Salons jacob weisberg, and we take a look at the life of florence kennedy. And finally, david reef questions if ending extreme poverty and hunger around the world is possible. Those are some of the highlights for this weekend. For a complete television schedule, go to booktv. Org. Booktv, this weekend 72 hours of nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. And now were kicking off the weekend with Brian Kilmeade and dan yeager. Their book, Thomas Jefferson and the tripoli pirates. [inaudible conversations] here we go. [inaudible conversations] [laughter] like were coming to court. You afraid of the audience, brian . I wanted to have a dramatic entrance. Oh, all right. [laughter] actually, he doesnt want to be seen on the same stage with me. Hes already found out im a little too smart alecky. Which he is, by the way. Five minutes, see what you learn . Good afternoon, welcome to the heritage foundation. We, of course, welcome those who join us on our heritage. Org web site on all of these occasions. Would ask our friends if youll be so kind to which can that cell phones have been movemented, a wonderful courtesy for our speakers. And, of course, our interwith net viewers are welcome at any time to send their questions or comments simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. If youre not on brians mailing list for his emails, we have cards for you out in front that you can sign up and join for the kill immediate connection kilmeade connection. Please add your names to that list, and well be glad to forward them on to you. Hosting our discussion today is genevieve woods, senior contribute earn to the daily contributor to the daily signal. Please join me in welcoming general vive. [applause] thank you, john, very much. Welcome, everyone, to heritage. On behalf of jim demint, my 250 some odd colleagues, we are glad and delighted to have you with us for this event. Brian kilmeade is no stranger, im sure, to many of you. He is cohost of fox friends, number one program in the morning. Brians known for being able to interview just about any type of person, politicians, entertainers, sports celebrities. Some of his past victims are folks such as president george w. Bush, Michael Jordan and, of course, american idols simon cowell as well. Apparently, being be on Television Three hours a day is not enough for Brian Kilmeade, because when that shows over, brian enters the radio studio where he hosts a show for another three hours each day, monday through friday. Its a program on over 140 stations across the country, so brian is very prolific when it comes to talking, but also when it comes to writing. He is now the author of four books. Two of his first three books ended up on the New York Times bestseller list. One of them was George Washingtons secret six. And since the success of that book, he and his i coauthor, dan yeager, teamed up to bring us another interest story, and thats the book hes going to talk about today which is, Thomas Jefferson and the tripoli pirates, which is a forgotten war that changed American History. As i think youll learn from brians remarks, there is a lot we can learn from history, a lot of things that todays leaders such as president obama might be able to learn from history and from people like Thomas Jefferson, and we welcome brian now to share with us that story. Brian kilmeade. [applause] genevieve wood, thank you very much. You obviously could give the speech yours, and you are now eligible for a true hardback copy, and jon, thank you very much. It took me nine seconds to realize how funny and sarcastic jon can be. But im privileged to be in front of you. Its also good luck. Because the first event i had for George Washingtons secret six was also at heritage, and that ended up being a bestseller for 19 weeks. It was an unbelievable run that shocked everybody. And its not because im cute, because i am a [laughter] i think fundamentally americas a very patriotic place. Some people wearing the uniform, obviously, theyre patriotic. Obviously, if youre running for office, you believe in the country. But for the average truck driver, for the teacher, for the landscaper to be picking up this book, George Washingtons secret six, and talking to me about the spies. And the reason why it resonated, in my humble opinion, is because we know how great George Washington is, all our Founding Fathers. We read great biographies, what they did is extraordinary. But what most of you know and i think were beginning to realize is we have no country without the socalled Everyday Americans doing extraordinary things to keep the country going, the spirit alive, fighting the wars, getting the economy going from the ground up. So i was able to talk about a bartender, i can relate to that, a longshoreman . Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I could tell you about a newspaper guy, a farmer, i can relate to that. And the next thing you know, they did extraordinary things with the leadership of George Washington. So that book had some success. I had that idea in 1989 as they exposed this to me, being a long island resident, i was able to see, feel and touch this story and thought why couldnt i with all my ridiculous field trips to go see a big garden in eastern new york or a winery, which is great for kids to see, in grammar school, why couldnt they bring me along to the spy trail . And then later don yeager says to me lets do a book. He says, no, lets do a book. I go, well, if we approach it like an investigative project and we bring something new to the story, ill do it. We did it, and it worked. And then i got exposed to the barbary wars. Found out a little bit about it in college, and after 9 11 when you heard about the islamic threat and the islamic extremists, id see great columnists look back and try to retrieve this information. And i thought, wait a second, what are you talking about . Islamic extremism, i thought they were pirates. Oh, yeah, they had pirate activity, but they were motivated and pushed and used as an excuse the quran and