♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: tom brokaw is here. he continues to report for nbc news as a special correspondent. this past weekend he spoke to the graduating class at ole miss. his book on his struggle with cancer is now out on paperback. it is called "a lucky like interrupted, a memoir in hope." i am pleased to have you back at this table. saidot only did that, you

that if you were speaking at the university of alabama, you would have to speak and shorter sentences. it is a standard line for me. it went viral and alabama. so actually did radio commentary. it was a joke. alabama i would say the same thing about florida state. i would talk about michigan. used overthing i have the years and i knew as soon as a set that alabama would go nuts. they have lost the last two football games they played against ole miss and they happened to be there so that is what i did it. curtis runs friend a very good department down there. from 25 students to more than 200.

they won this past year, the big investigative reporting for work they did in the delta about how the delta has not changed necessarily consist the civil rights movement. there are a lot of very bright students. i did a lecture there a couple years ago and there was a young one who i said i could get you a job right now. she wisely said i have to go and get some experience. they had some great kids. charlie: how is your health? tom: my health is ok. i'm ok. charlie: by the way, he calls the charles, so my mother would love them. tom: my health is ok, i am in remission. that is the place you want to be. but dr. kissinger said to be one day, where does it go after remission? by take drugson right now as we speak i'm on a chemotherapy drug can i take one every morning. five milligrams.

that will go on for the rest of my life unless they come up with a cure. it is an incurable but treatable cancer. if you read "the new york times" doinghe weekend, they are g-therapy. i do think we are advancing quickly to what will be known as the golden age of cancer research. charlie: there's also the piece on the poliovirus. taking our own jeans and reengineering them and reinserting them. there was an astonishing case about a woman who is cured to net. -- doing that. at the mayo clinic, there was a woman who had one more shot, they said we are going to give you a megadose of measles vaccine and she was cured, still is. at this point they are throwing

balls of the wall. they are paying a lot of attention to the research, but that is the direction in which it is moving. using her own body, using your own cells to reengineer. there are good cells as well as put -- bad cells. also spoken have about how the health care industry has learned from your experience and what you have written. tom: it has been according to be that hospitals and prominent doctors have said to me, we need to do a better job of communication. that is a lot of what i write about. i'm a journalist, i'm used to talk news, but i have thought a lot about that day i was diagnosed and blunt terms. you have a malignancy. those of the first lines of the doctors office. i later said to him, why we so candid? that's why were you so candid? candid?ere you so if i was just a layperson, i would be bewildered.

doctors go back and they start working on the treatment. there were a thousand questions that came into the mind of a person who was just diagnosed. one of the things i have been patientsn is getting to find other patients who have gone through this experience and be in touch with them. there is a whole master list. charlie: a directory of patients. tom: yes. they are in the houston area so they are mostly there. hey can find in a file -- said, here is what you can expect. she was at my side asking the right questions and conferring with the doctors. that is the important thing to do. i have told everybody since then who gets cancer, find a doctor who is a friend, man or woman, they do not have to be an oncologist, but they can help you through the mysteries of medicine. charlie: because they can ask

the right questions. cannot your own mind you treaty doctors office like a mayan temple. by the way, is very subjective here. it is a kind of cancer but it has a lot of variations on the theme about how to be treated and how it affects you. you and i have a common friend, some going to a very difficult time, with this cancer. i have been lucky. i have been in remission from about eight months since they started treating me and everyone is happy and it stayed there. charlie: tom brokaw the best doctors in the world. tom brokaw had all the resources. family that was there to ask the right questions. and tom could pay for. -- for it. tom: here's what i thought about. i grew out in the great plains, working-class background it

there's someone out there who works in a gas station, put enough money to buy his own guest patient, maybe got a convenience store and he is living the american dream. he is in his mid-40's, making $300,000 a year. he gets my cancer. he is bewildered by. because he does not have the access i do to have the experts. but if you go online, the mayo clinic has a great line about -- all the great cancer centers do. his health-care plan is probably one key finances as a businessman. it does not begin to cover the cost. these are the difficult things we have to deal with. charlie: you also say that either you have cancer or you do not. it is two different worlds. if you do not have cancer, you can be sympathetic. but if you do has cancer -- do h ave camcer you can be empathetic. member of your

