Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141128

These Tall Buildings outside the reading room. All you could see with sky. So its really a place where the city has grown up around the library. Host weiser called the reading room . Guest the rose family made this reading room in honor of their children when it was renovated in 1998 and during the renovation, every square inch of the surpluses in this room are touched by a. So its really restored to its original splendor. Host do you know about the paintings . Guest deserve murals that we have to actually recreate. They were in such a bad state of disrepair before the renovation. These were created in a studio on canvas and installed here. They are not paying michelangelo style. Host how much of the librarys collection of artifacts are available for people to see . Guest all of them are collections or more than 51 million items and we have all kinds of things from books to manuscript and archival role materials to photographs, prints, and menus, maps, all kinds of materials. Host one of those valuable items as they fear what are we looking at here . Guest this is a gutenberg volume. We have a gutenberg bible in our collections. Many Great Research libraries around the world do. The significance of this bible, which is a two volume set. You see one of the volumes here. This gutenberg bible is the first one to be brought to the United States in the mid19th century. Killing patent. Yes please comes in third followed by a personal look at the life of tv producer andy cohen. Number five is small victories. Next, in and of life care in being mortal followed by the art of asking. Eight, why the russian president intends to consolidate russian powered by taking control of world energy resources. Followed by not that kind of girl. And wrapping up the list what if. A look at this weeks list of nonfiction bestsellers according to the New York Times. In his book, you lie , jack cashill chronicles what he thinks of president obama. Thank you, you, jim. Thank you all for coming out tonight. There are several major religions that believe that the Second Coming will be in jackson county, missouri. They may be right. Okay. Five years and to the obama presidency, here is what liberal constitutional scholar said of the president. Barack obama is really the president Richard Nixon always wanted to be. Harsher still, president obama will shortly pass past president Richard Nixon as the worst president ever. If your friends are saying this, imagine what your enemies are saying. The question for the day, and this is something to consider, how is it that a man who wants for his campaign for the presidency comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln . Hunkered down in the white house being compared to tricky dick nixon. Something went wrong in the process. We are here to explain that tonight. Another liberal civil libertarian, longtime Village Voice contributor, that we summed it up best. Obama does not give a damn because he can get away with whatever he wants. I will explore how that came to be. It is a complex question and 1i am i am not fully sure i know myself totally. He had a distinctive upbringing. He asked us to concentrate on his father. [laughter] im joking. Inside joke. Okay. But we missed the real mark. The person we should have been concentrating on is his mother. And she was, like his father, something of a person a person who held america in general contempt. There there is a story he tells that is likely true. She is in indonesia with her second husband, an Indonesian National who works for an oil company. Why dont you come out and you can meet some of your own people. She shouts back, those are not my people. This this is a message he picked up as a young boy. He saw them, he described them as the caricatures of an ugly american. As a mixedrace child she could have given the most solid, but she did not like this country. She never did. That affected him from early on. He comes back and is in something of a tether because he does not no who he is. He does not want to be an american. As to being an africanamerican, he knows no more about that than what he has seen on tv. That is about it in 1968, 69, 70. He tells his friends in school, his father was a prince and his grandfather was the chief of an african tribe. And the story worked on his classmates and almost on himself. But another part of me knew what i was telling them was a a lie, something i constructed from scraps of information i picked up from my mother. For the next 40 years he would continue constructing identities from himself. High school stoner, college marxist, marxist, new york socialist, harvard cosmopolitan, africanamerican or dealer, allamerican president ial candidate. So by the time dreams from my father came out obama had picked up enough postmodern pens walk to rationalize these identity shifts. So even as support called dreams a mixture of verifiable fact, recollection, re creation, invention, and artful shaping. That is a friendly biographer. The character creations and rearrangements in the book are not merely a matter of style devices or compression but are actually substantive now, when lesser memoirists do the same, they get ripped to pieces on oprah. But if you are obama you can make stuff up and get away with it. One of the aids of Hillary Clinton, we did not understand why his politically calculating chameleon nature was never discussed. We were said to be the chameleons, but he changed his life. His early influences, Frank Marshall davis, did not encourage truth telling. Although lovesick although lovesick leftists are not uniquely guilty of lying, they are uniquely guilty of doing it as a political strategy. They are not that hard core. What the problem might be. Watching this guy, the ebola expert for cnn talking about why we cannot ban travel from west africa to the United States, when states, when it would seem like most americans would say, lets ban travel. Travel. He was honest and gave the perfect multicultural answer since liberia was created by american slaves, slavery was essentially responsible for the creation of liberia. We are responsible and have the obligation to open the doors to liberia. That is how multiculturalists think. The problem is, they cannot say that. So they send out guys like the director of cdc on with megan kelly trying to explain why it makes sense but cannot use multicultural logic. He has to use real people logic, and it does not work. And this is fun to watch. He watch. He is saying, well, if we dont open travel we cant help them. Megan says, what about charter flights. He says, commercial airplanes can do something that contract claims, charter planes cannot. Megan says, they fly fly in and out. What is the difference. And he had no answer. That is part of the reason why he became the person he became. Appearance mattered appearance mattered at least as much. The good fortune of growing up talking, thinking, sounding just like a white liberal. This gave him an advantage. And this verified exactly who they were. You hear people actually voicing this on occasion. Michael kinsley. You say what you mean, but you are not supposed to be saying it. Joe biden is the master. I dont know how Jesse Jackson took it. Youve got the first mainstream africanamerican president ial candidate who is articulate and bright and clean and a nicelooking guy im glad i did not say that. I would probably be in san quentin. Another another unwittingly honest revelation, Senate Majority leader harry reid found comfort in obamas having no negro dialect. Anyhow, by anyhow, by the time obama emerges as a National Candidate every newsroom was chock full of people who thought this way. Harder to calculate attitudes toward race, but the collective media indulgence they get the opposite treatment. Very good. Some people here. They asked about that. Black liberals who speak and act and sound and echo what the white liberals say get an incredible pass in americas newsrooms. That has a major factor in making obama who he was and how he could get away with things no one else could. A story october 2007. They they wanted to do a story on obamas days in new york. Given the fact it was the New York Times and obama it would obviously be a puff piece. He would provides no lease, no transcripts, names of friends, addresses, nothing. And then they just move on. , as though it did not matter. That is the way he rolled, and that is the way he rolled with them. Im going to grab a drink year. One second. I have something of a cold. I did not take any Cold Medicine for fear that i would be loopy. That had a lot to do with how he became who he was. And it started right off. Early in the campaign he started to see this in ways that no one else could have. In september 2007 when his candidacy was still a long shot, obama vowed to aggressively pursue preservation of a publicly financed general election. That is a very conscious and firm position. The problem was, once he took the lead he was raising much more money. So in 2,008 and he is never wrong. He never goes back on his word. He still supported the idea