islam to attacking us. And we had no axe to grind. After all, my book picks up, our book picks up in 1784 and 1785. We just got rid of the british rule, but we also lost british protection. And were out in temperature out in the open seas. We gotta get our economy going because weve got ingenuity, hard work and tremendous natural resources. Were going to have to use the mediterranean, and were going to have to use the southern half of the mediterranean to get to the southern half of europe. As we go through those waterways, we have a problem. There are these pirates who see us as a soft touch, and they began to take our ships from the dolphin to the maria, to the betsy, they take our guys, and they make them slaves. They take the ships, they take the cargo. They plunder them. And when we try to make heads or tails of it, the explanation is youre infidels, we have the right to do that, unless, of course, you want to pay us a certain amount of money. Really . Is that in the quran . Yeah, its in the quran. We dont know much about it, so we decide to send our ateam out there. In london we have john adams, in france we have this other gentleman named Thomas Jefferson. We decide the best way to approach this is to begin talking to them and try to find out what their rationale is for taking our stuff, taking our guys hostage and imprisoning them. We are not spain, were not for instance, were brand new. Your problems with them. They go into london and set up a meeting with the leader of tripoli, now libya. So they go in and meet the ambassador. The guy seems amiable, approachable, he seems like somebody we can deal with until, of course, it came down to decision time at which time he talked about the rationale for capturing our guys and taking our stuff and citing the quran. Jefferson read the quran. He says, its not in there for you to do this. Having said that, they said, theres only one way out. Youve got to pay the money. We dont have any money. We find out what spain and france and sweden were paying, and we are actually getting charged more than that, and we dont have the revenue. And both john adams and Thomas Jefferson are horrified and angered, but they have different marching orders from here on in. John adams, to paraphrase, essentially said, look, we cant fight these guys unless we want to fight them forever. Man, is that right. And america doesnt have the stomach for a long war. Man, is that till true. Thomasjefferson says, listen, im looking in their eye. The message i get from this meeting is the price is only going to go up, and sooner or later the attacks are going to begin again. I say we fight them. We dont have a government, a constitution, a president , but the recommendation back is were going to go with adams, and were going to borrow the money and make the payments. But like marco rubio, our payments are a little bit later. Only kidding. [laughter] oh, im in trouble now. Only kidding, senator. Our payments are a little bit later, and theyre not right, and they want jewel, and were not able to keep up and, man, jefferson was 100 percent correct. Theyre going to be implacable, and im talking about morocco, tripoli, algiers, tunis, tunisia. Weve got four separate countries to cut deals with, all in competition with each other, all who have their economy depending on feast on people who are productive economies. So soon or later George Washington takes power, and he asks the secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, to write a report, and he does. Essentially, if you read these reports, and we did, they essentially say weve got to stand up for ourselves. Its the wrong message to say to the rest of the world, and they use phrases in this report like arent we americans . Since when are we victims . So washington looks around and says my only thing missing is a navy. [laughter] so i think i have an idea. Lets essentially, my word, split the baby. Im going to make the payments which, get this, are 20 of our economy at the time. But im also going to commission the building of a navy, and well see where it goes. Because america early on was existence a standing army, a standing navy, because they were afraid the military would become too strong and overwhelm the people. This is a general thing. So they understand what hes doing. So we commission, we sped up the contracts, we build six ships. By the time washingtons done, adams takes power, were ready. We decide to stick up for what we believe in existence the french and what they call a quasiwar. When adams is confronted to stand up to the islamic extremists, he goes, no. As you know, everybody in this room especially, within four years he loses power to jefferson, his Vice President , he takes over. They dont speak anymore. Adams tried to dismantle 30 ships in his navy. Jefferson knows exactly what hes doing. If i stop the payments, theyre going to declare war. He stops the payment, and sure enough the first foreign power to declare war on america, ironically, is tripoli, now nobody as lib now known as libya. And they do it trying to chop down our flag pole. They struggled with it. They couldnt get the flag pole down. The thing wouldnt fall, finally, night fell, and they pulled it down. We dont ian know it, but jefferson knows im going to send those ships out to start providing security. Talk about a modern issue, his one issue is we dont have congressional approval yet. How does he know . He basically helped form the country. [laughter] im pretty sure i didnt give myself approval [laughter] it helps when you write the rules. [laughter] so he says, i have an idea. Theyll see the size of our ships, how sturdy theyre built, were going to show some power. Not necessarily use the power, were going to brocade. Were going to smother the tripoli economy. Then we find out later they declared war on us. It was before instagram but not before snapchat. And they couldnt really know. We just knew we were going to blockade anyway. Were terrible at it. The communications between our ships are bad, then its freezing, and