy more robust come and make sure we have a humane and just follows you for people who are here, you simply want to make a better life for themselves. Why cant we Work Together to sovereign nations problems . If we dont make a commitment to doing that, if we dont get folks like europe the sidelines and each of us commit to spending a little bit of time, making our impact on the world, we are really going to set ourselves backwards and in a competitive, global economy, like the one, we will lose the competitive rate on too many issues. I know how proud i am as an american that we are and should continue to strive to be the best nation on earth in every indicator that we care about. We can do that if we bond together, Work Together, stop the my way or highway politics and stop the fingerpointing. If we simply Work Together to solve our nations problems instead of spending endless hours of pointless fingerpointing that sensors backwards. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the book. [applause] be back thank you. My question is for Health Care Plan was passed in is called the obamacare plan now. Is that the plan the republicans are posed in 93 basically them yet now that it was passed, they posted . And what you do, and on that. The individual mandate concept that is the underpinning of the Affordable Care act, obamacare was actually can eat by the Heritage Foundation, which is obvious the conservative think tank. One embraced by republicans in the early 90s and for some reason now that it was embraced by president obama, suddenly it is a government takeover of health care by their definition and thats about the worst you can do. Look, the Affordable Care is not perfect. I could not name a piece of legislation that would never pass in 200 years thats perfect. The Founding Fathers set up a first tee with the imperfections. Its called working together to solve problems. If theres a thick, thin me to be ironed out, glitches like fixing the website. Obviously the website should work. The Affordable Care act as i described this afternoon is so much more than a website. It means so much more to millions of people. Im ready. All of my colleagues on my side of the aisle are ready, willing and able to hammer out some of those problems that crop up. What we are not willing to do was repeal it and go backwards. [applause] is there any chance that congress will Work Together . Specifically, im a lemonade in the salary cap on the fakir reductions. , federal reductions . Fica for Social Security. You now, that concept is part of the broader discussion, which i hope we get to in congress on what to do about making sure that we had to do one terms of the sea of Social Security. Its really important and theres a variety of Different Things we can do. I actually talk about this. Theres a safety net chapter for the next generation that i talk about medicare and Social Security and medicaid and some of the things we could do, one of which is if you take off that cap, the income cap, in a 75 years of solvency to Social Security. 75 years. Now, will wealthier people, obviously you make of the 107,000 care that now they are paying taxes on all their income . Sure. But the whole point of last years election, remember we debated this for the whole president ial election in 2012, whether everybody should have a fair shot and a fair shake and everybody should pay their fair share. Why should wealthier people pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes into the safety net programs that are so essential so we have the minimum floor through which we are not going to flout our frail seniors to slip through. The answer is they should ever have to focus on working towards that goal. Thank you. I congresswoman, nice to see you again. You, too. My question is about the gridlock. Yesterday, george goodman, we have a discussion about Woodrow Wilson and peter roosevelt. Specifically wilson. He used to go down some are called the president s room in congress. When asked about how gridlock how it seems to be moving, one of the suggestions from the other speaker is maybe the president should be using that room. Another suggestion and i wonder if you comment on what can be more engaged with congress. Another idea that was talk about it at pml was the idea that numbers are spending so much time raising money. So in addition to what you spoke about, not living in 10, which was also does a come as the idea to go home. So is there some campaignfinance solution we can put in place quite so the president s room is on the senate side of the capitol. You know, that question i sent ms. Morse embolic of the larger question, what can president obama is typically due to engage congress more . You know, i think the whole notion and criticism of president obama that is out there that is not engaging in congress is pretty overwrought. You know, he cannot all the beers with members of congress what he wants. He could fill his calendar with those kinds of interactions. But if we know how a belly dance partner that wants to actually get to Common Ground and is worried more about whether theyre going to dry tea Party Primary if they actually work with the president , then they are about doing the right things. Then the in the barbecue isnt going to matter worth a of teens. Another example, so i can make you understand that practice what they preach. In the summer of 2011, when we had the debt ceiling the first time he bumped up against defaulting. We ended up with the cuts only deal that resulted in the sequester, which we are still struggling to replace. That included 1. 2 trillion in spending cuts only. Really painful cuts, many of which i spent my career posing. I was one of the handful of democrats that combined with some republicans to pass idea because we were on the brink of default we cannot jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States. I knew a lot of people in my district would be opposed and he voted in favor of that deal and those cuts. I had to decide, okay, have a builtin of trust i hopefully have built enough trust in this community i can come home to my constituents and explained even though they did 100 agree with you in my decision, they trust me enough that im willing to spend some Political Capital with my constituents that they understand they have really gathered the information made the best decision i thought we could make for the country. Yeah, there is risk to that. They when you have significant issues facing the country, yours beats cant be more than doing the right thing. You really cant. You stand for reelection and hopefully the people think you did the right thing. If they dont, thats the way it goes. [applause] i like your take on what we see as the shift in the wealth of the country to be very, very tiny percentage its only gotten worse and worse and worse since reagan, the republican god. We see our discussion of us socials purity as an example for the wealthiest to impose any proposal to eliminate that cap. What could he do when the wealthiest have the power to create a tea party was founded with coke money. Lets not distract from the myth of the Grassroots Movement at the tea party professes to be. Corporate infused, no question. How can we trust those things . If we dont, well end up like some of the countries that did very well be an increasingly rebellious disenfranchised majority . I think your faith should have been restored with the reelection of president obama last year. And here is why. Because that election between mitt romney and barack obama presented to vary this gene to clear paths down which americans could choose to go. The path of the republicans in the tea party extremist, who really sought the solution to our nations budgetary problem is cutting taxes for the wealth he and cutting spending. We watched that movie before and we thought the ending and didnt like it. Barack obama and democrats in Congress Take a balanced approach to deficit reduction. Make some difficult choices in spending reductions, but dont cut the heart out of our future like education and Health Care Research they really would make us less competitive. Also make sure umass people who can afford to pay a little bit more by closing tax loopholes that people have no business benefiting from and some of the tax cuts, which we did in january when we allow people who make less than 450,000 a year for their tax cuts to continue and who made more for those tax cuts to expire. We made some progress. We have to make more. I will tell you i think its going to take another election for us to make sure we reduce the influence and not hold those tea partiers have on the two pathways in our ability to actually travel down the path of voters chose klosterman may be elected or obama president of the United States. Madam congressman, this question was asked to president obama when he was senator obama when he read from his book seven years ago. The question is, are you going to run for president . [laughter] [laughter] wow, okay, thank you. [applause] you know i love that josh i have now so much. I love it so much i took a second job and president of him asked me to chair the Democratic National committee. After he was reelected, yes we do a full fouryear term as chair of the dnc. When the president asks you to watch his back and bring them across the finish line and when you are a gimme the ball person that i consider myself to be, being assured the dnc is the coach but human and now i get to run the ball. Im going to run the ball and run for reelection and i hope that you give me the privilege of representing them in our nations capital. Thank you. [applause] thank you for the question. I appreciate it. We are actually out of time, unfortunately. Lets give a round of applause to Debbie Wasserman schultz. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] book tvs live coverage of the 30th Miami Book Fair continues from Miami Dade College. Representative Debbie Wasserman schultz did about an hour and half or so will be joining us here on ours up for a callin to have a chance to talk to her about him at the issues she raised in her presentation and in her book, for the next generation. Prior to that, Jeremy Scahill, author wrote dirty wars the world is a battlefield will be joining us for a colonist well. The next panel, which is due to begin in 10 minutes is historian Thomas Cahill. His most recent book is called heretics, heroes how president s artisan reformation priests created our world. That is due to begin in about 10 minutes. We will bring it to you live from miami. The final event today is at 5 00 p. M. Eastern time. That would be Chris Mathews of hardball and hes written several books. His most recent, tipping the giver when politics works. How will all be light this afternoon on booktv on cspan2 from miami. 15 years weve been covering this festival and we want to show you right now just a little bit of our past coverage. Those of us intimidated by science, as should those of us who are. Come allstar but the good news, which is that einstein was no einstein when he was a kid. He was serious low in learning how to talk, so its low that they called him the dopey one in the family. They even can alter the doctor because of the slow verbal learning ability. I think the slow, verbal learning ability was one reason he was so visual and imaginative and creative. He would think visually. He would always try to think of what he called the tory offer visual thought it weirdness. Every great advance he doesnt science is done through a visualized statics bierman. A visualized thought experiment is what you and i called daydreaming. But if you were einstein can eat get to call it a thought experiment. He was also rebellious as a kid. He was always question authority, which isnt something used to do much urban School System when he was growing up in the late 19th century. In fact, because one had mastered to amuse us by saying Albert Einstein will never amount to much and another had really sent them packing because he undermines respect for authority. I too think that is part of einsteins ability to think out of the box, to be imaginative, to be creative because he was always questioning every premise and always challenging every assumption. His ability to use bank and be curious in a visualized the way. You can see it at age five when his father gives him a compass. Einstein said he sat up night after night watching the needle twitching point northward and trying to visualize what it would look like. You and i probably remember getting a compass when their age five. Go outside, points north. About 90 seconds later, were on to something else. Look, a dead squirrel. We forget about the rest of his life until his deathbed, einstein is visualized in gravitational fields, electrical fields, Magnetic Fields and trying to figure out how something could have a force between objects like that. One of the myths about einstein that is unfortunately not true is that he flunked math as a kid. He kind of wanted to be true. If you grupo einstein failed math, you get about 60,000 websites that say things like, Everybody Knows einstein felt not as a kid. So maybe theres hope for me yet. The reason its not true is even though he was not very good in languages and was not very good at school, he was very good in math because he realized that was nothing he could visualized, that a mathematical equation is just a brush stroke for in physical reality. I was helping my daughter who is 17 with her math homework not too long ago. She had gotten an equation on should multiply. I said look at it. It has two x plus y squared. Visualize what its like. She said what do you mean . Is that you can visualize an equation. Said no, dad, that not how they teach math these days. Well, einstein, who even i would probably admit is smarter than my daughter at age 17, at least in math, is not only visualizing equations, but looking at a new set of equations in the late 19th century the James Clerk Maxwell had, with called maxwells equations. Most of you know they defined an attic way for a late wave. The interesting thing if you visualized maxwells equations or if your einstein a visualized maxwell equations, if you look at them, they always a one name, that the wave of light always travels at a con and speed. No matter how fast youre traveling, which we are going, towards the light, away from the light come in the equations say the wave is always god to travel at a constant speed. 186,000 miles per second or so. So einstein is a 17yearold is trying to visualize this. He says what if i catch up . Wifi right alongside and i go faster and faster as you and im writing right alongside the wave, catching up with the speed of light. Wouldnt the wavelet stationery to me . Maxwells equations dont allow for that. It was a paradox from a contradiction that cost in such anxiety that he walked around for days on end with this palm sweating. I dont know about you, but it causes me to think about what was causing my poems to sweat at age 17 growing up in the war links. It was not maxwells equations. But thats why hes einstein and the rest of the summer. He kind of you know, his teachers, he runs away finally. Like my old friend dr. Benjamin franklin, he becomes a 17yearold runaway, running away if renee bridges will system. Infrequent case a School System in boston in and skates the german School System where they make you memorize the equations, but its not a very creative or imaginative way of turning. He runs away, finally gets to sit by and it applies to the secondbest college in zurich. Zurich polytechnic. He doesnt get in. As i say, those of us who were at a 19 year olds college this month, ive always want to meet the admissions director of this or polytech to turn down robert einstein. He gave been on a second car around. He gets in on the second try any dose moderately well at this or polytech. But his ability to challenge authority and question every promise comes back to haunt him. Hes really able to tick off all of his professors. [inaudible conversations] that of course is Walter Isakson from 2007 when he wrote his book on alberta saying. Live coverage from the Miami Book Fair international 2013, 38th year. This festival has been held here 15 tier booktv has covered it. Thomas cahill, heretics and heroes is the next author to be speaking my here at Miami Dade College. In the meantime, while we are waiting for professor cahill to get to the stage, lets show you a little bit more of our past coverage. I think all of us hunger for washington to deal with it. And for the news media to bring you as straightforward an account as possible and to hold people to account. So when talking back, try to trace back, how did we get to this place . There was, you know, in my own career in journalism, i covered energy in the first Energy Crisis when jimmy carter was president. I had just come to washington a couple years earlier. I was recruited by a vocalist nation in maryland because they figured that anyone who covered the philadelphia big democratic machine outside by a very controversial, very colorful man had learned enough about corrupt politics to cover maryland. [laughter] so i was up almost literally because one of the issues with the federal Court Case Involving the mail fraud conviction ultimately the conviction was overturned. Who had tried to racetrack with a motley collection supposedly in the interim. Well, its very colorful and i was thrown right into this. So all the guys or were going, d i wasnt sent. Which is another theme of the book, the role of a woman many this business at a time when i first became a reporter in philadelphia and i was told and tried to get this job right out of college, and i was told there is no room for broads in broadcasting. [laughter] and thats the way it was. And so i volunteered to get an entrylevel job even though id been hired in a Management Training program, an entrylevel job in the newsroom as a copy boy which is the first chapter of talking back. And it involved the midnight to eight shift. All my friends were in graduate school or law school or med school, and i was working for 50 a week trying to run coffee to the anchormen and exist in this i tumultuous atmosphere. It was the 60s, and there were demonstrations. We were in the middle of the civil rights movement, we were in the middle of the antiwar movement. Martin luther king was assassinated, then Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, our cities were erupting. There was a lot to cover, and it was a fascinating time to be a reporter. So having learned as much as i could in philadelphia, i was recruited to come to washington as a local reporter for the cbs station, and there i was covering the federal bribery trial of the governor of maryland and eventually was hired by the network. And what then ensued has been a fashion fating fascinating, fortunate number of experiences covering, first, jimmy carter. I was the most junior correspondent recruited to help out on holidays and weekends covering president carter. And that meant going to plains, georgia, for thanksgiving and christmas. Well, i dont know how many of you have been to plains [laughter] may i suggest that not even Rosalynn Carter