family has cancer, everybody has cancer in a manner of speaking. and i do not mean that in the darkest possible terms. the concentration is on that cancer. you see firsthand what they are going through. for the rest of us, we hear a friend who has cancer, we are not there when they wake up in the morning or when they take their medication or are incapacitated. and we are not there for the moment of fear. and we see them three months later and they say they are doing pretty well. well, that was a piece of cake. that was not a piece of cake, that is the point. charlie: when was it the worst for you? tom: the fall of 2013. it was really bad when i got diagnosed. a week after i was diagnosed i did a dumb thing, i went fishing. of pain.a paralysis i got back to the ranch and i cannot get out of bed. meredith kept going the mayo

clinic, they kept throwing measles painkillers at me. they had to committee back me out of there and that was a nightmare. charlie: the dumbest thing you did in your life probably. tom: by the time i got into the plane i was hallucinating. when he landed i thought we were back in new york. 24 hours later i was doing much better. but the interesting time for me was the paltry 13. the weather was -- fall of 2013. the weather was terrible. i had can find my cancer to a very small group of people. i wanted to go out every day and walk a half a block to get a bagel. shop whereo a coffee it was sleeping in a slowing and i was not moving very well. there was a huge larger-than-life for and a poster of tom brady advertising ugg boots. overomen were mooning

him. atet up to him and i look him, but pardon me and i dropped the f-bomb at him. i actually told that to him later. his friends all left. charlie: would you keep it from your children as long as you did have you had to do it over? tom: the children were tuned in pretty quickly. it was a circle of friends. at nbc, the only ones i told were my big boss at the time. on thet want to be internet, tom brokaw cancer victim. i to the anniversary of his assassination and i told my team, i have a bad back, we will have to edit at my house. these things are very portable now slam my computer set up their and it would come out to the house and i would work there. it, i went intape and taped it and i looked at the tape and i looked god-awful.

i said, give me another 24 hours, i will come back into it again. i got muscle pull together and then he would not have known i had cancer. about christmastime, one of our bejeweled friend said to me, are you going to be ok? something was wrong. i looked at her and i said, i'm not, nora. nora ephron was our friend. shoes in a much tougher situation that i was. the greatest line of all was t, i had been on his show with the cancer and i'd asked not to have to make a big step up, i said i had a big -- bad back. and it came out i had cancer. noterote me a quick saying you are one tough sob. i said was no reason for me to trouble you with my

difficulties. he wrote back saying, you cannot possibly be jewish. out that the illusion that we are going to live forever goes away very quickly. you set is ideally aside your priorities, i'm going to change and go and do the things -- continue as much as i possibly could. i wrote this book. i got back to a point recognized fishing again --point where i could go fishing again. for b.s., ilerance don't have to do that anymore. in this job he get asked to do a lot of things, preside over events.

i have begun to say i'm not going to do as many. time, onet the same of your good friends said to be the thing i think most about tom is a generosity. he will get on a plane and go places to do things for people understanding that his celebrity can make a difference. and you still do that. tom: i still do the things i think that are important that i can help people with. i went to southern virginia with her was something called healing waters, wonderful program for taking care of wounded veterans. they can learn to fish in a cool andnd it was a rainy weekend and i would not have been anywhere else. i was so taken by who they were and how much they love the sport i care about. all the people were down there and to help them. popular and there are events in new york, we are both on call for those constantly. you pick the ones that have some meaning. tomorrow i'm doing a breakfast

here because i want to do as much for cancer as i can. if i can help people understand what it is like and get people to step into the fight against cancer i think it will be a good thing. you, thewhen you are awards keep coming in now at a more rapid pace. it is just been announced that you have received the french legion of honor. beenone of the things i've thinking about a lot of is this election year and what has been going on around the world and what is going on with the computer age. reason i have been around as long as i happen is it is all fascinating to me. i love watching the world change and the impact it has on us. very early on i went to silicon valley, i met bill gates and work on getting to know him. i still find myself doing that. i do not know how much you have been in lower manhattan really but we have a silicon valley here in new york. charlie: and what they are doing

in cornell. tom: and what they are doing in this building with bloomberg. these are huge transitional moments in the life of the world and the history of the world. charlie: what is what is , apening to us politically group of people felt like they had left behind and they do not see the rise in their life that they see and read about elsewhere. tom: i think there is of that but i also think it is not just being left behind in economic terms. even people who have some prosperity are feeling clearly separated from their government. and by the way, as i have been saying to my colleagues, they are also feeling separate from what goes out over television every day. a lot of guys in women sitting around well-dressed inner talking authoritatively. someone in the militant -- middle of illinois, they lost her job and her saying they are not represent me.