guess what . These pirates, theyre coy, theyre cunning, and they know the area. They know the water. Theyre getting in and out. So jeffersons blockade and show of power to finally get them to the table falls apart. And guess what also happens . Pressure from washington to declare a war or not and to go ahead and rationalize what were doing over there. Because were still terrorized because we, just like and this was celebrated in iran, but just as we were upset with the 444 days it took us to get our 52 hostages back from iran, we felt the same way, the same empathy we felt there every day that the betsy, the dolphin and the mario crew was being held and enslaved. The name of the papers at the time, we suffered. So the blockade doesnt work. We finally get congressional approval. Do you know what the problem with the blockade was . Rules of engagement. Oh, the rules of engagement were bad. We could not engage the enemy unless they engaged us, unless we felt threatened. Man, does that sound familiar. Talk to a few navy seals, and theyll tell you the same story. So the rules of engagement gradually changed. Why . Because they were not working. Why . Because it was costing us a lot of money. We had captain morris for a while. This guy was traveling with his wife, he thought hed be wine asked be dined. Our ships sat there, and while the tripoli pirates made fun of us because every day just like isis and alqaeda that you dont wipe hem out is a victory. When Saddam Hussein stayed in power even though you would think hes humiliated, its a victory. I survived america. Every day that the jv team, isis, stays in power even though theyre diminished and pressured, its a victory against america. Its the same mentality back then. Little by little, we do what america always does, we get it right. We tart pushing. We finally get the right guy in charge, his name is Edward Preble, and they start pounding. They start grabbing those ships, pressuring them. Instead of taking them hostage, we would take out their mast, push them out to sea. The message was sent. Were starting to send some power. Wed go inside and talk to the bashar of tripoli, you ready now . No. Why . Because they dont care about their people. They would care that theyre being she would on a daily basis, and they cant even go shopping or work in the market because they dont know if theyre going to get hit by an american cannon. They dont care. Then finally, jefferson makes the ultimate decision, i think. That idea that was farfetched three years before this conflict started, this guy, William Eaton, whos one of the renaissance men of his generation. If i can encourage anyone in this room to do one thing, its googlewomen yam eaton William Eaton. My goal is not to sell you on jefferson, youre already sold. My goal is the same one that i had with the washington story. Jefferson gets you to buy the book and gets you interested in the story, but you leave thinking about William Eaton, Edward Preble as well as Stephen Decatur. And you realize how many Great Americans lived and died, they were lauded, and the war college that you go and visit once in a while and take a seminar in, they are forgotten. My goal is, son, daughter which, by the way, is how i refer to my children finish. [laughter] youve got to read about these guys. So William Eaton was a counselor. Now we call him an ambassador. Over in tunisia. Hes a pretty extraordinary guy. Hes 15 years old, you know what, dad . I think im going to join the army. His dad says, no, im not. He gets sick, goes home, goes back and fights again. Would later trade urn mad anthony but between that would get boo dartmouth and go to school. Seems to be somewhat of a genius as well as an incredible war fighter and very smart in battle. He would learn indian and arab dialects, and we were impressed even the crazy n a good way, mad anthony, the general. So he really impressed senator pickering. He says i need somebody to go over and be our ambassador over to i tunisia. Ill do it. Never been out of america, ill try it. He goes over there, and he observes the culture, and as much as he likes the people, he cant believe they would subject themselves to these terrible rulers. He would encourage jefferson and everyone else, fight these guys, theyre nothing. Weve got to take them on. We act like theyre 10 feet tall, we should fight them. So all of a sudden james [inaudible] goes up to him and says, william, got an idea. Theres a deposed ruler of tripoli. If the brother, this crazy little brother killed the other one and forced out the middle one and they kept this family hostage to make sure hes away, he wants to come back. Why dont you ask jefferson if you can go get him out of egypt and come back and put him in power. The only thing we want is to be friends with us and establish relations. We dont want to dominate, we just want to have peace with this country. So in the beginning jefferson and the treasury secretary said, youre craze i. After three years of almost a standoff, were winning but it doesnt matter because the guys still in power,rierson goes, you know that idea you had . Were going to do it. But i dont want fingerprints on it. He say go and get yourself a thousand muskets, 20,000, well give you a few marines, make it happen. At the very least he didnt think it would work, we were going to start our first land war against a muslim power who are islamic extremists. So against impossible odds, the argus drops him off in egypt. They go and hunt this guy down. Again, they only had snapchat. [laughter] so he had to go in through the city, find him in alexandria, introduce himself, convince him to go along, martial his men, hire sommers theirs, only had some mercenaries, only grabbed some horses, some splice, paid off and buys some military, some mercenaries, and they were going to march. The problem . No maps, no real direction, no roads, but they did have gps. Only kidding. They start in egypt without any maps. Hamid says im going to give it a shot. He doesnt have the valor and the strength and the