wants to spend christmas this no, thats probably not true. But it is a small town, so small that the nearest best western where we stayed was in a town called america. Its up the road. So we basically would go and accompany the president of the United States when he went to his mothers house, miss lilys house, at 5 30 in the morning on Christmas Morning to begin opening their presents and then go to miss alis house, the motherinlaw, rosalynns mom. When theyd open their presents there. And it was it was, shall we say, not the greatest assignment a correspondent be ever had, but there were some side benefits. We got to go to sunday school, and i was a Pool Reporter offer covering what the president of the United States would preach on sunday morning. You then communicate that to all your colleagues, and so i worked my way up in television and eventually after covering Energy Three Mile Island happened. And so five days into that assignment i realized, as i say, that no one had p cement me. To i walked sent me. So i walked into the Bureau Chiefs office and i said you havent sent me, youve sent all the guys. And he said in his most fatherly way, well, youre of childbearing anal, and i didnt want to risk age, and i didnt want to risk sending you into that zone. And i found myself saying to my boss, well, has it occurred to you that men are as vulnerable to radiation [laughter] as womens ovaries . And i was on a plane the next morning. [laughter] and that was Andrea Mitchell from 2005. Of course, shes still with nbc and msnbc. Live coverage from the 2013 Miami Book Fair international. Thats a live street scene youre seeing outside of Miamidade College, and inside chapman hall just above that street, the audience is getting ready for the next event, and that is thomas cay hell who has cahill who has written a new book. Hes written several books, but his newest, heretics and heroes, thisll be beginning in just a second. After that the rest of the schedule for today, Jeremy Scahill will be joining us for a callin, so if youre interested in mr. Scahill and dirty wars, youll have that opportunity in about 45 minutes followed by a callin with representative Debbie Wassermanschultz for the next generation, her book. You just saw her if youve been watching. And finally, the last author event from chapman hall today is Chris Matthews, tip and the gipper, that begins at 5 p. M. Eastern time. Thats our schedule for the rest of the day, so live coverage continues now with Thomas Cahill, heretics and heroes. Good afternoon again and welcome. Were about to begin this session. Please take your seats. Let me again welcome you to Miami Book Fair international. Im malau harrison, and ive been a volunteer for about 23 years and counting. [applause] thank you. And im truly, truly happy to join everyone here today in celebrating the book fairs 30th anniversary. So thank you for being here. Let me also thank Miamidade College and all of the volunteers, students, faculty and staff for coming together each year to present this wonderful book fair for the enrichment of our community. Thanks also to our sponsors, ohl as well as American Airlines and to to our friends, those of you who are seated here and those who are not in this room, probably perusing the other areas of the fair. Thank you so much to the friends of the book fair for all of your support over the years and your support that will continue, im sure, in bringing this book fair for another 30 years hopefully. Without further ado, let me say that were asking you to consider making a donation to the fair. How many of you have heard about texting mbfi to 4141 41444 . Okay, many of you. So were asking you to do that today. Consider a 30 donation, and thats in recognition of our 30th anniversary. If youd consider that, wed be greatly appreciate thetive. So without further ado, let me bring on professor rogers, and he will make the introduction of our featured speaker. Thank you very much. [applause] its a real treat, a real pleasure and honor to introduce you to Thomas Cahill. [laughter] and so its a real treat, its a real pleasure, its a real honor to be here today to introduce you to Thomas Cahill. You know, there are authors who write books about things that matter, and there are authors who write books that matter. And occasionally an author comes along who writes a book and accomplishes both. And when that happens, we have an extraordinary opportunity, a rare opportunity to piece to see a little bit more deeply, to glimpse the heart of who we are as human beings. For those of you who are familiar with the writings of Thomas Cahill, then i need not tell you that he is one of these authors and that heretics and heroes is one of these books. And for those of you who are new to Thomas Cahill, well, youre if for a big treat. In heretics and heroes, we are sort of given and afforded the leisurely stroll through the thrilling period of the renaissance and the reforbe mission. Reformation. Illuminating in this pathway are extraordinary works of art, great moments of discovery and invention. And the ongoing struggle of religious and secular power. And in that regard there is a current that runs through so many of his books and of this one, of the great cruelty that we human beings inflict on one another again and again. And at the same time of our extraordinary capacity to find ways of of relating to each other out of which we feel and communicate extraordinary love and compassion. I think that Thomas Cahill wants to remind us of these two aspects of who we are. And in this book especially of the aspects of us that are good and of our capacity to accomplish extraordinary and wondrous things so that as our history continues to unfold fresh with promise and possibility, we move into the future aware of the firmness of our step and of the consequence of our journey. Now, in addition to being an extraordinarily gifted writer, Thomas Cahill is a scholar and a gentleman, and you will find peppered throughout this wonderful book Beautiful Moments of humor and wit as well. I know that we are all excited to be here to listen and learn from Thomas Cahill so, please, join me in welcoming him here today. [applause] thank you, scott. Thank you, everyone. I cant tell you how happy i am to be here. I love miami, and it always is different every time i come back. It aa maizes he. Amazes me. And one of the most Amazing Things about miami which is always the same is the presence of mitchell kaplan. [applause] the last time i was here, i said i thought books and books was the best book shop in the galaxy. [applause] but ive come to believe that mitch is one of the people who holds the universe together. [laughter] heretics and heroes is a book about the two great forces that shaped the modern western world as we still experience that world today. One of these forces is nationalism, and the other is religion. More precisely, the book is about how the emerging nationalisms of western europe acted upon the sensibilities of human beings and still act upon those sensibilities and about how the experience of personal faith and practice partly informed by these emerging nationalisms brought about new religious insights as well as permanent fractures within the unity of western christianity. Today id like to focus briefly on nationalism and then spend the rest of our time together talking about the force of religion. But i wont talk directory about the book heretics and heroes. Thats for you to read later. Ive noticed that many author talks are basically advertisements for their book, and id like to give you something more, a sort of analog experience. During the height of the cold war, i heard a joke from an old italian priest a joke that still has some truth in it. Nato exercises were many progress over western were in progress over western europe to train new paratroopers from different nations. And the great moment for any novice paratrooper is the moment that he finally jumps. Or doesnt. And the instructor knowing in this decided to try to motivate each of his students in just the right way at that moment. So the first one to come forward was an american, and he says to him if you jump, it will be very all american. The american jumps. Its an italian joke. [laughter] the next one is a frenchman, and he says, you know, if you jump, it will be, tres sportif. [laughter] so the frenchman jumps. And the next one is an englishman, and he says to him, if you jump, youll get a lot of pun. The italians think of the english as money grubbers because as they go through europe, theyre always looking for good value. [laughter] and the italians have it a little wrong, but, you know, anyway, the next one is a german, and he says to him, i order you to jump. [laughter] and the last one is an italian, and he says to him, you know, jumping is forbidden. [laughter] well, her recently more recently i was told the joke by an australian physical therapist that somewhat updates and expands the latin the italian joke. And this is what will heaven be like. Well, in heaven the french will be the chefs. [laughter] the italians will be the lovers. The english will be the police. The germans will be the engineers. And the swiss will be in charge of making sure that everything runs on time. [laughter] in hell, however, the english will be the chefs [laughter] the swiss will be the lovers [laughter] the germans will be the police, the french will be the engineers [laughter] and the italians will be in charge of making sure that everything runs on time. [laughter] recently, Angela Merkel said i am so happy that i was born if a northern temperate climate and i never need to take a siesta. [laughter] shes missed a lot of pleasure. [laughter] the cultural and emotional preferences and prejudices of each society limit that societys ability to enter into dialogue and compromise with a different society. Even if two societies are as physically close as italy and germany hidden from each other by a dramatic screen called the alps, so much for nationalism. And now to religion. High in the Shining Mountains of greece just below the slopes of mount b parnossis, lie the ruins of the sapping chew ware of sanctuary of pith yang apollo at dell my. Today the ruined sanctuary remains the most spectacularly beautiful site in all of greece. Once upon a time, however, it served as greeces most sacred place of worship and was called [inaudible] the naval of the knave vel of the earth. From here the prison tease of apollo issued her revered oracles for telling things both wonderful and terrible. We know now that the press hes was high priests was high. Whether or not these fumes made her oracles chew or fact white house, i cant say. Though i can tell you that there was theres no record that any man or woman among the ancients ever questioned the absolute truthfulness of her ambiguous replies. Theres no one left who Still Believes in the god apollo, so we may today turn away from the priest heses without first ado. Still, before abandoning dell my altogether, we may wish to recall the solemn words that were once inscribed above its portals, carved into the cornice were several sayings. The most solemn of these and the most oftrepeated sentence in all the ancient world was this [speaking in native tongue] no thyself. It was not a sentence to be turned away from then or now. Those simple, straightforward words must have sent a kill through ancient worshipers and pilgrims as they approached the great temple of apollo. Know thyself. So, foo, these rez so, too, these resonant words stopped in their tracks those superserious christians who in the last days of the western empire abandoned the lively greco roman cities and set out for the cityless deserts to become the First Christian hermits, monks and nuns. Know thyself, they said to one another. That is the first task, the task of a lifetime. In this way the most exalted wisdom of the acomment pagans became the motivating wisdom of christian asset schism, the first and last rule of all interior life, know thyself. What kind of knowing is knowing one self . Its not like knowing Russian Irregular verbs or the principles of thermodynamics. Those are things we cannot know until we learn them from a book or from a teacher. But no one can teach me more about myself than i can by looking inside and coming to terms with who i am, with all my vir dues virtues and all my vices and then finding appropriate ways to water those virtues and starve those vices. The course of such an endeavor, of such a quest is the course of an entire lifetime. We can never know too much about ourselves. And we always have more to learn. As the greeks understood and as their tragic dramas reveal, much of who i am is hidden from myself. Many of the mistakes i make in my life are the result of the concealing of myself from myself. And the qualities i treasure most in myself can sometimes be the very things that will bring about my doom and downfall. Its not so much that the gods are arranged against me, its rather than often enough im ranged against myself, often enough without even being aware of it. But if smug selfsatisfaction, for instance, is never an admirable personal quality, it becomes no more admirable when exhibited by a religious figure or a religious movement. Religion so often used to cloak hidden and outrageous purposes such as land grabs. Recall the incall callly blood by thirty years war waged in the early 17th century over which european realms would be catholic and which protestant. And property grabs, recall the salem witch trials. So we must always ask ourselves the fine latin question [speaking in native tongue] who are profit . Who will profit . Sometimes the answer is shamelessly obvious as in the case of franz peter [inaudible] Roman Catholic bishop of lin berg, germany, who just finished spending 42 million to renovate his episcopal palace. The bishop who, i have to say, looks and sounds rather like a sesame street puppet [laughter] is likely to lose his seat, so egregious is his selflove. Less egregiously selfloving bishops who have spent far too much on their own comforts and splendors but not enough to attract International Attention will probably keep their seats and be spared. And lets not even go near the subject of all the bishops who out of fear of discomfort have covered up for untold generations of pedophile priests. But even when greed or selfprotection is not involved, never underestimate, never underestimate what a smug sense of superiority will do for many a religious chap. This smugness is invariably accompanied by the need to be exclusive. My religion is better, purer, more [speaking in native tongue] than yours. Indeed, there is an aspiration that runs through religious history no matter which religion is being studied that we might call the desire to limit membership and limit it severely. Many years ago i attended a religious publishing convention during which i was asked several times by people i was just being introduced to and with all the unsmiling seriousness of a cia inquiry, have you accepted jesus christ as your loved and savior . To these questioners, there was no point in further discussion of anything if i could not answer this question affirmatively. Such people are excluders who want their circle, the circle of the saved, to be as exclusive, as small and as uncomfortably intimate as possible. Luckily for me, the convention was held in late 20th century america, so i had no fear of being burned at the stake if i fumbled my answer. Still, i fancied i could see the licking flames in the eyes of my interlocutors. [laughter] another negative expression of religion, perhaps the one that most of us are most familiar with, is the tendency of ordained clergy to exalt themselves over everyone else. Jesus insistence that we call no one on earth our father and no one on earth our master is the commandment that most clergy tend to transgress most eagerly. How long does it take clergy to assign themselves titles intended to force every head but theirs to bow in the case of christianity, only a few decades at most from the time of jesus to the creation of the hierarchy that is, a sacred ruling elite by the end of the First Century a. D. And though Roman Catholicism and eastern orthodoxy and to some extent anglicanism manifest the most elaborate forms of hierarchy within christianity, there are plenty of poobahs in other christian denominations as well as in religions far beyond christianity. If youve forgotten who poobah is, you should listen to the mercado again. The new pope, francis i, has been acting as if even he is aware of the inadvertently comic dimensions of being addressed as your holiness and of being treated as if that title could possibly be a reality for any mere human being. If im right, his pontificate may open a road seldom traveled by form bal religion. Formal religion. And lets not even go near the subject of infallibility, an invention of 19th century european catholicism constructed for the sake of extreme prerogatives in italy that was marginalizing the papacy. Good religion, however, is neither greedy, nor selfprotective; neither exclusive, nor hierarchical; but, rather, exceedingly lacking in discrimination, wishing to include and aid as many as possible in a loving embrace. Of course, to do this one must lower ones standards. [laughter] at least in the eyes of the excluders. But from another perspective, the perspective of the includers, one is simply opening the windows to fresh air and the doors to all comers. One is acting as jesus, for instance, advised in the sermon on the mount when he blessed the poor in spirit, the humble, the merciful, the peacemakers and those who hunger and first for justice. One is acting as gandhi, a hindu advised in his repeated meditations on that sermon, how can we, said gandhi, little crueling creatures so utterly helps as he has made us, how could we possibly measure his infinite compassion such that he allows man to insolently deny him and cut the throat of his fellow man . How can we measure the greatness of god who is so forgiving, so divine, thus that we may utter the same words as jesus did . They have not the same meaning for us all. Thats gandhi. In heretics and heroes, most of the heroes are heretics, and many of the heretics are heroes. [laughter] but their extraordinary stories cannot be summed up in a brief talk. You must experience each one in your own personal encounter. Figures such as leonardo, mix el anglo, botticelli, thomas moore, william tindale, rembrandt, shakespeare and john dunn need at least a few more pages that we can hope to devote to them here. For the truly great figures are always pointing to what is invisible and are somehow managing to express the inexpressible. Which brings me to my ultimate and outsized assertion about these matters. Good religion, like great art, is necessarily mystical, affirming what is always beyond proof or even likelihood or even possibility. So take that, richard dawkins. [laughter] think of job perhaps 27 centuries ago insisting that all his supposedly comforting and quite comfortable friends are wrong. That as job insists in an assertion without proof and in a better translation than hes usually given, this i know, that