of public financing, but the Current System was broken and favored republicans who had become masters at gaming the system. Every deception is justified. Remember, obama does not give a damn because he can get away with whatever he wants. The first person to call him on it was an obscure South Carolina congressman joe wilson. September 9, 2,009. Still a highly popular president who spoke spuriously to a joint session of congress, and there was in the air what might have been called the powerful and obnoxious over of mendacity. And among the lines trotted out that night for the first time was this one. Nothing will require you or your employer to change your coverage. Nothing nothing requires you to change what you have. At the time he said this he may have thought it was true i went back and checked the record. There were serious dissents in major publications that the white house had to be aware of. So the first time we give them a pass. Any number of things, but the claim that his proposed Healthcare System would not ensure Illegal Immigrants is when wilson could hold his tongue no longer. And all hell broke loose. For the first time in about 20 20 years nancy pelosi raised her eyebrows, sitting behind. [laughter] i did i did not think that was possible. [laughter] joe biden, you can here him. Obama loses his place on the teleprompter. And there is a collective gasp. Followed in the schoolyard by, by, im telling, which is exactly what they did. The democrats rush to try to raise money off of this, which they do. Now, what i like was the response of democratic whip James Clyburn who called wilsons behavior totally disrespectful and a knew low for the states congressional delegation. He has no studies South Carolina history very closely. In 1856 preston brooks, a congressman from South Carolina, upset by the abolitionist talk by a republican from massachusetts went over to the senate the senator nearly to death. And his fellow congressman held off would be helpers at pistol. That was a low. History has never been a strong suit. Anyhow, missed in the hubbub was the nature of his elocution. He did not say you are a liar or you are lying. He said, you lie. Lie. It was like an existential declaration five years before anyone else caught on it was that natural of a declaration. That was missed. All president s, many lie about their personal life, some much more than others, but only one in the modern era has elevated the lie to the level of strategy. Even bill clinton did not do that. What i will finish with or conclude with or move on with, i should say, what i consider in the book i had an article in the new york post. Post. They asked me how many lies obama told. I had to go back and count. And, i mean, a false statement either intentionally given or totally indifferent to the outcome of whether it is true or not usually for a stated gain. I i went back and counted. There were 75. At the end of the book i pulled out the top 25. There is nothing george bush said they found chemical weapons in iraq, a little late, but nothing george bush said would have cracked the top 25. Bill clinton would have at least a couple times. This is unprecedented. Not just like im making this up. There was an effort to denigrate the word lie. We have all followed those around. I was always tempted to ram into those cars. Anyhow, here they are. I just picked the top six. Pres. Obama said this to the nations schoolchildren a year after he was elected. I knew it was false. What matters more than it seems. In 2,004 when he was introduced to the nation he started his speech, if you recall, with this basic line, i line, i am the product of an improbable love between a goat herder from kenya. And they had an abiding faith in the possibilities of the nation. He built his persona and campaign about this Perfect Little persona that was disruptive. This was his signature appeal, a multicultural ideal based on his family life. If there was one i suspect no longer from closing times of time for the moment obama senior sobered up the next morning. He never spent a single night with his father. There was none before the election. We knew that he spent the first year of his life in seattle washington. Those who have the stomach to hang in here, yes. It was not until 2,012 Washington Post finally acknowledged there is no family. They lived together in seattle. Yet there are four major biographies. The right of biography. She does not tell us the word about where obamas mother was from the time she left school in february of 1961 until the time the baby is born. And she knows the controversy is out there. The people who used to be called reporters are now called conspiracy theorists because they try to fill in the gaps. It is not easily gotten. The notion that even after the election obama could go out and tell the schoolchildren he was two years old when his father left knowing that no one would call him on it. No one no one he knew or cared about what call him on it. But that is the way he rolled. Number five, the fast and Furious Program was a field initiated program. He spun this fiction that of at a forum knowing it was false because several months earlier White House Press secretary made the same bogus claim virtually word for word and got spanked on national tv. The only one who calls them out on anything. Jay carney pointed out, i have the memos. It was started in october 2009. Then he repeats it three months later. There needs to be a lot more done on fast and furious, by the way. This one was really kind of bold. Not even a smidgen of corruption. [laughter] some of you no the question that preceded this. In response to bill oreillys question about the irs scandal. No corruption. Obama says, not even a smidgen. It is hard to understand. When news of the scandal first broke a a year earlier he said, this is inexcusable this is a a year earlier. Now there is not a smidgen of corruption area and how can you say that when the investigation is not finished. Here is one, this is pretty bold. We revealed to the American People exactly what we understood at the time. This was in response about benghazi. The notion that we would hide the ball for political purposes when a week later we all found out there was a terrorist attack , then he goes on to say the day after, it would not be a very good cover up. He said that most prominently during the 2012 debate with mitt romney, the second debate where the cnn media was like a Tag Team Wrestling match. Dealing with some heavyweights. [laughter] i promised i would be good. He says to him, you are saying come up first of all, crowley gives him a set up line. Her responsibility. Like he knows this will happen. It is my responsibility. I always take full responsibility. And romney gets up and says, you says, you said it was a terrorist attack in the morning after . Now hes sitting in the corner and says, yes. I just want this on the record. And then obama says, candy. And she starts waving a piece of paper. Yes. He said it was a terrorist attack. Then the audience, against all rules, starts applauding romney and then obama starts talking over romney. Kandi romney. Kandi says, lets move on. Lets move on. He says to her, get the transcript. That was a killer moment in the history of that candidacy. She did a similar thing with fast and furious. But the first time, in fact, here is what he said. Where where he took his first question on benghazi, which show, David Letterman , David Letterman show week later, an appropriate place. And David Letterman asks, what happens with benghazi . Are we at war . Obama, here is what happened. A video was released by someone. Sort of a shady character who made an extremely offensive video directed at mohammed and islam. Now, the usually irreverent letterman looked shocked. Making fun of the prophet mohammed . [laughter] obama shakes his head in dismay, yes, making fun of the prophet mohammed. That was the first question he took. Doing it on the David Letterman show. Okay. Transparency and the rule of law we will be the touchstones of this presidency. This is what obama said on his first full day in office this has been violated more wantonly than a goat at a bachelor party. [laughter] im sorry. Precisely the violation of his promise that got turley and caddell so upset. Okay. Number one, primus one, primus violated. I do solemnly swear i will execute the office of the president of the United States. [applauding] he had his hand on the bible for that one. Now there are consequences. This is relevant. On september 16 of this year obama spoke to a gathering. He said what people want to here. The chances of an Ebola Outbreak were extremely low. No one with the disease can fly here. Here. In the unlikely event someone does come here the government has taken new measures to ensure doctors are trained and hospitals ready to deal with the possible cases safely. Three days later, september 19, eric duncan left his house. He lied about his contact with a woman and boarded a plane for dallas. On september 25 he walked in the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital. Despite his recent exodus from liberia