i have no problems. this town is drying up. we lost our bank and merchants cannot compete against walmart. charlie: and they blame the establishment. tom: washington is a big piece of it. i do think that money has not had a big impact, but the perception of money and the chasing a money is real. i think a lot of people see that. this was their year and donald trump has been their instrument to wipe that up. here is how trump has changed politics for the long haul. when you stop and think about it, his most effective weapon has been twitter. not spending any money. he is free and getting these people. that areating rallies the equivalent of rock 'n roll rallies, there's something entertaining, something to do. he is taking on -- charlie: what is interesting that is happening is -- to bernie sanders as well. tom: yes.

the mirror image. they feel like they are out of control of institutions. in about 10 seconds i will give you the 20 minute brokaw version about we got here. disaster,on was a wall street collapsed, nobody in wall street went to jail. people lost their homes, their jobs, their kids were teenagers and their spending most of their time on social media. president obama said he would not be the president of a blue state or a red state america but the knife is in america. but he had a liberal agenda. republicans said we're going to do everything we can't deny him a religion. the system grounded to a halt. at the same time we are sending less than 1% of our publishing to fight this war. this president is now eight years of war. charlie: longer than any other

president in american history. longer than abraham lincoln. three years ago i thought that isil and the destabilization of the middle east would define his presidency. i think he cannot leave the presidency with a lot of other achievements of this war is a war without end. and i really think it is a big issue. charlie: do you think he is ratcheting up a little bit now? tom: yeah, i do. charlie: he hopes to achieve something before he leaves, i think for the best. tom: he is aware of the criticism he met when he did not leave the baseball game in cuba. people said, wait a minute, these are not hard-core republicans saying that, these are analysts. i felt that way. a lot about politics and be the president is reality and perception. you have to do the reality but he also have to do the perception part.

the symbolic part of it. to be strong and say, i hear you, i know why you are concerned. at the same time, i'm very concerned personally that we continue to talk about santa barbara. we're not talking about all the mass shootings that have occurred in the last couple years. oregon and other schools. if donald trump says, we have to ban muslims until we figure that out, well, if you are worried about damage, what about banning the a-14? but nobody wants to go there. those are really shoes for us as well. i am a gun owner and i have a lot of them, but at the same time we have to get sensible. this is "the washington post" today. adapt to an anti -establishment move this year have become caution signs for hillary clinton's campaign and the focus of new efforts to

afford her position as she prepares for a bruising general election. he reflected exactly what i believe, a big issue for her is that she has been in the public eye for a long, long time, since 1991, really. before that the governor of arkansas. she is a familiar figure. along the way she has become controversial on some issues as well. part of the way she is running against now is that we want some new people in there. one of the recent trump is doing well is that he has a fresh point of view. people have been around for a long time are having a hard time. bernie sanders has been around for a long time, but he has a different point of view. ofk, somebody said he is one one of twos, he has chances to win at least. and anything can happen

in politics. it is not just about a candidate for the campaign and how they run it, it is about the world, what happens in the world. do we have an economic catastrophe of another series of terrorist attacks? there are a whole manner of things that can happen. china, which direction does a go between now and the election? all manner of things can happen. , lyndon johnson had to leave the white house because of bobby kennedy being killed, dr. king ", writes in chicago. it came very close to defeating them. -- defeating him. ♪

♪ i assume even more than broadcasting, even more than being there when the berlin wall came down, it is the fact that a book about a generation of soldiers that has given you a connection to the military and bonded you. one reason the french are honoring you is because of what you have done. when yous that loom think about the life you have

lived? tom: very big. i did not anticipate -- i did not say eureka. i was really writing the book for that generation. for the people i knew who it been through world war ii. the people we met any course of writing the book. but also, it is now 18 years since i wrote the book. stop, -- i did stop to three or four times a year by people think i did not understand my parents. i believe it is to a great degree how i will be remembered. charlie: i think it will be the first line. tom: that has just fine. charlie: and it connected them to you too. to give them a voice to think about their own lives. basei grew up in an army and the next thing i did was moved to a town which was all corps of engineers building a big dam. everyone was a veteran.