my avenger lives, and he the last of all will take his stand upon this earth and in my flesh shall i see god. Quite impossible. Quite batty really. And utterly necessary. For only such a reality can redeem, vindicate, avenge the innumerable injustices of history, the slaughtered, to to oppressed, the tortured, the abused, abandoned, the forgotten, the despairing. A courageous friend of mine, a woman in her 60s, a gifted painter of beautiful and ominous nature has spent years mourning for her only child, a young man who committed suicide more than a decade ago. She lives in the Connecticut River valley where i visited her amid the red and gold of mid october. How she survived her childs suicide, i have no idea. She certainly knows what darkness is. But shes joined a Small Community half sufi, have quaker where her sense of the mystical universe is accepted and even honored. Never denying her suffering, she is returning to the land of the living. The colors of this autumn, he affirmed solemnly she affirmed solemnly, are the most beautiful she has ever experienced. Nature is dying, but the thrilling colors are a pledge of what exactly it may be hard to say. But im fairly convinced that like job and against all odds she harbors a sneaking suspicion that there may be life beyond death. Thank you. [applause] i think the organizers are concerned about the time, but im happy to take some questions which i think will be suddenly and abruptly turned off by the organizationers. But we can begin organizers. But we can begin. [laughter] its all right, there are no questions. [laughter] anybody . My question is yes, sir. Okay. Oh, i didnt realize there was okay, a way of doing it. My question is, is it jewish people are the first ones to believe in one god, or was it the persians . Or is it some other group of people . Well, you know that theres a theory know that the now that the egyptians might have thought it up before or moses, but i dont believe it. I think that the pharoah who did try for the worship of one god was not necessarily a monothist, and we know we only know a few things about him, and theres no reason to connect him and moses. And his reform, if thats what it was, survived only a short period of time. It certainly isnt the persians. No, i think that the jews still get the award for monotheism. [laughter] and its very interesting that this is sort of off the point, but that the greeks who were the great philosophers of ancient times, of course the more they looked, the more the greek philosophers thought, well, this doesnt make any sense, all these gods, apollo, you know . The universe or wouldnt work if it was, had all these warring gods in it. God must be one. And then they heard about this strange people who believed that there was one god, which is rather like saying god is one, isnt it . You know, and so many, many people in the ancient world greeks in particular or greekspeaking people became very interested in judaism. They didnt convert completely. They were called, you know, sons of noah and thicks like things like that. Because the idea of circumcision wasnt something they just couldnt bring themselves and also the dietary laws were extremely inconvenient especially if you were going to have an orgy. [laughter] what really happened with christianity, you know, forgetting about the word kris canty, didnt know he was a christian. He thought he was a jew. [laughter] so the early followers of jesus thought the same thing, and then they had this conference in jerusalem which is sometimes called the First Council of jerusalem which is rather grand for a bunch of people sitting in one room. But anyway, they said, no, no, were not going to insist on all this stuff. You can be part of us without and that is, actually, what opened the idea of this particular reformed kind of judaism to the rest of the ancient world. So, you know, the whole thing is complicated but, to me, in extremely interesting ways. Yes, maam. Well, i dont know if this is a question dont worry about it. Or a comment, but im actually, one, dispinted you didnt disappointed that you didnt talk about the book a little bit because i love the renaissance period, and i can never get enough of i. And, two, ive only read one of your books, but i was blown away by the way you write and engage and headache history so fascinating. And that was how the irish saved civilization. So im wondering is, is this book the same as it is engaging and page turning as [laughter] im certainly not going to say, no, not nearly as good. [laughter] ive been writing the same kinds of books all along. I mean, they havent changed. And i whats wrong with most history books is that historians are too, i think, too reverent toward one another, you know . Historian a is afraid that he may be attacked by historian b if he actually says this. I just dont care. [laughter] and i say what i think. And that and, and its true that history is full of strange things, weird things. And many of them are funny. Not completely, but there are certainly very funny aspects to not only to what happened, but to the scholarship surrounding what happened. And id rather be frank about that than hidden. So my footnotes in particular are not like most scholarly footnotes. I readily agree. But i hope youll like it. I [laughter] i think ive been writing the same way all along. Yes, sir. We take the view of your writings past as prologue, and if you look at our times where there seems to be a rack of spiritual depth, what do you see as the possible hope for these times and moving ahead as far as salvation for our world . I dont first of all, i know absolutely nothing about the future. [laughter] all right . So what will happen next . You know, because and when you look at the past and you see how people have tried to predict the future, and i dont mean, you know, predict it by looking at the stars or Something Like that, who have looked at the forces at work in their world and have said this is whats going to happen next, it almost never happens. Its something else. Its something more complex or more simple. Because they didnt take into account some force that they were unaware of that was shaping up or looming on the horizon or Something Like that. So its very hard to say about, to talk about where were going. I dont mean that i wont do that in the last book. I will. [laughter] if i get to write the last book. But the last i would just say that i now im trying to remember what the question was. Oh. Im not sure that this is a less spiritual time. Its a less lockstep religious time certainly in the west. That doesnt mean that people have lost their interest in deep things and deep reasons. But we are, we, at least in the west, are changing. There are people in other parts of the world 40 seem to be who seem to be getting more and more lockstep. So its hard to tell where what is going to happen to those two seemingly disparate forces. But i dont i just wouldnt, you know, just because, you know, were not all diss or whatever methodists, whatever, you know, answer the question, you know, fill in the blank however you like, so what . You know, i just dont think that that means that we are no longer interested in answers to deep questions or especially in spirituality. Were no longer interested in of the more in many of the more ticky tacky forms of religion. And maybe in that way were grow canning up. Thank you. First of all, thank you for being here, and towards the end of this wonderful week its a first time for me, and i want to thank the person behind me and all the people who put this together. Its like going back to college again, so this has absolutely been opinion fantastic, and youre never example of that. My quick question is no quick answer. As a historian, when one looks at the names of the people, leonardo, etc. In our current age what . I couldnt hear in our 31st century 21st century oh, okay. Are there people 200,300 years from now well be talking about with the same reverence, and what was so unique about their surroundings maybe lack of tv, lack of internet, etc. That allowed them to have such amazing greatness that as gone on for hundreds of years . Well, as far as the renaissance goes, the renaissance is an almost to begin with, almost an entirely italian phenomenon. It spreads out as it goes along. But to be honest about it, it starts off as a florentine phenomenon. Its not even italian. Why were the florentines so good at this because most of the artists really did come from florence. I think they were very good at pleasure. [laughter] and i think thats where art begins. It doesnt begin in pain. So could that happen again . Well, yeah. If all the, you know, the all the elements if all the elements are there. So who knows . In, many eras were much better at pain than we are at pleasure. And that aside from that, you just have the happenstances of history. How did you get so many artists in one place, you know . Do they sort of start one another up . I think so, yes. But, of course, if they had all been without talent, it wouldnt have mattered what they were starting up. So the talent part, i dont know where how you reconstruct that, you know . Its mysterious. Yes, sir. Mr. Cahill, thank you for being here, and id just like to ask you, you are first of all, you are an artist, an artist with your words. And the narrative art that you so well put together, you make learning a joy. Im a librarian, and im curious to know your opinion, the weve got the Printing Press during the age of ambiguitien burg, the renaissance, the reformation and now today were on the cusp of a new age. And it seems like, as this gentleman had said, 300 years from now we may look back, you know, those who come after us will look back at this age, and it could very well be with were in a whole new paradigm to use that word. What do you see as the future of reading . And young people today with their engagement in such beautiful narratives that you put together, you and your colleagues. Are we going to see more of that . Times of great transition are also times of great danger. Theres no way of getting around it. And we are definitely people who are engaged in publishing, many of them are i would say not just frightened, but almost hysterical at this point because as older readers die off, they are not being replaced in the same measure by younger readers. For the first time in the history of literacy since printing began. And all you have to do is sort of look on any Street Corner and see what young people are doing. And they are i would this is a caricature, but young men are playing video games, and young women are texting. Largely, thats you can see that. But neither one is reading. In the same way that they had been. But i have to say that just before i came in here the afternoon i met with mitch kaplan, and i said that how frightened the people in publishing are in new york. And i said so i dont think you should come to new york. [laughter] it wont make you feel better at all. And he said, yeah, but he said were coming back, were coming back. So, you know, theres somebody who actually, i think, has his finger on the pulse. And so i hope hes right, and i believe mitch. So [laughter] i think he knows more than i know. [applause] thank you so much, mr. Cahill. And if youd like to have something autographed, you may do so at the other end. Right. And ill be brought back there. Ill just say two things, im happy to sign my name and yours if youll show me how to spell it because i dont want to misspell it, and thats all ill do. I wont characterize somebody as the greatest irishman who ever lived or laugh all right . Just names. Well enough. Thank you. [applause] and our continued live coverage of the Miami Book Fair international continues, that was Thomas Cahill talking about his most recent book, heretics and heroes. Live coverage from miami. Weve still got a couple more hours to go this afternoon, and now joining us here on our set in miami is Jeremy Scahill. Here he is, his most recent book, dirty wars the world is a battlefield. Mr. Scahill, earlier you were on a panel with dan balz and George Packer, and one of the questioners asked you what do you see as the difference between how the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration approach the war on terror. Right. , i mean, i think first of all its great to be with you here on cspan and booktv. The bush with administration, i dont want to understate how atrocious i think that period was in american Foreign Policy. It really was like murder incorporated. The destruction of iraq, the creation of the cia black sites, the idea that the Geneva Convention was [inaudible] the abu ghraib torture, using guantanamo, you could go on and on in characterizing it. So i dont want to get into a thing about is obama worse than bush. I covered those wars, i know what happened. Under president obama i think what we have is someone who has sort of rebranded some of the more egregious aspects of the bushcheney counterterror apparatus and i think has convinced himself that theyre waging a smarter war. So theyre relying on the drones much more than the Bush Administration did, using small team of coovert operators to conduct either kill or capture, and because guantanamo remains open despite the president s pledge to close it during his anytime office, i think that the Obama Administration doesnt want to capture too many people. So the killcapture program has generally become a kill program. And so at the end of the day, i think the enduring legacy for president obama on the issues i cover is that he made possible a continuation of the bushcheney counterterrorism apparatus. I imagine dick cheney fly fishing on his boat somewhere in wyoming, you know, sort of having a good chuckle and saying, you know, thank god obama was president because the next time were in power, were going to be able to continue doing this stuff. Host Jeremy Scahill, how large is the Drone Program in the u. S. Right now . Guest well, we have very Little Information about it. Lets remember that for almost the entire first term that president obama was in office, he never publicly mentioned the drones except on a google plus hangout in response to a question that a young person had asked him. No u. S. Officials would ever publicly own that the u. S. Even had a Drone Program. An american citizen was killed in a drone strike, this guy Anwar Alawlaki who was from the United States and went to yemen and was making these youtube videos, they killed him in 2011. 600 days later president obama gives a speech where he owns the fact that the u. S. Is doing this. There are secret bases in saudi arabia, oman, in east africa. My understanding is there also is a facility inside of yemen and, of course, in afghanistan drones are being flown across the border into pakistan. For some time there was also a drone base in pakistan that blackwater, the mercenary company, worked on as well and, of course, i wrote a book about that. Its a pretty large program. And to me, one of the things thats fascinating and devastatingly awful about the whole thing is that you can have guys who are trained drone pilots, you know, its not true that theyre unmanned. They very much are manned, but theyre manned remotely. You can have a drone pilot sitting in a trailer on a military base in the southwest of the United States, and he is ening in a engage anything a bombing in pakistan or yemen, and he gets in his suv at the end of the day, and he passes a sign saying buckle up, this is the most dangerous part of your day. Meaning that youre in a war zone theoretically, and youre dropping actual bombs on people, but you have a greater chance of being hit by another vehicle or having a Traffic Accident than you do in being killed in a war that youre engaged in. Host Jeremy Scahill is our guest, if you were watching booktv a little bit earlier, you saw him on the panel with dan balz and George Packer. 202 is the area code, 5853890 in the east and central time zones, 5853891 for those of you in the mountain, pacific and beyond time zones. You can also send a tweet, booktv is our twitter handle. What is jsoc . The joint special Operations Command is the most elite team of commandos, soldiers, navy seals that has ever been created in the u. S. National security apparatus. It actually started in 1980s after the failed Hostage Mission in iran. Theres a whole other story that wasnt dealt with in argo, and that is the that the u. S. Military was authorized to go in and rescue the american hostages who had been taken when our embassy was seized in 1979. That operation was a disaster, and the navy was fighting with the army, the army was fighting with the air force, a helicopter crashed because of a sandstorm. And after that the pentagon and officials in the white house began discussing the creation of a sort of fullspectrum allstar team. And they originally acquired two what are called special missionsen units that could conduct missions that could conduct special operations. One was Navy Seal Team six. They wanted the soviets to believe they had a greater capacity than they did, and the other was the armys delta force. And for much of its existence it operated in the shadows in smallscale investigations, they were involved with the killing of pablo escobar, the colombian drug war. After 9 11 cheney and rumsfeld really came up with this idea. They thought that the cia was a liberal think tank which is hilarious to anyone who knows the history of the cia. But they really did believe that the cia had been melted down to, basically, a debased society under the clinton administration. And they felt that the militarys covert unit would be the best weapon that the u. S. Could use in a discreet global secret war. And so they injected jsoc with steroids. And general Stanley Mcchrystal ran jsoc for much of the bush era, and they began operating what was effectively a Global Hunting organization. And they werent hunting deer, they were hunting people. And they did their own interrogation. They have their own secret prisons. It was a whole parallel apparatus to what the cia had traditionally had sovereign realm other. Host how did you get involved in this line of work . Guest purely by accident. I went to university thinking i wanted to be a middle schoolteacher. And i discovered very soon after i got to the university what it meant to be on academic probation. I was a terrible student. So if im a horrible student, i dont know how im going to teach the youth of america to do anything. [laughter] its not that i was screwing around and out partying, i just wasnt very good at school. And, you know, i would say that i was enrolled at the university, not that i was attending the university. And after three years this was in wisconsin and after three years i decided that i wanted to do something in the real world, and i moved to this homeless shelter in washington, d. C. , the community for creative nonviolence which was just two blocks from the capitol at the time. You know, hundreds of people. And i started, i was mopping floors and cleaning toilets and taking a lot of veterans, actually, to doctors appointments. At that time for me the idea that a veteran was living in a homeless shelter was