no one thought to test them for a bola. In essence, nothing he said was true. Airport screening was inadequate, hospitals unprepared, and the arrival proved much too likely. Were this an anomaly one could shift the blame. Unfortunately, his failure to tell the truth is not an anomaly at all but the norm. In my book, you lie you lie the evasions, omissions, fabrications, frauds, and outright falsehoods of barack obama, i document more than 75, but in chronicling the untruths i ended up writing a history of the presidency. Thank you. [applauding] now, those of you who are bold enough can do so by walking up to the microphone and asking a question. [laughter] my name is bill preston. Is this microphone on . Yes, it is on. It is on . My name is bill preston. I recently returned from new orleans where i i had to bury my 54 yearold sister. One of the things that sustained me was knowing that i would get back to independents and get back to my church, the nolan Road Baptist Church. And arriving there, of, of course, i went to a wednesday evening bible study. One of one of the good members there was talking about humility. I will get to the. Quickly. And everything that he said defied humility. And to humor him and myself, i confess that i was just returning from burying my baby sister and how distraught i was and how therapeutic it was knowing that i would return to independents because i i was going to return to this Wonderful Church of good people that i identified with that were such great questions. I loved them because they were the best bunch of liars and cheats that i had ever seen. I just loved them. My question is, how different then is barack obama than the typical member of my church at nolan Road Baptist Church . Well, you know, we are all sinners, sinners, and i am sure we have all told lies. I was saved the members of your church dont lie strategically, relentlessly, and for the sake of gaining power. That, i would say, is the difference. All president s have lied. It is inevitable. Sometimes the lies are understandable even. In obamas case it is just relentless. It is a policy. Jack, the gentleman just jack, the gentleman just before me spoke the truth about what is going on in our nation regarding our religious leaders. This is the problem. Taxing income is dealing. The Johnson Amendment in the 501 c3 portion of the irs tax code has our pastors mouths pastors mouse gagged to the. Where they are almost impotent. My question my question to you is, how do we break that bond so that our pastors may be able to again speak truth to power so that folks will understand what we are facing today. Somewhat offtopic. All they have to do is read the law and the case history they use it to intimidate people because they are not aware of the consequences. No preacher has ever been prosecuted. They may be trying in houston, houston, but i do not think they will succeed. My name is barbara stockton. I i saw on television today, trying to get the ministers to give them there sermon. I know this is off the topic the ministers say, hey, they are online. They just kick back on it. A a freer country than the paranoid among us would like to think. Thank you, cspan. There you go. My name is mark webber. What do you think the longterm impact on the next presidency and the following one on this and accuracy, this government by continual lying. I just saw a leading democrat strategist saying i think we made a mistake. We did not elect mitt romney. What you need is someone who you trust and is a fixer, someone who can fix things. There may be a battle between the ideologues and the pragmatists. [laughter] have it both ways. We need someone who can lead and can fix. Hi. I am floyd gingerich. The news the news came out this week. Obamas popularity. 40 percent right now. Amidst that, several programs, several efforts are crumbling. Our effort against isis is crumbling. Even the joint chiefs of staff are murmuring that we need people on the ground. The dictum, if you like your dr. You can keep your dr. , if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance has become even a late night talk show joke do we think the drop in popularity has to do with the people understanding that this has been an era of falsehood telling, or is it just until they can get some kind of bandaid on the program . I i think the independents in america have fully caught on. A lot of it has to do with credibility. People dont care. It does not affect them on a a daily basis. They may not even care about taxes. They do care when the nurse who lives down the street dies from something that does not have to happen. People really begin to Pay Attention. Some president s have signature achievements. And thats when people started paying attention. They caught on. And i dont think there is any recovery. I am worried about the next few years. I hope that good things happen. Jack, jack, my name is dave. There is a debate going on as to whether this Current Administration is incompetent or this is just their grand plan. I would say obama is a master of the sleightofhand. During the campaign in 2,008 and afterwards, people were left debating. His religion, christian, muslim, atheist. What they were not debating was, did he really care . He was immersed in leftism from his earliest days but always swam in the shallow end of the pool. I i do not see someone who cared enough to get things done. The Democratic House and a democratic senate. Six years later he is blaming the republican congress. Too many people in the street think the republicans control the congress. So i think that is part of it. You have to care, want to be a dictator. You have to get up in the morning wanting to conquer nations and do things. I am a vietnam veteran. I remember 50 years ago i knew that lbj was a liar. I am a danger to the country because i am a grayhaired old man. Colorfully said. Responsible for millions of dollars and thousands of patients. This does not surprise me one bit. I can file for dual citizenship in vietnam because part of me is still there. Thank you for your service. Young men are suffering now. Anyway. Speaking for the va, a curious back story to that. Obama told the story about how his uncle came home having liberated auschwitz, went home, was traumatized by what he had seen, went up to the attic and stayed there. Someone pointed out to him, your mother was an only child and your father was a kenyan. Who is this uncle . It was his great uncle. He did not liberate auschwitz, but they interviewed the uncle later on and he said, i never had any problems like that. But they made up that story to highlight the treatment. Later he was speaking to a group of hispanic veterans and told them that his father was the one who fought under patent. He he was like a 14 yearold kenyan. [laughter] and he came home, but when he came home the va took care of them. Tell the story all the time. The aftereffect. I i have two points. The first one falls in the category of what mr. Prescott alluded to. You are responsible for urging me to write for the american thinker. Dont be fooled by obamas incompetence. I am far more cynical than you about that issue, but i stand by my premise. He he is not incompetent and following a design. That case is still widely quoted. My second. Is more of a statement. It seems that his lies fall into several categories. The statements that are patently false at the time they are ordered, the statements that facts come along to expose, and then there are contradictions where he makes a statement and later makes another contradictory statement such as, it was not a terrorist attack. And i think, i think, and you can say that i am defending the president , but i think that in that category there is president. I think that i know the model that mr. Obama is following when he issues a statement and later a contradictory statement. We know that the verses that come later render the earlier verses in operative. I have a chapter in the book. Again, this could be where you say what you mean, talking to George Stephanopoulos about john mccain attacking my muslim faith. Their christian faith. Your christian faith. My christian my christian faith. That does not inspire confidence. I disagree with you somewhat he is following the strategy you cited. If he was following it well people would warm up to it. He stands a great real chance of alienating a good deal of america. Good evening. I am bill kidd. If he is following a script, who is writing the script . Who is putting all those things out there . Is this being written for him behind the scenes . He has had ghostwriters help them out. And then most likely largely written by a young speechwriter. Written by community. These people tend to think alike. When you see people up there saying that we cannot ban travel out of west africa, you are thinking, they dont have to be told by a larger there is no soviet union masterminding things. I think it is self generated we could say this or that, but the we will among them is so collective they do not need prodding from some outside source. Just my opinion. I am beverly worth. I have a question for you. Today