Headed this successful Mortgage Company put together a program of vip service. That include our colleagues staff of congress, the house and senate, postmaster general, anybody general, anybody they could have influence with. Do a favor for. It was not just make the process easy and the mortgage can be difficult and a lot of paperwork, it was to make it cheaper. They will waive fees and provide favorable discounts in the case of one senator they actually did a mortgage on the property in ireland even though they never did anything outside the u. S. Except for that senator. When the scandal started to break what you saw was two directions. One was called mozilla who never paid a find and the other lead toward those who took. What size he had a reason, it was distorting was distorted policy. That destroyed a policy if you believe he succeeded was part of the meltdown in 2008. Part of the mortgage crisis. Host you are going with some of your colleagues took this. So you met some strong resistance. Guest we met with strong resistance. I had the duty, my investigators came to me said what we do, and i said were going to have to refer this part to house ethics. We dont invest get members of congress. But when we looked at it i saw some of my colleagues and i will use one name, both parties but two names to be discussed, one was at townes. He was my chairman. I was a Ranking Member at the time. He had received two loans through this. Another one was congressman of texas. He is now the rules chairman. So we read these things and what we see with ed towns is that he did not he got a good deal, he then asked for but he didnt refuse it. So i told them that his name was on this list and he should come clean with it and he did. It didnt hurt him, but but he was certainly name on the list. They see things with congressman sessions is that he actually went out of his ways to say i do not want a special deal. He had an email train saying i need to refinance the needle loan but i dont want to special deal. I just want my application. So it was a great example of where Angela Mozilla form something to try to get a favor and 70 says look i appreciate the favor but i dont want to special the. Make careful that he did not get a special deal. Im not going to talk on television about some of the others. There were some that went back and said i need a better deal. There is an an unnamed staff person that was the worst of all. She worked for a senator on the finance committee and she received 13 refinances at no cost whatsoever. Every time the Interest Rate would go down the littles who had would brief finance. They did not charge her points or fees. Obviously she wanted help that any legislation and when legislation came over from the house to help reform some of this which was mike oxley and barney frank, it got watered down in the senate. We will never know if the staffer in a critical position really did it. I can tell you did that staffer recuse herself . She did not. To get 13 separate unique deals had to be inherited only wrong. Its not something we should accept. Host i think thats where the public it so cynical about congress and elected officials and the establishment getting special deals when many of them are struggling. And if they miss a payment payment somebodys on top of them threatening foreclosure. Host when members sleep in their office they get upset they dont get pretty them, they dont get anything for having a second house. Many of them, thats only way they can make their kids will go to college. So i do belong to a body that has its strengths and weaknesses but with the book book talks about is where we can be and where we excel. Your chairmanship uncovered a great deal. My chairmanship was able to uncover quite a bit. Ed towns is actually the chairman who i give a lot of credit to for countrywide. Particularly when it was hard personally to uncover something that included your own name on the list. Host there has been some good work. I hope people read it and see hope. They see bad things happening but i hope they see hope and some of the actions we have to take to ensure the next 240 years of our republic are as good or better than the last 240. I will never forget going non going on in the city you give us documents secretly will you really sold them to the public for a deposition . It was a dirty trick because this is part of how you get stories in washington you take you are allowed to release by the way the minority could and did you on a regular basis but trying to tell a story it is it dead on a story the other side to release documents but we did not mislead we tried to tease them as a time we succeeded so i gave to the belief just like the Sun Life Foundation is very leftwing the press including the post and the new york times, they are not our friends but they are so essentials their board more dedicated that we get them the information directly because ultimately even the left gets to the truth better i and the big fan it doesnt mean i interview without the sweaty palms but it is important they have a loud voice and im glad they do. Again the book is watchdog it is a great redirected it to your readers give gary shapiro and there is glorious reviews. And Vice President newt gingrich. We are not plugging anybody but it is a great read. We appreciate your time booktv and cspan2. For the book watchdog. Men host this is a book about a shy boy who grew up in alabama and overcame polio, inspired by henry clay at the university of louisville then set up become senator and set out to become majority leader. Mitch, i have a confession to make what i was asked to do this here is what i thought. Pocket anybody get Mitch Mcconnell to talk for an hour . [laughter] the only speak to the press when it is to your vantage. You talk about a time when bill gates came to see you if you would just sit there youre both waiting for wrote one of you to speak somebody once told president george w. Bush you were excited over a certain protein and he said wryly . How can you