stunning to me, and i would talk to all of these old guys. And i started listening to a lot of talk radio. And i had never heard of this woman called amy goodman, and i heard her one day on the radio, and shes taking on Newt Gingrich, the speaker or of the house, and taking on rebels this the congo and talking about social justice struggles in the United States, on immigration issues, and i said i want to be a part of that. Some of the young folks who might be familiar with the terms im about to use, but i used a pen and what was called paper, and i wrote her something we used to call a letter and put it inside of whats called an envelope, and i licked this thing called a stamp anyway,. [laughter] i want to do anything for you if i can. If you have a dog, ill walk your dog or feed your camp. And then i started going to events. She never responded. I was stalk her, basically, not in a creepy way, and i think she had to decide whether to get a restraining order or let me volunteer. So she let me volunteer, and i learned journalism as a trade. Real reporters would ask me to help them edit their pieces, so i learned by p watching journalists who i really admired engage in the trade. And once i started going international, going places like iraq, a fire just caught inside of me, and i wanted to tell the stories of people who had no voice. Host Jeremy Scahill is the author of black water, the rise of the worlds most powerful mercenary army. He serves as National Security correspondent for the nation magazine. His most recent book, dirty wars the world is a battlefield. The first call for him comes from carl in ft. Lauderdale. Hi, carl, you on book youre on booktv on cspan2. Jeremy scahill is our guest. Caller yes, el low. Ive followed jeremys career for quite a while. I think his work is exemplary on blackwater and especially in the new book. Earlier on the panel you had suggested that possibly were in the reason that were in the state we are now with obama was basically naive. He had no military experience, no Foreign Policy experience. If you could speak to him in light of what snowden has revealed, what could be done . Because to my light, hes about the best kind of were going to get. Another bush or cheney would be a disaster. So heres a guy, a constitutional lawyer, a liberal, a good man. What could he do now to really make transparent and stop some of these abuses as you see them . Host thank you, carl. Guest appreciate the question. First of all, i dont think and if i gave that impression, i didnt mean to i dont think that president obama was knew brief. I think hes an incredibly brilliant figure. In fact, when he was in the senate, i worked with his office at times journalistically on the blackwater issue, you know, because he has a young he as a young u. S. Senator actually was pretty serious about that issue. So i dont think its about naivete, i think if he came into Office Without having military experience, without having serious Foreign Policy credentials and was to say to the entire u. S. National security apparatus, actually, i disagree with everything and im going to do it this way, i think he would have had a very tough time being the commander or in chief. Whistle blowers have been indicted and others in prison for blowing the whistle on water blowing. Obama used this credibility to put a stamp on policies that republicans would not approve of. I promised you would ask you why you continual bash the president . Why do you bash president obama . I dont see it as bashing president obama at all. There is a reason why journalism is the only sited job in the United States constitution. And that is because we have three branches of government. And if those three branches of power collude together against the interest of the people the press is the forth estate. And journalist have a role to take against those in authority. What i would say to the caller is go back and look at my record in reporting on clinton, bush j obama. I have been consistent towards those in power and that is a core tenant of journalism. It doesnt how president obama treats his daughter. I care about how he treats the broader children in america by his policies. Robert, you are on booktv. Hi, jeremy, thanks for taking the call. First off, thank you for your courage is being the last shining light of journaltshinig light of journa shining light of journalism. And it was cool to hear you write the letter and i will pester you to get an internship in the new outlet you are starting. I watched the film dirty war and there are many aspects of this story that strike me to believe the United States Foreign Policy and what they are doing over there, is creating more terrorism than it is ridding the world of. My question to you as someone who knows about this, and the true consequences of these policies, is do you think it would be beneficial to leave that part of the world alone . Bring the military back. Defend america. And stop invading countries. Or do you think some presence over there is necessary . Thank you, robert. I do think that we should totally pull out militarily from this nations. I think there is a responsibility way to do that. You cannot move tens of thousands of troops and equipment overnight so there has to be a safe way of withdrawing. And i dont know if you remember this but when governor george ryan was governor of georgia. He was a republican and cochair of bushs campaign. It wasnt that ryan was opposed to the Death Penalty. It was that there was proof, a lot generated by students, that innocent people were being put to death and dna evidence was working for them after hey were killed. I think we have hit that point with the drone strikes, targeted killing and night raids and the use of secret prison. We need to look at how far we have gone over the cliff since 911. And debby is calling from just across the mbay in miami beach. Your on live with Jeremy Scahill. Debby, we will have to put you on hold. Remind her to turn down the volume and we will move on to the next call. This is richard in massachusetts. Hi, i am like you and i need my daily dose of amys show and i brought your book in cambridge when she interviewed you. My question is three days after 911, the congress minus congressman lee, was the only authorization of the use of military force was passed. And bush and obama have used the authorization to do anything they want in the middle east with drones or whatever. My question is do you think that the neo conservatives and liberals will resend that law . Can you believe we will have troops in afghanistan until 2024. There is a lot there. I think the original authorization was a disaster piece passed because of fear. I tell young people to be watch barbaras speech. Imagine being the only decenter in congress on that vote days after the 911 attacks took place. There is discussion about repealing or modifying the authorization for the use of military force, but at the end of the day, under the article two of the constitution, the american has the right to control Foreign Policy. Democrats and republicans alike have violated the war power act and not sought congressional approval to go to many wars. Even if we repealed the amf, there is the overlying issue that there is an incredible executive power grab that was the life work of chaney and obama pushed it further along. Jeremy, in reading dirty wars where are we surprised about the troop ss . A lot of the book focus on africa and near the kenya boarder and it is called camp simba. And there is where they con fronted the pirates that is now made into a movie. But they regularly do raids there. And they have a military base in another area where drones are flown. There are troops on the ground in syria, libya, and a lot of smoke about ben gaza and a lot is conspiracy on the whitehouse. But there is a lot we dont know about. There were operations that are not documented and my sense is the attack had nothing to do with the video, but everything to do with the dirty wars. In the conflict in mali there were people on the ground. In Central America there are United States military and cia engaged in military style tickets. On any given day, jshock or others are deployed in 120 countries. Some cases are training but some are hunting them down. The United States is targeting islamic rebels in the fill feenz. Philippines i have a quick question for you have see seen the rise of amy and which version of journalism do you consider the most legit form . Alex jones is more basic. What is your answer to that . I got the question. I want to be careful in choosing my words. I think alex jones is a lunatil. He has forwarded the most outrageous conspiricacy theorie. He is pushing outright law and that subverts real journalism by giving the impression everyone is running around with a tin foil hat on. He is not in the same category as amy goodwin. Greg from iowa. Let me put this on mute here. I was wondering is the common tater here earlier said he was going to ask you the question about how come you always slam president obama. And you mentioned that for you it was because of some of his policie policies. Oh, crum. The person in the whitehouse greg, what is your point . My point was oh greg, did you have a question for Jeremy Scahill . He did a good job of explaining. Greg, very much we appreciate your calling but we will move on to lorenzo in berkeley, california. Thank you for taking my call. I am calling from barbara lees Congressional District and i was lucky enough to see you speak in may and love the book. My question is for you is given things like rand paul and the drone issues and the hearings and then people visiting for the congress people. Do you think events are a shift in the drone strikes or are they drops in the buckets. I felt embarrassed as an american when he had the pakistan and yemen family members of drone strike victims and only a handful of congressmen showed up. He is an incredible man and is on a panel with academics and was asked almost no questions. I dont think it represents a shift. I think congressman grace credit and congressman myers and lee has beenspoken on this. You raise rand paul and this is fascinating thing that has happened. Rand paul did something i think Congressional Democrats should have done and that is to shutdown the congress and say lets take a stock of how far we have gone. We have a president who won the noble prize and saying he has the right to assassinate a United States citizen. Rand paul is against everything i am in favor in. But on these he is right. But when people like sarah palin starts tweeting against drones that is political. She is riding around in the helicopter shooting at animals and she would love drones if she were in charge. Chen from richmond, virginia. Go ahead with your question. Thank you. This is kind of along the same lines as the last caller. But i want to get your thought about what happens with syria and how, you know, all signs pointed to a strike. And it just changed and if you thing it was political against obama or congressman like grayson. What were the difference forces at play that affected us not going in . And if you could talk about what happened this morning in iran as well. So, first of all, on the syria issue, the United States is already intervening in syria. The cia is supporting groups with weapons and strategic satellite imagery to enable them to engage with forces. The russians are involved. The iranians are involved. The United States is engaged already. But your question is interesting. I think what happened was president obama made this statement that for him a red line was the use of chemical weapons. And when it came out they used chemical weapons. Obama is being asked by the press and al llies what are you going to do . And they were looking at a strike with maybe drones and tomahawks that would send a m s message and didnt intend for an exte extended air fair. And the obama was caught off guard on the opposition. And people on the left are fed wind up with the wars. The whitehouse miscalculated the opposition what is the companion to this . I was writing the book while the film was being being shot. So the nfilm is about an investigation that beacame a book. It was challenge and beneficial to do it this way. When you have interviews on video you can write color you would not be able to by taking pictures in your reporters notebook. But when you stick a camera in someones face they act different than if you were writing shorthand. It was an interesting road. I dont know if we would do anything like that again. I felt like my whole live was being filmed for three years. But the director of the film is a combat camera man himself. You are first book on black water. Have you read eric princes book . You said eric was in the cspan and coming out and arm wrestling me. He would beat me. No doubt. He was a navy seal. This book was supposed to come out a year ago and there is a legal battle going on and they are suing each other. And one of the things that helped him write the book said it was in part to get revenge on me. There is a lot of propaganda people are going to put out. I only started to read the bookfe bookfe bookfelt. But the fact no one from black water was held accountable for the killing or involvement wasnt exposed is a real injustice. I think eric prince is engaged in something we call gray mailing. Not blackmailing. But he has been doing this for a long time. This is a guy who worked for the cia and has top security clearance. And black water men were at the center of some significant events. When ford chapman was blown up in 2009, there were two black men among them that were killed. And thaz that is how close they were to someone that was aware of the meeting. Eric prince knows where lots of buddies are buried and whose closets contain threats that would threaten the livelihood of people. And eric prince has been affective at keeping the government away. Two bestsellers, george poke awards, you write for the nation, how has life changed since mopping floors at the center of nonviolence . One of the first interviews i did was here on booktv. I had never done anything like that before. When i wrote the book, i went on the daily show and i said i dont want to ever do this. I feel every time i am invited to go on a bigger television show. I feel like i am speaking for a lot of people whose voices are not heard. And i assume it the last time they will let me on people so i try to talk fast and get in as much as i can. Jeremy scahill, please come back to booktv. This is his most recent book dirty wars. The world is a battlefield. Coming up, a callin program with debby shultz. Congresswoman from south florida. And then Chris Matthews wraps up the coverage from Miami Book Fair. First, it is our 15th anniversary and Miami Book Fairs 30th anniversary and we want to show you coverage and here is president bush talking about his book from 2010. The world saw this as threat. And i felt it was important to deal with him because the biggest danger facing america is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of someone choosing to do us harm. One thing that is clear is i tried to make diplomacy work. It was exhausting to convince him that we meant what we said at the United Nations security counsel. There was a Debate Council if i should go to the council at all. And some said no, you dont need to. Your position as you say in the book is that legally he was in violation of previous trust. And what is interesting, that i think will interest people here in america, is that i wanted there to be a coalition of freedomloving nations who were willing to confront him so he would understand it wasnt just the United States. But those nations cannot act without a un security resolution. Not the case for america, but a lot of the nations the leader said lets go to the council. And we passed the resolution. And thren we had a diplomatic and military track trying to send signals that say if you defy this there is consequences. In terms of weapons of mass destruction, what i think people forget is that prior to my arrival in washington, the Congress Passed a resolution calling for regime change. And we passed an authorization allowing me to use forces to protect the American People. You cant be playing politics with the security of the United States and with those who wear our uniforms. [ applause ] i am not aquasaying it the s feeling of when a person is sent to the fight and loses their life. The president talked about the strength we gotten from speaking it family members that have fallen members. Can you tell us about this . I want the military people to understand the strength of the nation. I go to see a woman and her two children and i talk about going eye level and telling them how i fought back tears because i wanted them to hear the words your father was a hero. And after the meeting, valerie handed me a flier and says question this it says john did his job, you do yours. So there is a lot of meetings like that where the strength of character of our people come out. We are a blessed nation to have brave people that volunteer in the safe of danger and their families that support them. [ applause ] mr. President , some of my friends in london didnt think you would get along with the british prime minister. He has the london skityle and i sophisticated. I am not sophisticated; is that what you are suggesting . Blare and i became fast friends. I admire him because he is a courageous person and he gives you his word and means it. Laura and i spent time with him and his wife. I made a lot of friends in the national arena, but i would say tony and i ended up with a fast friendship. What is interesting is i found it to be unusual to find politicians or people in elected office to be able to look beyond the horizon. I thought blare did that in a strategic thought. I believe they had a longterm view of issues. You did have a few debates with blare. One on the Death Penalty and lost. I made it clear, he was objecting to my position as governor of texas and president supporting the Death Penalty. I happen to believe i made it to her the Death Penalty saves lives. You were reelected with the majority of the vote. The first time in 16 years the president ial nominee got the mau mau majority of the vote. You went in with Social Security and then pushed for changes in the immigration laws. They were not successful. I would probably run the immigration plan first if i could do it over again. But i didnt. So i pushed those Social Security hard. And through the matters, congress didnt want to reform Social Security. There is issue where i will congress is more proactive on the issue. And i think it is unfair to pay into the a broke system. I went to washington to deal with problems. And not shy away from them because there might be bad political consequences. So then i ran the Immigration Reform which was widely praised after the speech in the oval office. The issue got away. The rhetoric on the issue was difficult. Someone was nervous about the boarders and automatically labeling the plans made it difficult to get people to paw attention. I have no regrets, but i wasnt successful in both cases you have a chapter on iraq going