i found out that barack obama deployed the National Guard to west africa. Isnt he pushing the envelope as far as the legal grounds of these young men . They did not sign up to fight infectious disease. They signed up to protect our country. I would say yes and no. Complicated by the fact that they may die fighting infectious disease. I think it is within the province of the president to do that. I will tell you in the book i i talk about one action that did not get attention, our initial engagement in libya. In 2,011 first of all, this is not even mentioned at the state of the union speech. Libya was our ally. Qaddafi, bad guy that he was, was still our ally. Two two months later we are signing on to lead from behind. The reason was there was an imminent bloodbath. And we would leave a rwandan sized stain on the conscience of the world if we did not get engaged. And so we got engaged. There is a fellow, democratic strategist who went in and did the math. In the purest way of knowing , the secondlargest city in libya. When he fought the rebels there only 200 people died. There was no bloodbath. Why not duplicate that . This is the same strategy. It worked then. One more question. Come on up. First of all, thank you so much for being here. Do you personally think that we we will be able to flip the senate in three weeks . Interesting. Im going to skirt that altogether. I i think there is a good chance. [applauding] i just want to say, when Dinesh Desousa wrote the book, and we all need to pray. He is being closely monitored by the government. The thing is that what has come of the movie and the book and the information that came out, this is something that a lot of voters do not understand what a non colonialist is. They do not know or care. The thing is, when you look at how his mother had to live, go to the bathroom over a hole in the ground. He apparently resented that. She left her second husband when he wanted to join and fight with our side. The thing is, i think i am not saying the man is a muslim. If he were, i dont think he would do anything different than what he has been and is doing, including helping isis. I know that they are just marching on and on and on. This is what i do not get. If he has all of these millions from the southern border, he is trying to turn us with the help of the money of george soros, trying to turn us into a third world country. I think he is doing that to get even with us. Removed from the white house. Is a speculate and when people like you and i speculate the people in washington say you know i havent seen anyone inside the beltway talk about what a literary genius obama is in a couple of years now. Sometimes word does get out but in the meantime i want to thank you all for coming and thank you for keeping the faith and go royals, okay . [applause] up next investigative journalist Ronald Kessler author of the first family detail discusses what secret Service Agents have revealed about our president s over the years and talks about the recent scandals involving the agency. He spoke spoke at barnes noble booksellers in washington d. C. This is about 50 minutes. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here. As you can tell him the title of my book i like to write about secret subjects preferably very challenging subjects that have consequences for society. It might be perverse perverse because its a subject so easy i dont want to do it. This sometimes gets me into trouble. When i did a book called moscow station it revealed that the kgb archivist had defected to the fbi. Usually they defect to the cia that this person wanted to defect to the fbi. They knew that he was safe. He was in the United States and nevertheless i heard from inside the fbi that they had opened a leak investigation and they were going to send agents to my house to try to interview me. I went to him and offered them coffee and i would schmooze them and i having done several books on the fbi and covered the fbi at the Washington Post, washington journal and Boston Herald thought that i knew what fbi agents look like which of course is silly but nevertheless a few days later there was a ring of my bell in potomac maryland which is a very quiet place. Very few people ring the bell. He opened the door and the there were these two intense looking men with ties and white shirts. I said where the ben ayed expecting you. They looked at me a little scared and held out these pamphlets, the watchtower. You might have thought that i planned the individual who ran across the white house lawn to get into the white house to get publicity for my book. Thats not sure but on the other hand in my book i did predict a lot of the scandals we see now. Based on the corner cutting and laxness of the secret service is not the agents who are brave and dedicated will take up bullet for the president. Its rather the management that has created a culture that rewards agents for keeping their mouths shut and perpetrating the events of the secret service is invincible and on the other hand punishes agents who point out deficiencies or point out problems or point out potential threats. A major focus of the book ms. Swett agency is behind the scenes because they really get to know the real character of our leaders. That can be pretty shocking. For example Hillary Clinton is so nasty to agents who protect her that being assigned to her detail is actually considered a form of punishment. Its the worst assignment in the secret service. And yet heres this woman who claims to be compassionate, cares about the Little People and a champion of the middle class and get behind the scenes she treats those very same people with contempt. What does that tell you about her character and how we should choose our president s . Do we choose them on how well he smiles on tv, what they promise which often they reneged on or do we choose them on the same criteria we use in the rest of our lives. We choose a friend or an employee or anybody in our lives we choose them based on their character. We would never associate with someone who treated people who help them with nastiness and with contempt and we treat we look at them on track record, where they have been and what have they accomplished are not accomplished. So that is why you learn a lot in this book about how we should be choosing our president s. Its a totally apolitical book. The book says president obama and Michelle Obama che barry tims with respect and consideration. They will invite them to dinner. On the other hand agents have been dismayed to overhear Michelle Obama urged her husband to be more aggressive in attacking republicans and siding with blacks and racial controversies. The book reveals that joe biden first of all likes to skinny dip which offends female secret Service Agents. This occurs both at his home at the Vice President s residence in washington and also his home in wilmington delaware. More seriously when he goes back to wilmington which to wilmington what to do several times a week and thats another issue, he will order agents to keep the military aid with the Nuclear Football a mile behind in the motorcade because he wants to have this image of the regular joe the man of the people so he doesnt want to have a big motorcade that meanwhile if president obama were taken out we would be totally defenseless against a Nuclear Attack because there would not be time for the military with the football to catch up with biden said he could unleash a retaliatory strike. On top of all that, it has caused we the taxpayers a Million Dollars for biden strips on air force two backandforth to wilmington. Its one thing to go back and forth a few times a year to get home but he is the Vice President s residence in washington that we pay for including five navy stores that take care of every need including making pastries every night and biden treats air force to like his personal taxi going back and forth twice in one day. Sometimes he will go back just to play golf with obama and then go back to wilmington. The cost has been a Million Dollars since biden took office. At the same time biden claims to reduce government costs. This is the hypocrisy that goes on that you see in the books the first family detail. In contrast president reagan was one of the nicest president s. He would spend time schmoozing with agents. Whenever he you went to air force one he would go into the cockpit and reap the pilots. He would remember their kids names were as jimmy carter did that only once in his full fouryear term. Jimmy carter would pretend to be this populist good old boy peanut farmer man of the people and yet he told his agent he didnt want them to say hello to him and the morning on the way to the oval office. Apparently it was too much bother to say hello back to another human being. He would pretend to carry his own luggage in front of the cameras that as soon as the cameras were gone he would give the luggage to security or their luggage would be emptied. Sometimes he would come into the oval office at 5 00 in the morning and tell the press office to tell the press that he was in there working hard for the American People