tell. Why so few words . Guest i am not afraid of talking but there were more by listening. Frequently a start off listening and then i think about what i want to say. In the era of trump that is probably a very different approach. You are not the first of the late bob novak used to say the hardest interview on meet the press because u. S. Question he would say yes or no then he would run out of questions. The easiest was hubert humphrey. You dont in trouble for what you dont say a there is nothing wrong with being cautious. Certainly dont mind talking before i ventured down that path. Youre not so cautious in your book there is a lot of unexpected material like polio. And when it gets to professor obama in senator harry reid your counterpart counterpart, and most people would be surprised but lets start with polio. Vat 44. Purity years old living with your mom and the doctor says that you have polio. I can imagine how terrifying those words must of been. It was a serious epidemic over the country. And it is very unpredictable. You would think that you had the flu and a couple of weeks later some would be normal and others would be the iron long. It affected my left quadricep in one of the great good fortunes of my life this little crossroads in my dad was overseas fighting the germans. Roosevelt having gone there himself. Because he had polio as an adult. Key guided it age 39 and paralyzed below the waist. Your mother had no way of knowing if you may be like the president. Not completely but they predicted the worst Case Scenario of a brace so i didnt have as severe a case as president roosevelt. But i am two years old. You know, what theyre like they taught her a physical therapy regiment four times a day. In the to keep me off my feet so she literally watch me like a hawk every waking moment and tried to convey the subtle message they didnt want the to think i could walk but i shouldnt. That is what they do is to make she watched me every minute and prevented me from prematurely walking obviously she told me that that was the last visit to palm springs so we stopped in a shoe store and then to watch like a hawk. In you have a chapter in your book. If the impressions are made by even the best your chances are you may overcome whatever problem or crime. Is there any impediment today . Read the quadricep to is more a problem going down the stairs but thing going up the was not a good running long distances but i could play baseball. So your father encourage you to have a fistfight . I had no choice i was about seven live in alabama i had a friend across the street named Dickey Mcgrew who was considerably bigger he was a bully and kept pushing me around my dad was working in the yard one day and saw that he had seen it before he called the over and he said i have been watching the way he is pushing you around isidium but he said he is older and bigger than i am he said and im older and bigger than he is. So i chose Dickey Mcgrew so i went across the street and started swinging i am up and that was an incredible lesson to stand up to bullies and i have thought about that from my life at critical moments when people tried to push you around. You stood your ground. So lets jump ahead to kentucky people looking and cspan may wonder with senators talk about on the floor he were talking up university of louisville sports but before i get to that your honors thesis was senator henry clay. That inspired you to be a senator . Was interested in politics i was president of the student body and highschool i fought a very contentious race and i was hooked. I won the. [laughter] so i began to follow politics i remember it age 14 the coverage of the conventions only focused on the podium in listen to all the speeches on tv. Four like us with the radio we with this into the whole thing. Pretty boring. If i thought was the only 14 yearold. [laughter] may be watching from gavel to gavel. So what i would try to practice the craft if i could get good at it. So i ran for president a Student Council at college also but klay was the most famous politician in kentucky. What about him inspired you the most . In a not terribly in significant i wanted to learn more about him. But he was known for crafting compromises which is a dirty word today with some people. Butted is essential the constitution is full of compromises in we do it every single day to make the senate function. I did my senior thesis on him and then continue to follow him as good politicians do. There was another aspect to the university and that is the athletic programs describe your tailgating schedule. Football is an important part of life but i take a pretty seriously. I have season tickets every year i have irregulars we go to every home game. And an occasional late game rigo hourly one of my friends has an rv and in the parking lot and talk about the game than we go to the game and talk about what did happen a complete blank the exercise in the joys of life. Jumping ahead talking about the early 60s when you work at university you and i both drove to washington toward the end of the 60s and you work for the senator from kentucky in their work for senator baker 1969 he said you need to go beat that smart young legislative aide which mcconnell. So now in louisville there is a march on the capital about civilrights you were in washington to hear more in the the kings speech i have a dream goldwater had come speak because youre part of College Republicans buy you voted for johnson what happened . In our generation and the Civilrights Movement was a defining issue of regeneration and in 62 i was College Republican president to accept the invitation to come and then in the summer of 63 we got to see the i have a dream speech that in 64 was an intern in to imprintings happened. We broke the filibuster of this civil rights bill and nominated barry goldwater. Honestly i was mad as hell and i was so irritated about goldwater voting against the civil rights bill hurting the Republican Party in a way that i thought would be unfortunate