into 20032004 and later in the book you have a chapter on the surge and you talk about in the spring of 2006 you came to believe that our strategy in iraq was failing and that you needed to make changes in that. That resulted in the search strategy which i think is generally agreed to have been successful. Why did you change your mind . How did you turn the government around on that . First, i changed my mind because i feel we were beginning to loose. And a loss in iraq would be a major blow to the security in the United States. And it would have meant the sacrifices were in vain and it would send shockwave throughout the universe. I believe freedom exist for everybody if we gabe them the chance they would express to live in a free society. We pushed saul policy, but then the security went down hill and democracy couldnt take ahold. I asked my security ad visor fo options our live coverage from miami is continuing. Chris matthews will be in chapman hall in a half hour and he is going to talk about his newest book. First we will talk with congressman debby shultzs. You said in yourpress presentat three years to write this. Why . Well, about four months after i decided to move forward, obama called me and asked me to take on another fulltime job and share the democrat committee. I felt like in order to do the book justice and my job justice coming out with a policy book during the campaign wasnt the best idea. So we pushed it forward and i spent another year researching and writing and came out in october. By the time this book is published you write i hope we will look back on the Health Care Reform and debt ceiling and knowledge it was rock bottom. I dont want to imagine how it would get worse. Well, just when you thought it could not get worse, we end up having the republicans and tea party stopping the government to stop people from getting quality, Affordable Health care. Who is the next generation . That is our children. I wrote thigs through the lens f being mother. Even though politicians talk about the next generation, it isnt abstract concepts for me. I have one in the back of my car. I wrote the book to say we have to measure the success by how well our children are doing. And we have to get engaged in issues that matter to us. Representative will we with us for the next 25 minutes. The numbers are on the screen and if you would like to call. 2025853890 for those of you in the eastern. And 2025853891 in the mountain time. And you can send a tweet at booktv if you cannot get through on the phone lines. You talk about the patriot act and spying. In 2011, when passed, most of the congress voted for it. How would you have voted . I happ i know it isnt a fair question. I was in congress when we vote for the reauthorization and i voted against them. They didnt strike a balance between protecting our privacy and security. There were versions i voted for. It is hard to see how i would vote in 2011. But we have to find the balance and we need to continue our quest to strike it because i am not sure we have there. Edward snowden, has he done the nation a favor . He is a trader. He has dramatically damaged our country and shouldnt be looked out as a patriot. He compromised National Security and violated an oath he took and did serious damage in the United States of america. One of the terms you use, bipartisanship, in your presentation earlier, you talked about the dinners and things you do, but how do you maintain bipa bipa bipartsenship . The easy thing to do is default to our respective corners and dig in. As the chair of the Democratic National committee, i support my partys agenda, but i recognize it cant be my way or the highway. We dont have enough people that believe that. So it is my responsibility to reach congress the aisle and find republicans we can work with. But there are a precious few. Many are worried about loosing their elections. You cannot have people in congress that care more about power than the right thing. Are they suspiuspicious of y . There are some. But we hold dinners to clear away perceptions that our roles create. One thing you wrote in the book is that obamacare Affordable Care act can be altered. Is that a Fair Assessment . Like any legislation. What i wrote about the Affordable Care act obamacare in the book is that just like legislation we have had for more than 200 years, when there are problems we need to sit down and Work Together. We dont need to go through 43 different attempts to repeal or deny people the access to health care. The Affordable Care act is a bill that was passed by both houses, sieb signed by the president and upheld by the Supreme Court. As problems arise, we should sit down and commit to Work Together. But republicans have to agree on the basic premises that health care is a right, not a privilege. Other other issue energy independence. What did you propose that is different . We have to wean off fossil fuels. Investing in alternate Energy Resources while engaging in an all of the above strategy. We are getting to the point where we are exporting natural gas. But we have to have the all above strategy. Not drill baby drill. Who is the next generation of leaders in congress . Would you like to be speaker of the house . I am focused on what is in front of me and that is doing the best i can for the 23ered Congressional District. Who is the next generation of leaders in the house . On both sides. There are a number of members on both sides of the aisle that are building toward positions of leadership but i think probably better to leave that question to others. I know nancy has her list and i was included in and pleased to be asked to be a part of the leadership and serve. So you know, right now, we have to focus on working together and getting things turned around. First elected congress in 2004. First call from collene. Go ahead. Yes. I would just like to ask, or maybe make a statement, i would like to know why republicans think that everybody in this country wants to think like them. Why they cant figure that some people dont want their opinions or actions especially whether the came to choking the country in the name of the Affordable Care act because they didnt like it and figured that would work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is one of the points i make in the book. And that we have to stop with the my way or highway politics. Even as chair of the dnc, i support my partys agenda and fought like heck to make sure week get it adopted, but i recognize there are other people that have valuable opinions and it is important to reach across the aisle to get Common Grounds. We need more people on the other side to embrace that conflict and i think well be able to get more done who are your best friends on the republican side . Lamar smith. He is amazing. I am surprised you and smith. We have been the cospon ser of many bills. You couldnt be more polar opposites, but there are a few should see that matter to both of us. I invited him and he came to my district in south florida and we did a round table on child protect and did a property tour to learn about the import ps of protecting property. Have you visit him in texas . We enjoy working together and set aside the issues that we dont agree on. Next call comes from neal in wellington, florida. You are on booktv. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to say debby you have to best smile of anyone i know in congress. Keep it up. And visit wellington. Okay . Thank you. Thank you. You are welcome. Thank you. That was it. Richard in pleasant grove, utah. What is your question . My question is how come obama and the Democratic People are writing us down with the social plan to take aware our children, shove health care down our throat we cannot afford and tell us we have to take care of everybody. Maybe you people need to read the book and see what hitler did to his people. I am very upset about it. Lets get a response. Obviously, i dont share richards view. And what we are trying to do as democrats under president obamas leadership is focus on what most peoples priority is which is creating jobs and getting the economy to turn around and longterm issues and get a handle on the safety net programs like Social Security and medicare. That is the appropriate role for the government and i think most americans agree. Which is why they reelected president obama. Do you think richards concern . He feels it is being put on him. Is that a fair concern . I really dont. In this case, accusations like he unfortunately chose to do isnt constructive. I wish folks like him would step back, listen and engage in dialogue and understand the other sides point of view. When you here talk like his, it is evident he is watching fox news and gets the information mostly from rightwing conservative sources and isnt open to other points of view. And that is why i wrote the book. Hopefully someone finds a way to see we have to try to Work Together and not dig in so hard and accept everything we hear from one side or another. Putting on your political hat for a moment. The rollout of the Health Care Website has it hurt democrats polytically . That is not a political issue. It is critical. And obama believes that we have to get the website on so people can get on and comparison shop. So, what it does to us polpoin favor isnt the issue. I believe democrats, because of the benefits, that the Affordable Care act provided to many, we will run as candidates on obamacare as an advantage in the 2014 election. This is john and for the next generation. I just want to know two questions. What is the difference between daniel osburg and snowden. And how do you determine a right to get health care through working which you neglected in the concept of health care being a right. It is great if we can provide the right for health care to know acquired but when you throw it out there for others to pay and not have to do anything for a product service. If you could explain that, that would be fantastic. Sure. I think you have a misconception of what the Affordable Care act does. We are paying right now without the Affordable Care act we are paying for millions of people who show up at the emergency room that are so sick. The Affordable Care act care allows them to get the coverage and go to the doctor without the need of the a copay. And stay well instead of going to the emergency room and costing us more. My parents raised me if you dont have your health, you dont have anything. So making sure we can insure everybody has the ability to stay healthy makes us a stronger a better country where did you grow up . On long island and lived there till 18 and moved to florida to go to the university of florida. Go gators what did your parents do both of them live in my hometown now. But my mom was in retail and managed greenhouses for many years. My dad is a cpa. And they are down in florida . They moved to south florida when the twins were five months old. And i dangled them in front of them and it was an easy choice when i took them home after four days next call from kathy in new hampshire. Hi, i am calling hello, kathy. I am calling with an idea and i dont know if it would work, but it might. Say you had a 45 percent National Sales tax on all goods and services and you use this money totally to pay for medicaid. Now medicare is taken care of it. So you would cap all of the people not on medicaid and medicare. You would cap the rates that Insurance Companies could ask of them and lower the price for all of the people that are inbetweens. I wondered what you thought of that idea. Kathy, why do you think that is a good idea . Because i think it it would be a fair way, and it would bring the rates down, and it would be people could make the choice if they didnt want to pay a National Sales tax and if they didnt want to they would not by the skis or the new dress or whatever. And it would just i think it would lower the rate of people between medicare medicaid. Thank you very much. Lets see what congresswoman thinks about that idea. Thank you. Well, kathy, i really feel like the Affordable Care act was important because it focused beyond just medicare medicaid. Medicaid was expanded in the states where you have governors and legislative members that accepted the funds. And we allowed people that slipped in the gaps between qualifying and getting coverage at work. You have a big number of people, almost a million in florida, who fall into the that void. Unfortunately our legislators and governor refused to accept the fund sews funds so they will not get covered we have an individual requirement for Health Insurance that puts everyone into the pool. Adding Healthy People wloo whoo are not covered who are not and we need to work forward to the Affordable Care act and giving it a chance to work. For the next generation the communicators came out and who is julie . She helped me talk about my story. Where did you do most of the writin writing . I did it in new hampshire. We have a family home and when we go on breaks i would spend time on that. But with all of the jobs i have i had to cram in the time. We would schedule a specific time so we could focus on it. Have Political Parties become less significant . In what way . Do they matter as much . Do people care about the democratic Republican Party like they used it . I think parties absoluteabso playmal ly do matter. People that dont have time and are not focused on researching individual candidates, if they know they identify with one party or the other, supporting that partys canada candidate is a save way to vote. Years ago, parties had more of a significant law because the Campaign Finance laws were different. But the Citizen United Supreme Court decision has changed the impact that Political Parties have. Now you have this uncountable corporate infusion of donations where they are drowning campaigns and candidates in accountable money. And it is really unfortunate and put campaigns up for sale. That hurt the dnc and rnc . We just had our best two months in Online Fundraising in history. And that is because people are tired of the gridlock and tea party being allowed to control the agenda and shutting the government down. And being willing to hold the economy hostage all in the way of getting their way on issues that matter to them. I think people look at them as irresponsible and are turning to the Democratic Party. We take a balanced approach and are focus on make sure everyone can join the middle class. If you want to succeed you get a fair shake and that is what we are focused on. Another call. This is marilyn in california. Hi. First of all i want to thank you very much for articulating clearly about the health care act. There is no such distortion going on. And i think you need to be on a national lev. I am a retired nurse. It means a lot to me. I ordered your book for my young physician daughter who is the next generation. And my other question for you goes to what was said how are you going do withstand the pressure to become subdued and give up ideal and stay in politics like i have seen happen more and more to amazing startup politicians. I think you have an amazing future. Thank you so much. Well, this is my 21st year in office. I was elected to the Florida House of representatives at the age of 26. I knocked on 25,000 doors in my first race and all of the good ole boys said it wasnt my turn. But i have had a lot of orange juice and visited bathrooms in the district i represent. I am committed to making sure you dance with the one that brought you. And this book is your book as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. In about ten minutes, Chris Matthews will be talking about his book the giver or i am going to mess up the name of the books. When pop politics work is the name of that book. We want to show you past c coverage of the Miami Book Fair and then we are back live. And he stopped in massachusetts to get again to eat. Hes sitting there in a restaurant and a couple comes up in the man says i know you. Youre on the Supreme Court, right . He says yes. Youre stephen breyer, right . He didnt want to embarrass the valid part of his wife, so we said yes, and stephen breyer. They chatted for a while and the patsy question that he didnt expect. Justice breyer, whats the best thing about being on the Supreme Court . He thought for a minute that id have to sit the privilege of serving with david souter. [laughter] and then off he went. How can you not love an institution where thats possible even today . [laughter] jeffrey, many years ago i worked for the dow jones Weekly National observer and i was the backup reporter, Court Reporter for that paper with nina totenberg, now famous at npr and im sure you know nina. Nina would come back from covering the court with wonderful little stories from the end i. And it wasnt exactly cost of, but it sheds some light. Was not disparage gossett. [laughter] a little gossip is good. A little gossip is all right. Your book is not at all costs of pete, but youve got people i dont think its gossipy. But you have sources that told you things about the justices and it would seem to me, but just oozes themselves confided in you. How did you get these very private people to talk so openly . You know, to understand the context, you have to go back to 1979. 1979, bob woodward and Scott Armstrong published the brethren. Fabulous cow wonderful book, tremendous information to me. It was the first time the court had been open to public scrutiny at all. I mean, it really was a groundbreaking, world changing book. But it also traumatized the court a great deal. The theme of the book if you recall was how much all the justices warren burger, who was then the chief justice. The airing of dirty laundry prompted it falling back on public access. But the key fact to know about the brethren it out with 1969 to 1975. The court has turned over in its entirety since then. Many of the justices came of age. The Current Court came of age at a time when media scrutiny was less terrifying and less polarizing than less threatening that applies to the earlier generation. I think there is a recognition on the part of many justices. I dont mean all of them, that there is a need to speak to the public in some way other than through the written opinion. These are also proud people, prominent people with substantial egos and they want their story out there and they recognize talking to the press under certain circumstances is one way of doing it. When Justice Breyer came to the university of Miami Law School year, i guess two and half years ago, when he published his book, which you talk about in your book. In fact, he was willing to sit down with me for an interview. I was able to ask him about the famous can indicate case. The kilo case a minute domain case. And i did ask him, not to quote myself, but i said Justice Breyer, does everybody, to the supermarket and say steve, what are you guys thinking about when you look to private property be taken for their private property . Usually says im souter. [laughter] well, you know, not much. I mean, one of the things about being a Supreme Court justice thats so good is that there is they exposed as not of themselves as they choose to expose. I mean, they really have a lot of control. Thats the main reason why there are no cameras in the courtroom. Its a disgrace that there are no cameras in the Supreme Court courtroom. All of the arguments against cameras in the courtroom, intimidation of witnesses, to plan the Supreme Court. They are not there because they dont want them there. David souter famously testified there be cameras in the courtroom over his dead body. Thats not a very good argument. But i think, you know, Justice Scalia says that there were cameras they would take soundbites of what we said. Thats how it works in america. The politicians the government officials dont get to decide. The private sector gets to decide that. You know, it is their candy store in a run at the way they want to. Thats a little more of our past coverage of the Miami Book Fair. Jeffrey toobin in 2007. On your screen now, let screenshot or Miami Dade College outside of chapman hall. Chapman hall is where weve been covering events all day long and now we are back up there in just a few minutes live. Chris mathews talking about his most recent book, when politics were. Hell be beginning in just a minute. Tip and the gipper its called to president reagan and tip oneill. This is less coverage on booktv on cspan2. Thanks for joining us. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] found my [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] well, as you can see the event with Chris Mathews has not started yet. We are told it will be just a few more minutes before he gets started. In the meantime, we want to share wildomar past coverage for miami. Miami celebrate the 30th year in the tv celebrates its 15th year. Tell us about where you see our culture going. Youre doing what you can do. In terms of reading, are we creating a culture of readers, nonreaders. Where are we right now . I think the worst thing happening right now is we are creating a culture where people dont listen. They dont listen to the other side. There is a quote. I read an editorial in the New York Times a couple weeks ago and it had to do with moralitys ability to bind and blind. You know, it finds people. He believes in whatever you believe, one way or the other or whatever you believe about entitlements or whatever you believe about Global Warming. But youre incapable of seeing the other side at all and that there might be any validity out side. You take that into congress and besides it there and they wont end. It will see the other sides point of view. Nothing happens. And the anger that comes out of that. A lot of people are just running around so angry because they just have this. This is what i think. Theres no other way other than my way. Its funny. Particularly reading about others peoples lives creates a sense of tolerance as well. Absolutely. Thats a great thing about books right now or then any other mediums that we have. A television is Getting Better interestingly. Movies. Its a lot of the same name. Hollywood, cops are bad, delinquents are good. Mobsters are good, you know, whatever. It is kind of crazy. But looks are the one place where theres such a variety. As you say, you can the other points of view. Other ways of looking at the world. You know, whats really going on . Theres a terrific book about afghanistan called the forever war. You read that took and you get it. Or at least you certainly get a really good point of view of whats going on over there. Yeah, i couldnt agree with you more. I also think that what is happening in terms of getting that selection. Most people dont realize theres hundreds of thousands of books printed each year and you need guides in order to find those books. Im curious to know what you think and how the world at the library and bookstore, how that plays into that and how its evolving. Clearly it is evolving today or can it be many more people are reading on tablets and whatever. Thats a done deal. Its happened. I think the really horrifying and right now as its so fast and nobody has taken responsibility for how do we make that transition in a sensible way . How do we continue to get the kind of advice we can get in bookstores, and libraries, how do we keep that alive . I am doing an essay right now, which has to do with who is going to save our books . Who is going to save our libraries . Whos going to see bookstores . Who is responsible for finding the authors who have created the Great American books of the last hundred years or so . And then it lists about ebooks. Whos going to do that . Is amazon going to do that . Seriously. Who is doing that . Same thing with the internet. I mean, if we chase all the magazines and networks that are journalism ultimately, right now a lot of these blogs or whatever picking stuff out of the news stories. Whos going to pay for the reporters . How does that happen . How do we get information . Nobody is sort of taking that to the next level, the issues they are. Any answers you mightve thought . I think a piece of it is the people who are at the head of this thing have to take responsibility. They really need to get men and i think they need to take more responsibility for what happens to books in this country. I think it would be nice. Id love to see the president and first lady, whatever. I like that the first lady is out there reminding us that its good to exercise and not, which is a huge issue. But id like to see more in washington. You know, who is protect teen books . You know, in europe they protect bookstores and they protect libraries and thats good. In germany, in particular. Germany, netherlands, scandinavia. They do protect it because they know thats the basis of the culture. Thats the basis of the civilization. I dont know that that is happening here and im not sure where its going to happen. That was James Patterson from last years Miami Book Fair international. On your screen again as chapman hall at Miami Dade College. As you can see, the room is ready, stages ready and Chris Mathews should be coming out any minute. Tip and the gipper is the name of his most recent work, tip and the gipper when politics worked. Live coverage on booktv on cspan2. By the way, everything you have seen today will reair tonight. We are about to begin, please take a seat. There are very few seats left. We have a full house this evening for the Closing Program here in chapman venner. I am sad to harrison and i am so pleased to welcome each and everyone of you here this evening to Miami Book Fair international and our 30th anniversary as you all know. Lets give this very round of applause. [applause] Miami Dade College and Miami Book Fair international are truly pleased to have wrought is fair to this community for the past 30 years. Thank you to so many of you who have been with us throughout the years, offering your support, visiting with this every year in bringing more and more of your friends and families here. How many of you are from out of town in this room . A very warm welcome to all of you from out of town. [applause] and thank you for visiting with us at the fair inherent Miami Dade College. Id like to recognize all of the volunteers without whom this fair with you do not have taken place. Students, faculty and staff who have given up themselves. Thank you. [applause] also, many, many high schools to ensue up also offered their time and have been here in various capacities to help make this what it is today. We also have our sponsors as well as American Airlines, again whose generosity with so many other sponsors have helped make the fair as special as it is has rejoined today. Weve been enjoying for the past seven days. The friends of Miami Book Fair international, thank you and thank you again for your support. Those of you who were not friends, let me also invite you to become friends of the fair. As you know, Miami Book Fair international is a yearlong event with Many National event and author programs in writing and dictates taking place throughout the year. Thank you to everyone in that regard. At this time, i would like to ask for you to consider giving to Miami Book Fair international. We are asking you to consider texting mbsi to 41444. If you are so inclined, give dirty dollars in recognition of her of the Book Fair International has been in existence. We ask you with much appreciation. Thank you so much for your generosity. Without further ado, i would like to bring on the individual that would bring a special guest this evening. Katie feng is a partner at lp. She successfully recommended represented clients in many, many areas of law. Shes very dedicated to Community Service and engagement in our community and her law firm as a proud sponsor of Miami Book Fair International Closing authors program. Please help me welcome katie feng. Crop not [applause] hi. The 30th annual Miami Book Fair internationals closing authors Chris Mathews of msnbcs hard ball and the syndicated Chris Mathews show. As jimmy carter once said, thoughtful criticism and close scrutiny about government officials by the press and the public are an important part of our democratic society. Chris mathews has fully embraced the notion through his work in the media, political commentary and several bestselling books as a speechwriter for president jimmy carter and serving as chief of staff for the speaker of the house of representatives, tip oneill, Chris Mathews has been on the front lines of for several decades. His access provides an intimate glimpse into the personalities of some of the worlds most influential power players. His newest held, tip and the gipper chronicles cooperation with flashes of conflict that was the relationship of tip oneill and ronald reagan. It is before 6 00 and two bonifay mislaid his ronald reagan, after 6 00, we can be friends. Before 6 00, its politics. So without further ado ladies and gentlemen, lets talk politics and lets welcome Chris Mathews. [applause] [cheers and applause] must be women. [laughter] whose frowning at me . One guy. Looking around for the france. Its great to be down here. I love this place. I love the weather. When your kid, summers are warming to get high. For some reason, summers are always warming your kids. Anyway, i wanted to read a book about something i knew about. I have three books inside. This is the first of three im going to. The other ones about the 60s, what i was really like. Every time i meet a kid come everybody here knows what im talking about. The 60s are just exciting. You could hear the music right now. Im a walrus. You can hear it, right . I heard it at chapel hill when i said that gore. Its great. Even if you wanted to drugs or crazy stuff, it was great entertainment. Because it was all around you and i was always a show on campus. It was a free time. And so, i want to write about that going into the peace corps in 68. [applause] sure was. Peace corps. And on the peace corps knows exactly what it was right. Even if we got things done for nothing compared to what it did for us. Changed our lives absolutely. I want to talk about that because were the only white guy guy like i said never been. Telling people not to keep their books and run businesses. I knew a little. I didnt know a whole lot. All the other guys for mbas. I was convinced of is equivalent to an mba. Didnt hurt anybody. The whole idea, but will part with the mamba snake it tried to jump in my window when i drove by it and its a sixfoot long snake. The garlic this. They galloped vertically. The attacker nervous with them and theyre going youve got 15 minutes. They keep coming at you until they get you. So this was over my when i was driving one day. You can see the heat waves coming up the dirt road. So i wasnt talking about that. This one guy said i never thought in my life id be driving a motorcycle in africa over a snake stone. [laughter] i never predicted that happen in his life. The other book i read about growing up. Anybody catholic here in the early 50s catholic . Stuart mary. It was like growing up in dublin 200 years ago. The rulers at the edges on them, but will hang. She just died, so im almost free. I cannot muster a top web. They all had to be goodlooking. The girls i got to class the racers had to be goodlooking and the way the nuns made their decisions totally autocratically. Blackandwhite milkshakes or chocolate. Blackandwhite mint b. Nielsen. To remember this stuff . Been in love with Regina Thomas from eighth grade to grade school and she never met. Ive got to write that without my wife getting mad. It was a long time ago. He went around grade school. So thats what i wanted to write about. The funnest job, the funnest job i ever had besides what i do come which obviously you can tell i get a kick out of a lot, especially monday to went they have exhausted by thursday and friday i am iraq. But i still love it. Bill loves everything. [laughter] he likes you, girl. Go, girl, girl. Anyway, theres no doubt what a job it was. It was the greatest job. In your early 30s you bop around. Your writing speeches as the plane takes off at 45 degrees and youre taping the the next and it was just unbelievable. I read about in the book about what it was like to lose. Got lost in seattle after election day. Total drama have been on the plane. Its kind of like a james bond opening. A boutique scene and the rest is about something else. Insert it gets you into it. Eventually life is like that with schwarzenegger, which is an opening scene. So i wanted to get the action going. Its a great action writing. The greatest action writing never . Henry melville, the last chapter about the hunt. I read about the kennedy book. I love to do that and get that rate. So your rep to. And then i write about being with the toughest job ever in my life, which is working with tip oneill. I lucked into the biggest job in politics for me. The topic i fighting reagan come a great communicator. The great irony is that grew up liking reagan. Without likes him. He of course is the gipper. Speaking of Catholic School, one thing they did in Catholic School in third grade they prevent a movie projector to show you the allamerican said they can begin the indoctrination. This is your orientation as a catholic. You got to know the importance of notre dame. Its all about the team. Theyre never changing the name, by the way. Its always going to be the fighting irish. Some people say it makes us look bad. Well, we do fight. I was going to call this book donnybrook. I thought two irish guys fighting wasnt very newsy. Two guys want to fight . Thats interesting. No its not. They always fight. But they did fight a lot. I thought that was the story. Then i realized when i began to study it, i looked back on it. They thought, but the only ended up making a deal. Today they just buy it. Its like they got down to the Car Dealerships to hacker without any intent of buying a car. Imagine if you were like hey we got some time. Lets go argue with the guy. No attention. Go around and argue with him. I got a better deal at the ford guy over there. Can she do Something Better for me . Thats what its like in politics. They dont disagree. They agree to disagree because they fight. Now they dont even need a reason. The democrats passed the Republican Health care bill and republicans attack them for it. This is Heritage Foundation stuff. Individual mandates, selfreliance, good republican values. The wrong guy did it. Obama did it. Obamacare was a smart move by the president. Dont put your name on it. This is an product placement. This isnt going to help anybody. I told my producers, obama on television. Its been hit so hard. Call them the president. Get the name of rest for a while. Just call the president talked to bill. I slip into it, too once in a while. Its better that way. The way i write a book and everybody here whos had an idea, i will now maybe change your life. [laughter] i try not to be sarcastic it doesnt work. Im trying to be nice now. You can write one part of readiness that rating. If you decide what you want to do is get a thought across, a story across from a series of stories, the feeling, a sentiment. You can do it in the following ways. First of all, their size tips to writing. I wouldnt be teaching it. The only time i break this rule is when i knock the staffer tv every night. Its called io name do i say Something Like what we start with this. And then i write, let me end with this and finish with this depending on my mood. If you watched me, it will tell me something. The word and disarray. Sometimes they think the word finishes right. Im not sure why. I write that stuff. I read that stuff at 4 00. We do it at 5 00 bhajan on the air at 7 00. I just really write fast here generally when im writing some in for the ages like a book or newspaper article, i follow these four or five steps. The first step is simply collect your thoughts. I do little scraps of paper. In fact, im getting attention from San Francisco papers. I just put on the table but will have index cards scribbled ideas. Just collect the quote, fax, thoughts, whatever. Just put them on the table. At 17 when added to a column. And then i would arrange them. That was called organization. Collect is the first step. Dont start writing the first sentence. Dont try to write while youre collecting. Collect can only collect your material. A second staff and only this step. Dont do anything else. Organize. But this stuff in the chronological, logical, whatever. If you stick to the stage and dont get drawn into another state, if youre just collect them, its easy, fun. You can do it drunk. Its easy. Late at night and thinking of things. Throw it on the table. Organization you should be sober for. Id be clearheaded, cup of coffee, maybe. Have fun with that. So far breaking the spine. The third stage and just as much fun, keep your heart light in your headlights. Now its time to wrap it. Youve got it all organized. Just start roughing it. Play the music. Knock it out, splash it out there. Regurgitated, but following that organization, ray . And then you get to the underfund power. Put it away somewhere, go watch a movie. Go live. And then come back and polish it. As long as you stick to those for stages, collect, organize, rough and polished you will have something done that you wanted to get done all of your life, but now its done within a week. You will have it done. Is everybody going to thank me now . [applause] it will be done. It wont be talked about. By the way, you can use the process to write supposed. And then youre locked in. You got to climb over the wall to get the cat. So when i wrote this book hen it tip and the gipper, i basically had four tools, elements. I had reagans diary, which is amazing. Im too busy to keep a diary. Reagan was president of the United States feared he would go home every night and write this very long diary entry. He would describe, you have to buy the thing to get the whole thing. Douglas brinkley and nancy reagan agreed to do all this. You basically go through it and its got weather, like a farmers almanac. Everything about the weather. Reagans god at all they are. All the social life. In other words, thats what men do. You basically go out with the west has been sent her friends, ray . You dont pick your friends. You your wife takes her friends and their