at 5 00 a. M. But he would fall asleep on the sofa and secret Service Agents would see him doze off. So these are character traits that arent always obvious to the public. They are secret in many cases but what we do know we need to Pay Attention to. Reagan one day was going into the elevator and an aide came up to him and told him that the affair with gary hart was running for president was about to be in the paper the next day. Reagan said boys will be boys and he went in the elevator and said boys will not be president. After reagan was diagnosed with alzheimers he said that an agent while there must be Positive Side to this. You made a new friend every day. That was the great atomism of president reagan. The book reveals that the reason John Hinckley was able to shoot president reagan is that the Reagan White House staff overruled the secret service to let spectators within 15 feet of reagan as he came out of washington totally unscreened and the secret service did not want that but they caved spine the sleep to what the Reagan White House wanted. Ironically was reagans own staff that really caused the assassination attempt. This has never come out before and it was confirmed on the record both by the agent who was assigned to teach what they call the reagan attempt at the secret Service Training facility and also by Peter Wallison who did a report for the Treasury Department when he was general counsel. The secret service was within the treasury. The report never said that it was reagans white house staff that was responsible for this. Wallace later became white House Counsel under reagan and he confirmed on the record as well but that is exactly what happened. Going back, Lyndon Johnson was totally out of control. Of course back then than ever the press never reported knew this. He would sit on the toilet and go to the bathroom in front of agency was being briefed. He would hold a press conference at his ranch in texas and in front of reporters including female reporters. Leahy was on air force one he had this routine of daily stripping as soon as he got on the airplane even with this own daughters and his wife there an airplane. One day when he was Vice President johnson was late for an appointment with jfk. He was being driven by the secret service from a capital to the white house at 5 00 p. M. It was rush hour and he was laid so he told the secret Service Agent who was driving to drive up on the sidewalk and get there faster. The agent reviews. The sidewalk was full of pedestrians. Johnson took a newspaper and hit the agent on the head and said you are fired. This was the kind of thing that one on everyday. One agent said that this guy were not president he would be in a mental hospital. Yet we entrusted our country and the lives of our military who went to vietnam under his direction to this guy who was really a maniac. So when you really pack peel back the onion here you find that we really have made a lot of poor judgments when it comes to electing our president and our Vice President. The secret Service Despite the recent publicity overall does do a good job. When they get a threat they investigate and they put the threats into one of three categories. Three is considered the most serious where the person really has the intent of intent of carrying out an assassination and has the ability in that case when the president visits that persons hometown agents will visit him or her and warn him or her to stay way from the president and he will be watched until the president leaves. On the other hand across one threat someone said in a bar i wish i could kill a president. He was drunk and it turns out after an investigation there was no real intent and most likely that person would not be prosecuted because it is a federal crime to threaten the president. When president george h. W. Bush was out greeting people at the gate of the white house he liked to schmooze agents. They wanted to screen them but a few days later the Washington Post said bush was doing this in a few days after that agents noticed a classic lone assassin individual someone who fits the profile of a lone assassin namely someone who is smiling when everyone else is not or vice versa. Everyone is smiling and he is coming. Everyone else is wearing summer clothes, he is wearing a winter overcoat. They patted him down and sure enough he had a weapon. Yet he had a pistol and most likely would have used it. One of the most bizarre stories in this book the first family detail is one again george h. W. Bush was going to enid oklahoma when he was campaigning for election and the secret service did their usual advance work. They talked to local Law Enforcement to see if there were any threats out there. Local Law Enforcement said in others a psychic in town has been incredibly reliable in the past and is actually led us to the bodies of murder victims. She said she had this vision that when bush comes to town he is going to be assassinated by a sniper on an overpass. The agents were of course embarrassed to take it seriously but at the same time they did. They went an interview this woman and they said do you know more about this and she said yeah i know the limousines for the motorcade are already in town. They said where, at the air force base can you show was quickly one out there and she pointed to a hangar in and that is where they were. She pointed to the correct one but then she said when bush comes out of air force one the next morning hes going to be wearing a sports jacket and a sports shirt. They thought i was. He always wears a suit. They did tell headquarters about it. The next morning they went to greet lush as he came out of air force one and sure enough he was wearing a jacket, sports jacket and a sports shirt. A shiver went down their spine and they decided to divert the motorcade to an alternate route which would not go under and the overpass. Of course bush was safe. He wasnt all about it at the time. He learned about it for the first time in this book but that is one of the more bizarre stories i reveal in this book as well as just how agents do their job. For example when the president goes out of town and hes going to stay in a hotel agents will not only make sure nobody else is a guest on the floor where the president stays but nobody else is a guest on the floor above where the floor below. They will check out the suite where the president is going to stay. They will place the tv because the tv could be a surveillance device. They will look for bugs. They have found bugs in a few cases where they were left over in the hotel because another celebrity had been there and someone was trying to bug them. So they will search through the carpets in the frames of pictures to look for an explosive device or detonating device and then they will also check out local hospitals, exit routes, safe houses such as the firehouse where they might go if there is an attack. They have what they call expedience goods which they put over the president in the event of a chemical attack. So it is quite involved. However in the book i go into a culture within management which really started in 2003 when the department of Homeland Security took over the secret service. Corner cutting, laxness and an attitude we will make due with less. We are the Great Secret Service and we dont have to lock the door of the white house because we are so wonderful and an arrogance. He saw the arrogance when the secret Service Director issued a statement saying that when the white house intruder gonzalez under the white house ran through most of the white house with a knife. He couldve had a weapon of mass distraction. He couldve had explosives. He exercised tremendous restraint. Can you imagine that . Heres this guy that could have blown up the white house and she is praising the agents and the officers for exercising strength. That shows the arrogance of the secret service that they would think they were such fools that we would fall for this baloney. And think that the secret service has done a good job. At the same time the secret service lied about it. They said initially that gonzalez was docked at the door. I was a lie. He actually penetrated the white house overpowered a female age agent. Why a uniformed officers didnt release dogs on him previously they were not paying attention and why didnt they take him out with lethal force . Obama had just left that just left but he couldve returned and therefore should have been taken out. You simply cannot wait until he enters the white house with weapons with wmd and explosive to find out if he is a threat. So on top of that the female officer was overpowered and it took an agent who was off duty to finally take him down. So another item in the book which the Washington Post picked on picked up on without credits in the book is in 2011 there were shots fired at the white house. A female uniformed officer reported that but her supervisor overruled her and said it was probably from a construction site and she later said she was afraid to push the point because she was afraid she would be criticized by management. This again goes to the culture of