i saw how they work and the sacrifices they went through, very much like my parents. whatever you could get you had to earn. now they have a real opportunity and all they want to do is put their head down and work hard and hope they can send their kids to college. my favorite stories is a veteran who i had met did not realize. he called me, use living in idaho and he had a terrible world war ii. his brother was killed in front of him, he was 16 when he lied about his age. had a ferocious war. we were for five minutes into the interview and there was a long pause. he said, i just realized i am paying for this phone call. i mean, that is depression era. he ofe: that reminds another story you tell, which is one of her grandchildren call you up. tom: my granddaughter in columbia. i texted her, you have to do that.

back --ly texted immediately texted back saying no. those things keep you going. charlie: the medal of freedom. in and i had been told. i went over and you did not know and and said anything about it but you knew you had received it. it was an emotional place and time. you think about your parents, if you could see me now. what else? tom: i have to be careful, i get very emotional. i thought a lot about my parents. my dad dropped out of school at 10. my mother wanted to be what i am, a journalist, but she was 16 when she greg latta from high school, a cost $100 to a college, she could do it. editorame my managing

have to do-- you thae jbo. -- the job. they were always there for me. my dad had a wicked sense of humor. of thee news came out big seller is going to make committee called me. i said, we never talk about this before. and ag up next week, quarter the really number. he called me and said, is this true? known you youhave have always run a little short at the end of the year. red, he was very red-haired, brawny guy. he was the toughest kid in town growing up in the was determined to get over that reputation. he became a father to a lot of my friends, he fixed their cars and taught them how to tie tight and they still talk about them, my buddies do. i'm a combination.

i have brains and other parts of my body that my mother in my father -- by my real commendation of the two. combination of the two. she was fearless. she came to new york and we introduced her to nora ephron. she said, hope we met before. -- oh, we met before. what is the total of the cancer for you? beyond the fact you might get fatigued more than you have in the past? tom: i went into remission. chromosomes were in such order that i did not have to have stem cell transplant, which was tough. you have to be in isolation.

i do deal with what i had with drugs. not to do it,ose i did not have to because the drugs were so effective. the art of part of it is, you wake up every day being reminded of your mortality. you start to think differently about the end of life. i do not think he will come tomorrow, i hope i live for a good long time. but there is a different reality here. charlie: how do you serve that reality? david brooks has written about the fact that there's too much emphasis on your resume. you never think about your eulogy. what do i want people to understand about me, what to think about me? what are the things i have stood for? tom: i do think about that from time to time and i will not be around to hear. let them say what they want to. but you do think about that a

little bit. the same time i am trying to live the life i love. but you see life with more urgency? tom: not so much urgency as order. i jump on airplanes and go to war zones, whatever is breaking out i go into that. as you said earlier, i would show up to events i didn't as thoroughly have to be there by with a favor for a friend. i much more selective about that now and i want to be able to pick and choose. brokaw thinks i'm not doing nearly enough picking and choosing. the fact is i would like to be more contemplative. i went to the faulkner h ousehold. it is very evocative going into those homes of great writers and thinkers and trying to imagine what it was like. there was a chair or he just sat and thought and read other people's works and thought again

about his own work. i don't take enough time to stop and think. charlie: are you going to change? tom: no. well, i had a little bit of that. i'm doing more of that. the last couple of winters we have taken a rental couch that rental house in florida -- taken a rentlal house in florida. just the two of us have a quiet dinner. we're not having to get to the latest theater thing or whatever. that has been a big change for me. i wish this summer we will be less chaotic but we have cleveland and philadelphia and the olympics. i'm going to do some work before the olympics, i do not think i'll have to stay through the opaque. i also have any -- through the olympics. i also have to be careful with travel.

my immune system is open to infection. often what happens is people die of pneumonia or a respiratory condition of some kind because the infection hits and they cannot get it under control. in the middle of my treatment i infectiousd by an bronchial condition of some kind, a bad flu. said, how california is he doing? he has been sleeping for 12 hours. get into the hospital right now. i was on ivs for a couple days. that is what you have to be on guard against. charlie: you were described as a whiz kid. tom: i fell off. i had a double major. had a woman who came along and said, you straighten up. she was 16 and she had my