husbands. Hes hanging out with people that bloombergs and justin dohertys are cool guys im sure. And hangs out with the rich crowd. They were nancys husbands friend. Hes a weird guy. Check that one out in google. So he also did this family. Hes a family is an important. See ron showing up in patti showing up in marine when they were showing up. They bring their husband or spouse. Who is bringing who is all in there. Also with this political news. What happened at the meanings . Donnie brooks, all the description. He can really like you, but knock your head off. The strange relationship, the conflict did nature of it. Its all in there. The other thing with typical male is the press conference. Every morning i got up in the congress is in session may begin reading the papers. Sometimes id be scared to death because ibm to make a something wrong. I still have this problem of saying things i wish i hadnt said. Is my life. And i get up and read the paper. I rush in and try to write a statement i think you estimate that they sometimes. He would come in, talk to the press coming in outside. This big guy showed up. There was three of us. Ari weiss, genius, very orthodox guy. It cites a professor of hebrew. Curt odonnell is a boston irish guy. And myself. The three of us with reach them on the world. Thibodeau is that these questions that were always the same. Pick a big vacuum cleaner. What do you hear . Anything special . The idea that was we better tell them everything. Whos dropping a dime on them . Hes up to something . You want us to watch them. What are the republicans up to . I want to know at all. Our job was to make sure we did know everything. They would say where we are clerks he was about 25 at the time. Ari has a beard, very religious looking guy. He would just somehow know of it going on on the hill. I knew was going on in the media world and politics in the anglos he wanted to play. He would go over and say some dantoni, like do you have something for me . I may have missed event format day. Are you going to get something for me . Out of federally based out of my office next to the ceremonial office and i would not have a statement for the day before he could get there. Then i would put it on the desk as he sat down. I let doing this. He was put down and that would be his statement for the day. Derby tip oneills opinion that day. [laughter] but i knew what to write and he knew what he wanted me to write. If he was thinking about it, hed be thinking this. If he wanted to type it up, he typed it up. I knew what he wanted me to stay. So i did that for six years and absolutely required nothing go on. Never get in trouble, never say the wrong thing. Tepid stuff of my life. All the time were up against the toughest. He was the best there was. In fact, he watch the challenger speech down here and he and i watched them while emotional about it. I said peggy arafat speech. I can tell. The next day he called a in an end to congratulate her and thank her for the country. We had good relations with the reagan people like jim baker and Kenny Duberstein and we would work deals on the site. There is a homeless guy i was on a Hunger Strike as theyre going to name a Nuclear Submarine a warship to be. It is very cat that, and he said, why are becoming a warship the body of christ . Which seem to be a reasonable thing. So i said, when it should call mike deaver because hes playing the piano. Maybe we can kind of deal with him. So i call them up and he called me back. I said this guy is on its 56th day of his Hunger Strike. He saw me eating bread has he doesnt want to be called the corpus christi. He was definitely drinking in those days. Seems like a reason to kill yourself. [laughter] but that monday, he went to reagan and the secretary of defense change the ships named to the city of corpus christi, which is what he was supposed to be anyway. Good helmet started eating again. Later on he would recognize these incredible rallies against the white house that had nothing to do with except you wouldnt believe what theyre doing now. He would organize an incredible rallies. The steelworkers at 4 00 in the morning. My greatest glory await us went to put common space is one of yours . I loved that more than anything because it meant i could cause wonder and hit the nail had been around for 100 years. And so, it was fun. Organizing stuff behind the scenes. It is a great job, a touch of her wanted to write about because they think we need that tonic. The sense of politics is fun and positive and people dont hate each other and they get done. They did it. When reagan got in trouble and 82, tip back to math. The Social Security deal really works. It really does work. On tax reform they got the race under 20 , but they also equalized regular income with cap gains income, Equity Income which is much more progressive. Tipper a letter to reagan and saddam never tell anybody this, that you got to get to thatchers second that this thing. Now we dont have work anymore. It really did stand up behind reagan when he went to moscow. He met gorbachev first. Tip came back and said he reminds me of a new york lawyer. I said dont hold me to that one. In new york lawyer, whatever that meant. It was new york lawyer, which we thought the younger guys thought that was funny. He didnt think he was the smartest reagan. Turned out he was. He told gorbachev tremendous guy is the only president weve got appeared in a separate deals for us. By the way, he really does want to reduce nuclear weapons. Reagan, like most sane president hate mutual assured destruction. He said one time, why should all the russians die because we screwed things up . He was very human about not ever wanted to have it work. Kennedy spent the last part of their jeers turned to reduce the number and get that off our back you were still making sure that one now. So it was a Good Relationship about fighting, disagreeing, but caring more about our country then the fight. Now today we have a situation where it never seems to end. We have deadlines after deadlines at work. December 13 is going to get ignored. Were going to fight right through january 15 for another shutdown. Im not a fan of the Tea Party People. You will know that. But its their type accent dont like. They have a case. The debt is now as large as gdp. If they were all crazy and attacked ex, people would listen. Shutting down the government and calling people communists like this guy, ted cruz does, calling haeckel economy. Once i saw my city cant do that. You cant talk like that in this country. Weve been through all that before. But you know, saying the debt thing doesnt matter, Everybody Knows that matters. We had a near miss and love him and another near miss this time. It like what, are you guys crazy . Politics shouldnt be a problem. It should be a solution and now its become a problem. Because in the end they dont deal. I was talking to a group of people and make it as little work for raising money to get hit by sandy. It said the country doesnt aim or democrats. They need more republicans, in a complicated. What is a grownup . Charles schulz was obviously brilliant. What he saidcharles schulz wasy brilliant. What he said, in fact, hes one of the guys that said dont expect to be inspired every day. Get up and work. Something comes to me. I dont say i dont have an idea, i think ill take it off. He said the difference between a grownup dedicated this. Kids are great. The kid gets to sit in the back seat and complain. This is how important kids. Shes on my site or she just touched me or he just touched me. Or when are we getting our . Im hungry. Whine, whine, whine. Thats it kids do. Thats their prerogative, their entitlement. The purpose to drive the car, pay for the gas and know what theyre going. They have to get there. They have to have a plan. Politics today is a bunch of kids in the back room in the backseat of the the car complaining. Its like kid, hes on my site. I dont care what side. I want a grownup. Thats the problem today. Your people complaining about the other side. It never ends. I think as far should the right wing fall. I think there was a problem. If we talked to somebody else, you have to meet them occasionally, like say hello, im the president. Lets get together. Lets talk. Every time i needed a hhotel echo hes many the message across. He doesnt like them. I really like you. But it should come to the hotel near my house . [laughter] hemmingway im sure being readers when he was writing, remember he always said, i dont know which one of the books. He said whatever company sense to bother him to bother him here we say lets meet at a buyer could then i can leave. Then theyre stuck at the bar drinking. Youre going back to where you want to be. Catch you do not the apartment. He also needs a nice number electrode which sends all the wrong signals for dinner. [laughter] id be glad to have 12 of you over for dinner [laughter] id be glad to have 12 of you over for dinner. [laughter] anyway, think da vinci. Anyway, it does not work. They dont like each other. Somebody once said to jimmy carter, one trend on the hill. Hell tell you what going on. I talk to people. I guess hes too big to have the relationship. Id ask whats going on. You got to have someone on the inside to tell you whats going on. Lets figure it out. Personalities to play cards with these guys. Franklin Delano Roosevelt felt the need because he wanted to get during the course of the game and after a few Drinks Company with pay joe doesnt like you. You got to spend time with the kids and grownups to hear what they say. Nobodys going to stop you and tell you everything they know. After three of four hours of playing cards they will tell you a lot. Thats the adult relationships in there. I used to work in the old days before Newt Gingrich came along and change a lot of this stuff, they were friendly. People like thinking of gerry ford and tip were best friends. And rostenkowski. These people would try 14 hours on thursday night to chicago to drive back on monday with two guys sleeping in the back. One day try again, one guy keeping them awake and sleeping on a mattress because they push the Station Wagon seats over. They didnt have all these allowances. They got to know each other. Talk about kids, family, lives. Guys to talk after a while. Take the bio. Im worried about one kid. The other kid is the booze problem. The other problem with politics is because it is said do this. The mansion tuesday, wednesday, thursday night. Listening to this house telling them whats going on at home. The kid is drinking again, got caught in school again. Hes not doing his homework. All you hear is this to pay every night. You go to work in everybodys looking good, how great you are. Doesnt build strong marriages. It doesnt. So its better if the wife comes to washington with the number. Thats what tip always encouraged. Bring your wife to washington. Thats socialized, weekts where the socialized, weekends you can campaign, but most of the time you with your family and raising them. If they stay at home, youre campaigning and you never see them. You might go to church with them. Thats about it. So a lot of this is social. Politics today is somewhat dashed so much as written the cost to shame. So much is the idea of a honeymoon. When you first get elected president of the United States, used to be you got the respect of the pair. The press left you alone because the people picked you. You should have a chance to get your program across. They should be voted on. He didnt play any games. I know obama gets elected. They dont say give the guy a shot. Its like how to get rid of them . So its not in the constitution. But elections sort of matter and you ought to get the guy who gets a good in the future probably a woman give them a honeymoon. It was a happy signing ceremony. It used to be every once in a while they would have everybodys smiling. There is plenty pictures of tip and reagan smiling because they just solve the problem. Like Social Security or tax reform or whatever. They are glad they did it or reduce the deficit. They smile because they can sign it together. Theres no honeymoons. No successful deals. None of the joy of politics as they are. It is this constant threat of shutdown followed by these disappointing 11th hour socalled solutions that you know couldve been reached months before. Just a vietnam war couldve been in 69 instead of 73. The same terms. We know it was the same terms. You go, why are these guys putting around . Pay attention. Again its just a game. Were taking it seriously. When is this going to end . We know its not going to end until the last hour. And so, i think in the old days they were growing up. They always compromised in the end. He was not the guy who gave the speeches are wrote pamphlets. He was a much more moderate governor of california, mature moderate president than ideologue and tip oneill would always be there to make videos. I wish boehner had this dust. I dont understand them. I think hes afraid of. [laughter] he just did. Hes the godfather brother. Its just, get it together. If i were him, i would just call it though. All the crazy right wingers in tea party say about now. Im running for speaker. When somebody gives me. A fun thing speaker, and making the calls around here. Look at it though. [applause] challenge these people. I know theyre afraid. The next town meeting to sit in the back row, probably with a couple pops, who says he sold us out. I say talking to the president the other day. You are within. You are one of them now. Its crazy, crazy. Talk about participating in government and giving away your role. Your role is to argue. Your role is to fight it deal in the end because as long as everybody this room is going to be two Political Parties share in political power in the country. Get used to it. Its not uganda. Its not tanzania. Its not oneparty states. Its always two parties fighting with each other. Got it . Thats the way its going to be. Theres going to have to be compromised. People say they just did it my way. Theyre not going to do it your way. Its never going to work that way. Youve got to be a learned tune to believe that. Sometimes we should do the cartoon music when these people come on. [laughter] mr. Peabody, where we going today . [laughter] i just wish they recognize the simple fact that two Political Parties. One of the house, when the senate, when the white house. Occasionally one will have all three for maybe a gear and then it will go away and be a brief moment during roosevelts first turned for lbj after jack was killed. Some are briefly people get their moment in do a lot of big things. Generally the public holds back rather quickly and says we dont want anybody in charge. We like to divide it up and keep them honest. The trouble with todays instead of keeping the other honest, both sides keep the other from doing any other thing. Thats a problem. I have the old solution. The reason you compromises because you dont find Common Ground. Even if youre a centrist republican or a centrist democrat. Theres a big difference. You probably are necessarily more hawkish of your republican. Youre not a passive is. He just a few overs to be better. Basically you disagree. So occasionally have a Common Ground like tipping rake in the Northern Island with an h2 in the cold war. So what you do is you compromise, just like at home. You do Corporate Tax reform in the revenue. We want to go after being a republican. I want to save money and medicare, medicaid. Now you dont do anything and plan the other side. The other side insisted on it. We have to give Corporate Tax reform because the other side would be a deal otherwise. To do that youve got to first convince the public its essential that we deal. Once you convince them of that, most important thing in the world is to deal in compromise and make government work. Once you have sent to be grownups and up listening to the phone vendors out there, then the government will work again. Both sides have to tell their people a deal at some point if necessary. At that point they were given duplicate. I want to push it on us. If we dont negotiate and compromise, there will be no government. Do you like the way it is now . T. Like it . Now, nobody does. We have to become grownups. Thats my point of view. Of course there are broad. [laughter] anyways, thank you. I was glad to take your questions. [applause] fair, thank you. I came here to sell books or china. If you wait for me tonight, ill wait for you. You could assign book with your name on it for me. I never gave up on this. Im crazy. I will sign every person spoke in this room. As Caroline Kennedy said Companies Sell bespoke side of the back of your car. I am here to sign your book. Thank you. Yes, sir. How do you expect the democrats to find a compromise to republicans when the republicans cant compromise the monks themselves. Republican conservative senator from utah was replaced by senator leahy. Stand up. John mccain stood up to them. I think that richmond, was going to win. I think he standing up already. Around the country theyre just going to have to stand up to them. Thats happening now. Theyre willing to fight them. Ica. Mitch mcconnell is not even a tune. Hes not my cup of tea, but hes a reasonable guide with the end save the bacon in terms of the debt ceiling. He is one sop in many ways hes tough. I also think he cares abut the country. I think he will do it. Lamar alexander will have a say. I would like to see the republicans. I like to see them be in a party accrue up with backup of civil rights through. The Republican Party of lincoln. A new book coming out next year that i just read. Make you cry over you so inspired by the midwestern public into and fought for civil rights in the 60s. So powerful. Macola, charlie howie, those are the guys. The southern segregationist down here to lift a finger. They were totally against desegregation. How are you doing, im robert. I want to go back to the Carter Administration and ask you, a lot of people talk negative about the administgative about the administration and the gas prices and economy was terrible. I would like to have a good come back and take it things about the Carter Administration. Well, i think clean as a whistle. Thats a start. Great values. Without the need for energy independence, he was really big on that. People made fun of this letter. He was working on it. He did not the answer. Thats why he gave up. The Congress Went back in. See what else. The panama canal and had to be done. He did it. It had to be done. The United States for not funding because the nationalists wouldve insisted we gave them control. Its getting bigger. Getting wider. I think its working. Its still one of the greatest miracles ive ever actually witness. Theres no engine. Its all water. Reagan ran against that. Human rights around the world inconsistently. The fact the United States as a champion of human rights. We didnt implement it in iran unfortunately. Its just going to honduras for decades. I asked people, what policies did he pass or was for basically make things bad . I cant get an answer. When you talk to your hawkish friends coming is the only guy that got his role. Egypt in bed with it. He did