the secret service manageme management. Its not the agents as i said at the management that really punishes agents for raising any questions whatsoever. So you have this coverup mentality. Its really a rotten culture that can only be changed by an outside directors such as bob mueller was when he came in as the new director at the fbi. He had been the head of the criminal division. Not that the fbi was in terrible shape like the secret service but it needed to be more focused on prevention of plots before they happen and thats exactly what mueller did and made it clear that any agent who had the attitude of im going to make an arrest and put them in jail and thats the end of it is going to be left to work cases in butte montana. The idea is to focus on individuals who may become assets who will lead the fbi to more plots and more sources and that is why we have not had a successful foreign terrorist attack since 9 11. People dont tend to connect that with the fbi but that is exactly why along with help from the cia that we have not had a successful attack. Every few months you see arrests by the fbi terrace and thats the bottom line that they are doing their job. I wants to speak about the fbi and just briefly touch on my previous book the secrets of the fbi which reveals how the fbi breaks into homes to plant bugging devices without getting caught. This is something that is employed on any major case whether its terrorism organized crime, political corruption and what the agents do is two weeks before the breakin they of course cased the joint and they determine who goes in and who goes out, who works there. On the night of the breakin the agents will watch the homes of those individuals to make sure they dont go back into the premises. It could even be an embassy and if they do the agents will divert them. They will have Police Officers stopped them and give them a ticket. They will even have a traffic accident. They may open a fire hydrant in the area so no one can go back to the area and they also will take a photo of any dog that might be on the premises and show that to a veterinarian pusan contract with the fbi and the veterinarian will prescribe just the right amount of tranquilizer to shoot into the dog with a dart gun as they are breaking them because of course they dont want any barking dogs. At the end of the breakin they will give that dog another shot to wake them up. They will bring their own dust into the breakin and in case observe dust on the coffee table on and replace their own dust with dust. By the way they showed me i got incredible cooperation and through this cooperation personally. They showed me a real bug which is the size of postage stamp, little bit thicker. It will record for 20 hours or transmit as you wish. Lets say you want to lug an office building. They go to Elevator School to learn how to control elevators. They will go in and take control of one of the elevators. They will get on top of the roof of the elevator in the middle of the night they will get out and put the bugs in this way. They will get back in the elevator and during the day they will come out wearing business suits and no one is for the wiser. Lets say they want to put a bug in the home in the middle of night. It will take a photo of the front of the house and then blow that up into a huge tarp that they drape over the front of the house so any bystander walking by on the street in the middle of the night looks at the house and thinks thats the house but actually behind the tarp defeats the locks that they put the bugs in. They also have a a phony bushido should look like an umbrella and they will walk slowly with the bush in front of them towards the front of the house and steal themselves with the bush as they defeat the locks in the alarm systems. A tremendous number of anecdotes in this book the first family detail. Just one is when they were going to put bugs in a mafia hangout in philadelphia. The agents determined that there was a backdoor raided it and want to go into the backdoor because it could be boobytrapped. They had to go on the front door but the front door overlooked in all night bar and that patrons could see the agents trying to defeat the locks. The agents borrowed a city bus and they drove into to the mafia hangout which was supposedly an electronics store. They got out and put the hood of the bus up so it looked as if the bus had broken down. They got out and defeated the locks. The patrons couldnt see them because they were behind a bus. Bus one around the block as they were putting the bugs in. They came back and win went by the bus stop. There were two patrons from the bar waiting for the bus and the bus went by. They were furious and they went running for the bus. As soon as they got in from of the mafia hangout these two guys ran in trunk and at first the agents didnt realize they werent with them. The agents were from different offices or they were with the secret team which is called Tactical Operations which is a team that breaks into homes and offices and i was able to actually go out to see the headquarters of this operation and theres a photo of it in the book the secrets of the fbi. The agent started taking out their weapons and their walkietalkies and then these two guys started waiting to get out. Let me off, let me off they were scared. The agent who was driving said hey i stop bothering me. Im having enough trouble driving this bus. Then another agent got up and he had a shotgun over his shoulder and then they really started ringing to get off. Finally the agent who was driving understood what was going on, let them out and they went running down the street and nobody heard from them again. When it comes to the secret service buzzer which is only 1. 6 billion a year and that includes not only protection of the president of the Vice President and om individuals together including white house staff as well as visiting heads of state, the National Nominating Conventions plus the secret Service Investigates counterfeiting and financial crimes. The budget is ridiculous. Its about the amount of one Stealth Bomber and the secret service just creeps along like a car without an oil change. All around its crumbling. In fact they have actually refused to update their devices at the white house for detecting intruders. The more sophisticated technological devices that are available now they refuse to update devices for detecting weapons of mass distraction. They refuse to refused to put devices and to detect gunshots. We saw that when the secret service didnt realize until four days later that the white house that had been shot up in 2007. They are not keeping uptodate with the latest firearms. The fbi has more powerful weapons. They will not allow it time for agents to qualify for firearms requalification or physical fitness test and they cover that up by asking agents to fill up their own test scores. Theres dishonesty involved which should never be tolerated in any Law Enforcement agency. When members of congress go out to the secret Service Training center which ive been to with my wife pam to contribute descriptions in my book. Shes a former Washington Post reporter and she wrote the book undercover washington which is about spying in washington. We saw how they train for example when driving to do the j turn where they go 180 degrees around and they have scenarios where they detect explosives. When members of congress go out there and they are shown these scenarios they are presented as spontaneous and isnt it wonderful that the agents do their jobs. Secretly when Congress Goes out there the secret service rehearses the scenarios beforehand so everyone knows the answers. Again total dishonesty and nothing is worse than any Law Enforcement agency. They also pad their statistics. They will take credit for some cases that local police have investigated and closed in and they go out and make a copy of the report and they call that an investigation and include that in their statistics. Its just the most poorly managed organization you can imagine. In my previous book in the press and secret service i went into a little bit of this but much more in the new book. One of the more shocking examples of this corner cutting is that under pressure from white house staff or Campaign Staff the secret service will let people into evidence without magnetometer or screenings. Its like letting a person into an airplane without metal screening. The secret service will cut corners in this way because an event is about to start and mainly because the secret service hasnt provided enough magnetometers. The secret service has no business caving. Any of these events could result in an assassination. You could have five terrorists come in with grenades and yet on a regular basis the secret service will engage in this real negligent. This has not been picked up by the press. Based on my previous book i wrote in the Washington Post in an oped back in 2012, may of 2012. So for the biggest scandal in the history of the secret service involves agents hiring prostitutes in colombia which is by the way the story that i broke. The media