way to retrospect was a huge mistake. [laughter] but it was a protest vote. That feeling carried over to your days in the senate with president reagan when he vetoed the sanctions on south africa for apartheid you voted not to override the oil you voted to override that which most did not do. I felt that reagan who is admired by people was wrong about whether or not those sanctions could work. Some people think they never worked and occasionally they do they worked in burma a number of years later and i thought he was wrong. Talk about burma and how you got interested. That was pretty extraordinary in the last of over 20 years i remember watching you stand up to make speeches wondering what you were doing. After she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for those listeners letter not familiar, her father was the founder of modern burma but he didnt live long she went to europe and went to school and lived in the United States very dead guy but that would back to burma and 1988 to care for her sick mother when the movement started. So she was thrust into the leadership as they decided to have a free and Fair Election they got creamed in their reaction was to arrest all the people and put her under house arrest in her own house where she remained close to the time over 21 years so long with others with those sanctions bills that ultimately made a difference. You visited her . Amazingly enough the regime began to crumble in 2011. So we could talk on the phone and actually went to burn the january 2012 and got to see her in person and invited her to come to the Mcconnell Center later that year in she did come september 2012 now she is a defacto leader of the country even though the constitution prohibits city one that is married to a foreigner or has been to put in the constitution exactly to keep her from being president she is the defacto president she put in a president who is a close ally. You mentioned the Mcconnell Center . It is basically a Scholarship Program for the best of the brightest that was started 25 years ago you have to be from kentucky there are ted freshmen and 10 freshmen of each grade those that try to compete with i believed in for those to stay in kentucky for education that if they stayed there there were likely to stay there after school 70 have chosen to stay where most the go to the east never come back but i bring in speakers we have had some great ones Hillary Clinton was there while she was secretary of state, joe biden and is president Vice President and john roberts but then they also address the larger public audience. Lets switch to politics something you are pretty good at you once won six races in kentucky . Talk about the first one. I think all of us are political they always will not admitted that they are. 20 points behind. So the bloodhound add . Here is that was a desperate situation roger ailes. How did you find him . Doing some Political Consulting for commercials civic youre willing to take cmon at 30 points behind . I appreciate the fact he was willing to take leon this is a tough competitor you can see how he started fox for Rupert Murdoch heres the situation it was the july of the election of 1984 i was down 34 points we had a meeting in louisville and i said is this race over . He said never know to come from this far behind this late and when but its not over very competitive. I was running against a pretty smart opponent who didnt have obvious vulnerabilities we were looking for some kind of issue but it turns out back of the honoraria days i had no problem but he was making speeches for money while making votes of the senate floor. So roger ailes turned that isnt in cent him now looking for him to bring him back to work and electrify the campaigning got people interested in talking about it and then there was the sequel later. [laughter] who looks like him who was being chased by dogs and literally ended up in a tree [laughter] the key line was we got you now. Not exactly a landslide. But the one way to look at it we lost two seats in the senate he was really democratic incumbents center that year. And david to friends your method of campaigning smash with the mouth before they get started. [laughter] but probably im guessing your toughest campaign was 2014 . The center of the conservative fund coming at you romney ryan that the left and it was the pretty big brawl but you started right off to call your republican opponent of the governor of kentucky, you and i witnessed the results in 2012 and 2010. I led the attention was on you. [laughter] suet this Senate Conservative fund basically cost us five races in 2012 than in 2012 by a nominating people who could not win so at the beginning of 2014 we said we would not let that happen anymore. We got the most electable people dominated because if you deal with a group of people and compromise is a dirty word delay thing to do to win the election is that we won every primary purpose as you indicated then as he was elected governor of kentucky but syracuse they take cmon that is like a fist fight with Dickey Mcgrew. [laughter] the one of yours said the Senate Conservative are wandering around the country destroyed the Republican Party. The difference for this cycle they go into rich mcconnell spored he will not carry route he will lock the door those are fighting words. I think that is what needed to be done and as a result if you look at 2014 as a result of that approach we took the senate back we had the most electable candidate to on the ballot every where spirits with talk about the leader harry reid were at the funeral a few days ago and heard you both say that people think Mitch Mcconnell and i dont like each other but you say in your book your friends but then you say he has a jekyll and hyde personality and says you have no class sandy like donald trump. So the summit is a place. I have been very public about a couple of things. I didnt like the way he shot the senate down. I did not like the way he brand us than it in the fabric. Bathetic simp