that. [applause] we keep forgetting to ran was not your number one strategic enemy like it was today. It was featured today got a method with israel. That was quite an achievement. Hotkeys that one network with my boss. Thank you. About compromise and it seems like there arent any other adults on the other side. And when the president came into office why do you think on her such a on a string of the Tea Party People . By disney just tell them to shove it . Exactly. Exactly. Hes an ambitious guy. Reminds me of a young nixon. Smart and is ambitious. [applause] the 60foot thing on Health Health care, the 60 vote requirement on the stimulus package drove him to it, you know. He couldnt get the public option. That economy would have just kept going down. Even if that would have hamstrung them. I want to thank you for coming here and i want to thank you for your over the years ive been watching you. Along time. 20 years next year. Yeah. I think writing the book or at least to promote the book and people think just writing it, the hardest thing is to promote it and to get the book out there. And the next question is. Lets talk afterwards about bookwriting. The tea party if it werent for the present economy would have come back a long time ago. s government shutdowns i know are hurting the economy. Its faith in our system underlies Consumer Confidence and i think its undermined it lately. If you assume the government will pay its debts and you assume the government will operate confidently and reasonably and it hasnt been so if you pick up the newspaper and youre thinking about buying a car and they make you extend your credit and take a risk and have less cash you go well i would rather have cash. These guys are. I think thats a fact. It doesnt take an economist to know the Consumer Confidence is driven downward. Something told me the other day a smart retailer, christmas is not going to be booming this year because of all the craziness. Thats enough. Come back later. I will be at the signing table. Are you avoiding getting into politics yourself . Yeah. [laughter] why . Well because i like to be happy. [laughter] [applause] i am good at some things and not at others. Okay here is why. Do you want an answer . First of all you have to raise a lot of money. I would go to pennsylvania and i could be a pennsylvania senator. I could do that if somebody came to me and said heres 20 million box and im going to run your campaign that would be tempting. My problem is nobody has. [laughter] and im trying to find out why this is. My wife always says to me whats the big reason you want to be a senator because im not a policy guy. Because the next time i would they would vote on war i would vote no. That would be my reason because i have heard them do that call every time in my life whether its good not to or panama or how many times have we been fighting in iraq and asked to do it will be fun and opiate cakewalk. I have been hearing this every time theres a war. Zero cost urgency. Its always you must do it and its free. Two months later its well we didnt get the facts right and its going to cost a fortune and its never going to end. Hi chris. Let me finish this question. [laughter] is a great question. It will haunt me as i sleep. I know somebody here who would run. Somebody ought to run. Im from pennsylvania. On your show which i love and others the focus speaker is why i wouldnt do it. [laughter] monday night im at home with my wife cathy and we are empty nesters. My dog as much as passed the bar. I have been precariously successful precariously. So its funny i get a call from the mayor of erie for some fundraiser and he said im coming down this week. The fundraiser could be one of my new friends, would be saying im coming to work on some bill. I will be working out of your office and i might oh my god. Another week of my life helping some lobbyists get something done because he gave me some money and now ive got to help him. Why am i spending money but obviously he is bundled for me. The other is the mayor of erie. He is a good guy. Whoever he is he calls me up and he goes hi its joe from and is perfectly entitled to do this. We have a similar problem its getting out of hand. I will be there a week, you help me . Im thinking i have an oped i want to write in the New York Times for wednesday and i want to write that. Im thinking about meet the press next week. I dont want to go do the project all week and yet hes totally entitled to use me as his lobbyists. So do i want to write on the problem, do i want to work on this stuff . Do i really want to do this . That is what senators do. Moynihan was in beller meant some more hoisting one or two having a good time. He wants at the lieberman your trouble with you is your state is too small and you cant hide in it. [laughter] moynihan would say oh hes upstate somewhere or hes down in new york this weekend. Its carlisle, having a great time. I dont think i can get away with that in pennsylvania. We dont have cosmopolitan senators in pennsylvania. Thats my answer. If i could be a cosmopolitan senator and right for the digest once in a while, some important monograph once and while that would be great like moynihan was the question is how can we get equal time on your show and others instead of the president ial election of 2016 which is so much the focus now . How can we get equal time or more to the major issues such as the increasing inequality in our country . Republicans are trying to reduce the number of debates because they think its too much of a clown card. Im just telling you. What do you want me to debate . Sorry . What do you want me to debate that im not debating . Economic inequality. Thats what we talk about. Thats what i talk about. I watch it every night. What do you think i talk about . The president ial election. I love it. I did too but there are so many other issues. [applause] i do that too. Just think about it. If you want to watch ed schultz is your number. Hes got your number. Lets go, lets go. Hes good at that. Hes really good at that. He does three hours of radio and that. He does four hours a day. What do you wont . Youve got your man. I think we get some policy in there too. Thank you. Its not the learning channel. [laughter] i sneak in the spinach. You want all spinach. Hi chris. The guy asked one tough tough question and he heads out the door. [laughter] he is out there taking notes. He is. Look at this. He is taking pictures and notes. Go ahead. And 2016, the last time you are here at the book fair which was before 2008 you made a prediction of who would be the next president. It was obama. No, no actually when you were here. What the year was this . Was before the 2008 election. I was here two years ago, right . I was here in 2011. [laughter] what are you up to . [laughter] i didnt have a book. You had a book about encouraging young people. Life is a campaign. So what did i say . You said hillary would be the next president. Yeah because i thought it was a good bet. I will say it again. Thats what i want. [applause] Larry Summers told me this the other day. He is so smart. He said look, 80 chance secretary clinton runs for president , 80 chance if she runs she wins the nomination. I might put it higher and 60 likely she will win the nomination and that gives her a 38 chance which is really high but that sounds really smart. You dont know whats going to happen. You dont know what the republicans are going to end up doing. There is a natural rotation between the parties. Its really emphasize. Its emphatic that rotation. We really do follow it with very few exceptions we generally switch parties after eight years. No matter what happens we turn over to the cold side of the pillow. Try something new. We have had enough of this crowd. Hillary clinton will run. She will nuance herself away from obama to some extent. She wont be running as his guy but she will be running as a democrat in that mean something to a lot of voters. You cant bet on her is a short thing in general. I also think look she has to give back in training. Politics is a profession and you dont put boxing for four years or eight years. You go to any reporter now local tv or radio market and you will have a rush want to be with a microphone. Not as smart as Rush Limbaugh but with the same party line and what about benghazi, what about benghazi . Every time you go near a microphone you hear it. Hes not going to live forever. You start counting how many ahead of me . You start inking. Thats why people retire to make that calculation. How many years of stress they are willing to put up with to have a little more money but it is stress and stress is real in every job and the stress of the presidency. Look at the guys not quickly they grade. They just do. She is going to have that thing about the focus on her is so intent but women my age want her so she has got that wind at her back. They want her. New age men want her. Traditional guys like me, i was at an event a while ago and i said how many guys, i was at a connecticut country club. How many of you guys want her. Five. There will be a lot of offsets voting going on. There was someone to vote for obama. I think she cast the wrong vote on the war and she paid for it. She opposed the iraq war and hasnt changed her mind. But i dont see anybody beating her. I dont know what joe biden is going to do. I wish he would run. I want a fight. I want him to try. Go for it. Joe, show your stuff. Dont say a word against hers, Just Campaign positively. I dont see many people in the field. Klobuchar is popular in gillibrand. I wish diane feinsteifeinstei n was 20 years younger. Warren. If she goes to hillary she will have a real issue. She will be the reformer. She will go to her left i guess. Nobody will go to the center. On domestics she will be at the sweet spot. She is very positioned incredibly well i think no matter what obama does. I hope the iran thing works. I hope it does. Hi chris. First of all i wanted to thank you for your many years of Public Service as we celebrate this year, the 50th anniversary of the president which is really transformational for generations. Thats true. President that we should look back to on how jack kennedy did compromise and was able to very aptly cut a deal even with the fiercest of republicans. And with khrushchev. Thats right. A question for you. It seems to me that our top three leaders, the congress and the white house all have a disdain for the political process. These guys harry reid and obama all of them have that element but they dont seem to enjoy the political game. That process that you so much love, i loved as a student, as a student senator when i went to boston college. It i loved the process but these guys dont seem to love the process. Theyre such disdain. Let me answer. The answer is, it has lost the people in the business to get things done. It has lost its joy. I think the stopgap is just going from week to week kicking down the can down the road never having a sense of achievement. Most people want to achieve something in life. I dont know what you achieve in politics. Just think about this. In my lifetime and a lot of our lifetimes the United States congress got together and its something unbelievable. It passed the civil rights bill out of nowhere. It just did it and i dont know what its done sense. It did great things. It changed america and there wasnt much in it. Wait guys in white women voted for other people. I know women dont want to hear this, then gave women the right to to vote and maybe there was pressure at home. America does get better all the time but its really slow lately and if you are its a different country then you would have lived 20 years ago. The different country. You are not only ostracize, youre pretty well totally accept that, almost totally and that is something that is changed. This country is a broadening democracy and those who support it look better in history. No one looks good in history in opposing the expansion of rights. They always look bad. Its true. Right now, we came out world war ii and didnt do anything. We came out of we thought we could do anything. 75 of the American People thought the federal government could do what it set out to do. That is where the peace corps came from and the moon program and i wish the democrats were asked confident as they were good in their values. They are good with their values. I wish republicans who have a horse sense had values. They just cant seem to get it together. Eisenhower looks like god lately we never thought so at the time. 95 sure beats the hell out of those speed traps that we drove during college. South carolina especially. South of the border and all that stuff. There were all billeted lines when i came down here to college. The whole country is connected because of ike. I wish a democrat would come along today or republican like bloomberg and say why dont we make this country truly were denied united . Its becoming a bicoastal country. Trying to deal with infrastructure but id tell you i would love for this country to be connected again. [applause] i would love to see north by northwest in realtime. He would be building up indiana and st. Louis in the cities with whom and the whole country would be united again. Its weird, we have this beautiful continent and no one wants to live there anymore. Chicago is the exception. Anyway. My big dream is that we continue to do big things as a country. In france 20 minutes on the english redish channel. 20 minutes. Its so perfect. How come the french . [laughter] and if you look at whats going on in china they are rebuilding that country for nothing and the bullet trains in the speed and the way they live. I was there with my wife 20 years ago and they need everyones computers. What are we doing . I dont know. I think we spend their money on entitlements and paying our debts and the military we pay for it. Everybody thinks its all free. It is allvolunteer army and that means its going to cost, cost, cost and its going to be hugely expensive. We are just paying for a role nobody else in the world wants. Anyway our leaders have to explain the costs of things to us again. Hi chris. Congratulations on hardball. I watch it almost every night. Thank you. I wanted to ask you about the problem with gerrymandering which appears you guys in florida are going to fix that, right . I heard you are going to fix fit down here and get a Commission Like you have in california. That is what i wondered. Is the only way to get away from partisan politics. California, two politicians have to match each other and they have to go to the center. The one who goes to the center gets the most votes. Thats how you get away from leftwing rightwing politics. No moderate will ever win unless we change the system. In pennsylvania 100,000 more people voted democrat in the congressional races. We have 13 republican congresspeople and five democrats. They give that out. Some of it is just good Old Neighborhood segregation. Liberals live in big cities too. I dont know what causes that. Is it the chicken or the egg . Do they become liberals . Whatever it is liberals live in cities. So you waste all the votes in the big cities in the rural areas go 60 40 republican in the suburbs 65 45. Nancy pelosi 85 . That is why when you go statewide they are distributed in the ad up. That is why the senate is more liberal. Just as much as some guy living in the suburbs. You live in the big city, i have never lived in the state that has college. Florida has close call. Very much close call. I forgot. There are only three types of people here. Those that vote, those that count and those that cant count. Stupid joke. He always look to the voting had a different number. He would always save bush, this big tall woman would say kerry. Im sorry, gore. Hi chris. I am a big fan of the worldwide government. What . Worldwide government. World federalism. No, just a different government for Different Countries around the world whether it be israel or china or different places. I think of that as a career and in gold by the way. How is democracy doing in Different Countries. Exactly in the thing that confused me about america is the twoparty system. You think we will ever get to a place where there will be more voices than the twoparty . Now and even if we do it will be like israel. They have a lot of people who participate in the likud bloc. You have lieberman who is far right and in britain you have the liberal democrats and you have two parties there, the tories in the tories and the middleoftheroad party. I think if you had three parties one would gradually replace the other just like the republicans replaced the legs and the liberals in britain because of the nature. 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. If you dont goes to the house. Nobody wants the house. That is more scary than ever. We want the voters to pick the president. It takes 218 to pass the house. I dont want to sound like yesterday but i think that is the system we got for our lives, two parties that the Republican Party could change a lot one way or the other. It could change radley radically. He could go with to the hard writer could go back and of course i want to go back to the center so i can have a choice. I love having choices. I like this guy christie. We will see. Theres something about him that seems real but i will root for him until he proves to me that hes not worth rooting for because i have to root for somebody on that side. I will push him until he blows. I think the country really wants a choice. They want an election. Our country wants that and the only thing we liked about the last election. The president bumped into me at the Al Smith Dinner and he turned to me and he said im going to mention my speech. The stroke was the big debate last year. I had no idea what was going on there. But you know, hes not perfect and he is trying and he has the right values and its going to be tough. I wish he had more negotiators on the other side that would balance this thing out. If boehner had the ghanis to do it. He seems like a nice guy but a weak guy and i dont get why he wants that job. Why do you want to be married to maryland room monroe if you are not married to Marilyn Monroe . [laughter] why say it if it aint so. She is going like this. Do i have to spell it out for you . Last question. We are actually at the end of our program ladies and gentlemen. A round of applause for Chris Matthews. [applause] thank you, thank you very much. [applause] that wraps up our coverage from miami, the 30th annual miami look fair international. Everything is seen today will air at 1 00 a. M. Eastern time. You can also watch each of the authors individual segments on line at booktv. Org. Thanks for joining us. Up next on booktv, after words with guest host author craig shirley. This week larry sabato and his new book the kennedy halfcentury. The university of virginia politics professor explores the legacy of the Kennedy Administration knowing how each successive president has used his image to further his own agenda. The program is about an hour. Host larry the kennedy halfcentury is a marvelous achievement. Where were you on november 22, 1963 . Guest i was 11 years old. I was in