largely ignored a bigger scandal that lacks management culture that condones cutting corners directly endangering the life of the president 2012. Yet it wasnt until the intrusion by gonzalez and the fact that an armed schedule who had not been screened was allowed an elevator with the president finally president obama obviously demanded the resignation of the directed julia pierson. The previous director Mark Sullivan also shouldve been removed, shouldve been removed after the salahis the Party Crashers and to the white house state dinner even though they were not on the guest list as well as a third intruder Carlos Allen Norrie story had broke. Why would they ignore the fact that they are not on the guest list and ignore the fact that they had not done a background check. One clue and you can tell in this but im talking about the one clue is that when mary cheney, dick cheneys daughter was under protection she would try to get your agents to take her friends to a restaurant by taxi drivers. They refused as they should. They are Law Enforcement officers. They are to protect individuals under certain laws and that doesnt include taking mary cheneys friends to restaurants. But she threw a fit and god heard later removed over this. What message does this sound to leaders at the white house gate . If it turns out that they werent supposed to be on the guest list and there was an air and the white house staff complains they could be in trouble with her on management because our management would not back us as was the case with mary cheney. By the way anybody who thinks that this book is not a political i point you to republicans such as mary cheney who are skewered in this book as well as spiro agnew for having a number of Affairs Going at once even though he claimed to be for family values. That was his whole shtick as well as jenna bush who debated their agents and would even go through red lights trying to evade your agents and didnt understand what security was about. And senator ted cruz and youll have to buy the book to find out what i said about senator ted cruz but i think its interesting. And so at that point president obama said he had confidence in the secret service. How could anybody say they have confidence in the secret service . Its not that he has to come out publicly and criticize them. He could just be quiet. Mark sullivan it turns out ordered and this is one of the most shocking revelations, ordered agents who are protecting president obama at the white house including when he lifted off in marine one to go to camp david when weekend especially looking out for snipers that might try to take him out as hes lifting off with his family. These agents wont work on what was called the prowler team. Instead of protecting the white house go to Southern Maryland to protect his own assistant who had been harassed by a neighbor. His neighbor had appropriately called the police. The secret service has absolutely no Legal Authority of any more than the fbi to protect these employees and yet Mark Sullivan ordering agents to keep this secret told him to go and protect his own assistant over matter of months. Then on top of that and that was revealed by the Washington Post. I have the story back in 2012 but books being what they are ahead and brought it out yet. What was not in the Washington Post and is in this book is the agents on top of all that retrieve confidential Law Enforcement records about this neighbor. Again not only a violation of law but a violation of criminal law to retrieve confidential Law Enforcement records on anyone unless you have a legal basis which they did not have. So not only is this a shocking example of dereliction of duty by Mark Sullivan to protect the president , not only a violation of critical law but it shows the culture and it shows the effect on me agents that are there to protect the president. They will take a bullet for the president. They are real patriots and yet they are being told by the director of co its not important to protect the president. And well just have my assistant protected as a favor. Now another example in the book and this has not hit the press yet is one the actor Bradley Cooper, i know you know who Bradley Cooper is what i did know who he was. Hes an actor. He went to the white house Correspondents Dinner where obama spoke. A highranking secret Service Official in new york ordered agents at the washington hilton to let Bradley Cooper and the suv into the secure area in front of the hotel were only secret Service People were allowed and even they had to be screened for explosives by dogs mainly belgian dogs that cost 4000 apiece. They are trained to sniff out explosives and to take down individuals such as the one running across the white house lawn. Anybody could attach explosives to the underside of the car. Obviously im not saying that Bradley Cooper is a terrorist that anybody could have attached explosives to the underside of the car and that is why even secret Service People have to be screened for explosives. Yet officials in the secret service apparently as some favor to Bradley Cooper and the security people to impress them perhaps he was looking for a job once he gets out tells him to just ignore the most basic security procedures. You can imagine again the dismay of the agents who were there to protect the president and they are being told to ignore the most basic security precautions. So that again tells you the culture that has brought us to this point where we actually have an intruder running into the white house and an individual allowed into an elevator period that has not been screened regardless of whether the individual has a g gun. By basic protocol you never let anybody in the elevator with the president unless its somebody who has been screened and is known to the secret service. So that is where we stand today. I do hope that president obama chooses a good outside individual to have the secret service. His failure to replace the director after the salahis at what she was six years ago is a colossal failure of management judgment. I think also perhaps he is very impressed by his own agents as i am sure he should be. So he thinks well this represents the secret service and theres no problem. Yet its his own life that has been at stake and still is at stake as well as the lives of his own family. That is where things stand. I think obama is capable of selecting a good leader for the secret service as he did with james comey the new fbi director. Hes very admired by agents of these doing a good job. It is possible to get someone from the outside who can shake it up, change the culture and not beholden to interest within the agency. But im telling you its going to be a Monumental Task because everywhere you look there is corner cutting. There is laxness and a culture of spinelessness and its sorely in need of reform. I hope that individuals reading this book will consider it to be a roadmap of what needs to be done to reform the secret service because it has dozens of other examples of this culture of corner cutting as well as the real story on our leaders and thats something we need to wake up to. We need to Pay Attention to character and track record and stop fooling around with did they make a gaffe in some debate and are they nice on tv. Thats the way we have been choosing president s and over and over again we are disappointed. That is the most i think Important Message in this book. And i would like to take your questions. The first question. You explain theres a high level of frustration among like the secret Service Agents. This is an interest from your briefing. Is there any initiatives from annie congressman or any other organization to go ahead and conduct such reform for the agency even though it will among all this . Is their there a level of frustration facts you can believe there is and i interviewed many current agents as well as former agents that i was also able to as i said get cooperation to visit the Training Center and the command center. But they are outraged. The agents are irish at this culture and yet they feel their jobs are at stake. When agents are rewarded they felt that they were probably violating the law and yet they felt that they blew the whistle and stood up for what was right they would be fired. That is how serious it is. Its a scandalous culture. The other part of the question was will hearings and investigations be useful in going through this . I remember back after the salahis did their thing crashing the state dinner there were hearings on the hill and they gave the director a hard time. Nothing changed. Absolutely nothing changed. If you have any organization thats screwing up. Lets say if microsoft are apple were losing a lot of money what would you do . Who would bring in a new ceo. He wouldnt have hearings and he would have investigations. He wouldnt have reviews and thats exactly what happened with the secret service. Its simple to get the right manager in there. For example when bob mueller was the fbi director as soon as he came in he was having briefings by top fbi officials and one of the officials who was over counterintelligence started obfuscating and misleading about problems within the division which involved a spy case in los angeles. Mueller just removed her like that and that sent a message right away you had better be honest, you had better be candid and you had better do your job. That made a huge difference in the fbi. Thats what you need with the secret service, a good manager. You know people say well its so unfortunate that we have to think like that. We have so many women who are so capable of running businesses. Meg whitman comes to mind and certainly as well as men. It just needs to be someone who knows what he or she is doing and its very very simple. Yes. Why do you think the fbi is so much better funded than the secret service . The fbi rightfully has been pushing to get more funding and has done a very good job of it wheres the secret service not only has not been pushing for more funding because they could get it. If they want obama and said hey your life is at risk and we are screwing up. We had better double the budget which i think is what should happen you can be sure that money would be provided. 