number, and it was meredith. she got me on track again. i thought our relationship was over. we're not really romantically involved, we were dating some but i really thought it was gone. then when she dropped the hammer on me i really thought it was gone. she said i changed and then she it was aer sister -- big surprise to people when the two of us got together. we do not getat to the earlier because she thought i pulled the too much and i thought you not pull around enough. fooled around i too much and i thought she didn't fool around enough. i had a skill set for broadcasting. i am pretty verbal and i can also write. i was your's about getting an

airplane out of elena and flying into -- out of atlanta. charlie: it is amazing what you have done. you saw up close the civil rights revolution. you saw up close the reagan revolution. you saw up close the cultural revolution. , i spoke to journalism students because i was on campus at duke this past weekend. beaid to them, the chance to an eyewitness to history is a remarkable opportunity to have a truly challenging and satisfying life. this in a't mean self-congratulatory weight but i have always thought of myself as a reporter from main street. i was thought i understood the country. i came from main street when they had a big appetite for bright lights big city and i want to know about that. even when i was a teenager in south dakota i was reading about it.

i was told mike nichols that when i heard him come i knew there was other like out there and i want to be a part of that. i was on pluto and you were on the nest -- were on venus. i came to new york when i was 17 for a couple days. i was on a quiz show and i walked over the city and saw everything. this is kind of the life i want. once again to the city i still loved it but i was drawn back to the wilderness and drawn back to the great plains and i spent a lot of my time there as well. that is for the privilege of my life. charlie: his fishing, other than work, your biggest passion? tom: that and bird hunting. a lot of people have a hard time understanding that but i started doing it when i was 10. it is a camaraderie. you are out there with your buddies. it is a tough sport.

beautifulor quail, settings. i'm a dog guy as you know. my dogs have been great. that has been thrilling, frankly, to be out there doing that. i just love the outdoors. there's something when you are fishing, there's something that is spiritual about it. you are in the water and the surroundings. last year in montana i was in a remote river and i had my dog with me, and i turned around and 35 feet behind the is a large moose. that was thrilling and also tell her find because they will attack you. i was worried about red noticing the moose, he was so focused on fishing but it kept waiting. -- wading. i was hoping the moose would stay where he was and he did. that was thrilling to be out there in the middle of the wilderness and a big moose shows up.

charlie: the idea of silence. fisherman and i know the times i have done it, it is the stillness and the silence and nothing but the rustling of the stream that you hear. tom: i like pushing myself. by the way i am no means a world-class athlete. i'm good enough to do the things but i have these really good friends who had a terrible time this winter. , he died in a drowning accident. but he was there with a close friend and i have done things with all those guys. we kayaked in the russian far east. drags take a step and thomas as i described it. years, talked over the he said you were way over your head on a couple of these things but you did not give up.

you kept pushing on. i knew my limits, i knew how much i can get done and i wanted to do it. charlie: that is exactly what you got from the guy who was a prisoner of war in the japanese. what was his name? he told you, how did he survive? i am never going to give in, never going to give up. what they did for us was tell us the horrific conditions. that was the untold part of world war ii until that book came out. the japanese prison can't work god-awful. a violation of the most fundamental human rights. all the guys who made it, and a lot of them didn't, had the same thing. you had to create your own world and live in it. when of the guys i wrote about saw his captain beheaded in front of him because he would not kowtow to the japanese manner. he would not get down on his knees and they beheaded in.

he said i had my world and i had to live net. i had to live only in my world and i created that world and that is i live. charlie: i have talked to people who have been in those are true who have been in those situations. you have to deal with the day to day reality by creating your own world. i did say, we were at the end of a three-day mountaineering ski trip. i was so exhausted and he wanted to go to one more peak. i said, no i'm not feeling welcome which was not true. he said, know it is ok. i said, ok i have a fatal disease. i will say anything at this point. i'm not going to do it. ♪

♪ tom: writing books are hard. but i am at a stage in my life would have something to say and people are responding to what i have to say. i'm interested always in the future of this country and how we got to where he are. how we may be able to get to the

next place in our lives. if i could add to that dialogue in a civil way and do it importantly i would like to do it. i have an idea of whether i will get it done or not. i have this kind of informal testing the water thing with your score is good with and others. doris kearns goodwin and o thers. charlie: what is an idea you might started on? tom: i'm starting to write essays about it. i would still like to do that. i have a notion in mind but i do not know -- my friend is a great short story writer. he is published constantly. it always intimidates me because i get to the point where i think i could start and i read one of his short stories and i think i cannot do that. but i also like writing

nonfiction. but at the moment i'm into some essays about things i've seen, things i have enjoyed in my life. charlie: you have had such a remarkable life and such amazing friends. -- and i havene thought of doing this myself, i know of no one better able to write about the essence of friendship then you. you have and have had remarkable friends. famous, not famous. unparalleledve an sense of connection. and they are not all famous. they are people who have lived the life that you admire. because of the values that they have come -- tom: in many ways i am drawn to those who are not famous, quite frankly.