1. 6 billion, its ridiculous for this agency. And congress would go along as well. But as part of this greater culture they have the attitude that we make due with less. In my book i quote Mark Sullivan as saying that. We make due with less. Theyre actually proud to spend less money. I mean what are they thinking . This is a present of the United States we are talking about. If you have an assassination you nullify democracy. People recoil when you use the word assassination because its so unthinkable and a sound so terrible but its very possible. In fact i quote in the book and by the way twothirds of the book is on the record. One individual who is not on the record says its a miracle that there has not been an assassination because of all this corner cutting. Even with the best security the president is very vulnerable and with the worst security now of course isil terrorists are going to realize they could overwhelm the white house after what happened. Its a terrible situation. Another difficulty that agents face besides their screwed up management is many president s think they are immortal and poohpooh advice they are given by the secret service and that goes back to jfk. Jfk refused to let agents ride on the reRunning Board of his limousine. They wanted to agents on the rear Running Board of his limo in dallas. If they had been there the agents would have jumped on them after the first shot that was fired and push forward and saved his life. Theres no question whatsoever. Really with all the conspiracy theories and all the talk about whether the secret service screwed up in the end im afraid it was the president himself who made it possible for him to lose his own life. Abraham lincoln the same thing. Even though the civil war was going on he refused to have any security. Finally just before his assassination he agreed to have one d. C. Police officer with him. On the night of the assassination this one d. C. Police officer, parker decided to go off and have a drink at a local tavern. Lincoln was totally unprotected and of course he was shot and killed. So the secret service has so many difficulties that they have to face. Its one of the most important agencies and the federal government and until now it has been very secretive. People ask me how to get them to talk . Usually i use waterboarding. That works pretty well. But i think they understand that i tell an honest story and i have a track record of writing about the fbi and the cia and other sensitive areas. And that i will tell it like it is. For example with the fbi i said they have been doing a wonderful job since 9 11 but on the other hand one of my previous books expose william sessions the fbi director at the time for engaging in personal abuses having the fbi pay for a fence around his home with no security purpose, taking personal trips on the fbi plane. Quite a few other infractions even by his will inviting his wife allison to fbi headquarters even though she didnt have a top secret clearance. She would be given a pass so she could get in and out booklet to his dismissal as fbi director. So if agents really are dedicated to the truth they understand im going to tell the truth as well. Although ive been told that i listen very well and that seems awfully simplistic and doesnt take a lot of skill. But i did a book. I color my midlife crisis. They want to to drink more champagne and go to parties with my wife pam. It is a secret society there in palm beach which i was able to penetrate. When the people there said nobody here listens to anybody. You listen and thats perhaps part of why i have been able to tell the stories in these books. Yes. On kind of a lighter note you talked about the secret Service Working with a psychic. Is this the george bush threat i think i was . I did talk about that. The fact that the secret service actually listen to a psychic and it is one of the more Amazing Stories in the book. Im glad you pointed that out. Any other questions . All right, thank you so much for coming and i appreciate it. [applause] your relationship with Irving Kristol wellknown conservative, was it a friendship . Guest it was largely in the mail. I would send them a script and he would send me his comments. And Armstrong Williams who is an africanamerican young conservative guide, he came out to california and was on staff conservative adviser. Mr. Crystal was there from the beginning of the show and perhaps six or seven episodes just to get us started. Host what his people for the american way guest this could be a donor. You are on television with me. Im doing an interview and i have to hang up. Sweetheart sweetheart, i will call you back and i adore you. Do you hear me . By. Your audience could find this interesting. Host five daughters, one son. The. Guest this one is one of twins. She is at vassar and the other one is at harvard. They will be 20 next week. Host are those your youngest . Guest those are my youngest. Host and you are how old . Guest mayanne vistas 68. Host you are 92 . Guest 92. Host how is your health . Guest my health is pretty good. Host people for the american way, whats it about . Guest i was watching the beginning there was an influx of Television Ministries jerry falwell, pat robertson. Host jimmy swaggart. The. Guest baker, etc. And the mixture of politics and religion and thought not my america. And thats exactly what i did as a psa, Public Service announcement. I did put a camera on a working guy who said he and his family, his wife and kids talk about politics at dinner all the time. They disagree about a lot of things. Outcome these ministers that agree with him and say that hes a better christian than his wife because he thinks politically the way they think. And he says there has to be something wrong. When anyone tells you you are a bad or good christian depending on your political point of view. Father hesburgh fell in love with that one. I showed it to him and he sent me to another number of mainline Church Leaders ended in somebodys office somebody said form an organization. And people from american way came about as a result of that Public Service. Host this is still in rid existence today . Guest theres not a day i dont think god that they are there. There are now something over 1000 young elected officials who are holding offices as mayors or aldermen or complement. Three of them are in the congress of the United States now. Its doing very well. Thats right. There are letters that data is written scattered throughout the book. Hes a great letter writer and it seems to be a lost art so maybe one of the things this book will do is remind people how important writing letters is. And so scattered throughout the book, series of letters some of which he wrote mom and some of which he wrote to all of us in some of which he wrote to me when i was president. It mattered. And he was there mattered to get these notes from dead because in that he was president he knew what the pressures of the chopper bike and he knew moments could be trying and to have him and project some humor and or a love note made a huge difference during my presidency. I recognize theres a lot of psychobabble in a relationship and thats not exactly your long suit here in this family but anyway people cant possibly comprehend and hopefully this book one reason ive written this to hope hope you understand better that when you admire admire someone as much as we admire george h. W. Bush and the offers held for comfort means more than nfic could possibly give. Next Rebecca Frankel talks about the history of canine warriors and describes the use of dogs during iraq and afghanistan. During this event ms. Rebecca frankel is in conversation with james fallows. This is just over an hour. Hi, everyone. For those of you who have been here before, before, this introduction will seem more personal than usual because i am lucky enough to call Rebecca Frankel a close friend. Now, seven years ago i was approaching two years into my first job here at dc. I would call my mom cryig