my friend is an anti-celebrity. what i like about him is he goes out and gets the job done about whatever he's constantly reinventing things. a lot of people that do not even have a name that he does come over the years i have stayed in touch with them because they are interesting and they do not do it for attention, they do it because it is rewarding to them in some fashion. one of the things i like about writers who do not become really famous is that they stay committed to it and they have ideas that they think the country should read and hear about. i am drawn to that. always aggressive about friendships. i was always finding interesting people. charlie: but you are a note writer. you have a great sense of generosity to help people. well done, well done. tom: i do that because i think you deserve it, for one thing, and i think it is part of being

civil and being a friend. in the majord leagues, it didn't happen often in south dakota. baseman and hend won the world series. he almost won the m.v.p. but he did not get a hit in the entire sears. -- series. but beginning from the time he went aaa i was writing and notes. as is like to be fun, you are going to make it. it was fun to watch them is way up the ranks and become a major league appeared that was an unheard-of goal in our small town. charlie: any part of this planet you haven't seen that you wish you could see? you have fish in montana, i assume you have fish in mongolia? tom: i had. i didn't catch one of the big guys but i caught in the most clear lake i'd ever seen in my life. cought a big- we

fish and i had him for dinner. the hilarious thing happened, we were in a horse festival and i went downstream and by the time i went back, two families have camped on the side of the stream and there were wild stallions and i had all this fancy five fishing equipment. -- flyfishing equipment. they were fascinated by. they pulled out a horse for me to ride back to camp. and it was a wild stallion. i got on the thing and it went to the river in quebec the end everything. to the river and to the camp and everything. i finally got it under control. camp on this into

horse. my knees were up to here, followsed by about 15 kids. charlie: did you for a moment think about politics? tom: nokia really didn't. people have asked -- no, i really didn't. people have asked me. i know how hard it is. but i want to be who i am, i want to be a political journalist. i wanted to try and find a place right could explain what is going on and why it is important. charlie: warren buffett has it to me and others that he would give up one year of his life if he knew what was going to happen in the next 40 years. tom: i think that is right. comfortable at a certain age and a certain amount of experience at thinking, i have a good fix on what is going to happen, it changes. but get tired of me at nbc, then the unforeseeable occur. --donald isst year

the unforeseen occurrence. nobody saw this happening. they look like they are americans working in the embassy in iran, stuffing their columns columns.urning their charlie: his trump the only one who could pull this off? is her something about him and the like he had lived? a guy who was a remarkable promoter, salesman. if you stop and think about it, all those candidates running , the former governor of florida, the governor of ohio, senator from texas -- all of those candidates, far and away the best known guy was donald trump. america did not know those guys. they knew donald trump. charlie: but it was the birther

stuff which gave him a certain identity. knew how to press the hot buttons and he has been on television for 40 years. is, can you idea change without losing that core support that got him near? tom: i guess conventional wisdom , he cannot change what hundred 80 degrees but how does he fine-tune it so he does not lose the people who got him to where he is what he pulls people and was not frightened of him and see him as someone they can imagine in the oval office. a lot of folks are saying come is that we got you want to see as the president of the united states? do you want your kids look up to someone like that? we will see. is one of the attractive things about barack obama, his family. tom: we have never been anything like this before.

i honestly think it is a game changer. charlie: it will lead to what? about howart presidential politics will be conducted in the future. those guys who have created dynasties as the managers and media buyers for presidential candidates. you get these huge media teams and at the end of the campaign they lose and they get their money and they are onto the next one. ter. one was won on twit charlie: on the other hand, bernie sanders. raisedey he needed he and five dollar and $20 donations. tom: it is a big rejection of politics as usual. no question about it. big push back against the so-called keepers of the flame. seen -- buthave you we have seen parties at their worst comeback.

look at the lyndon johnson landslide. a man that you knew and covered well give a speech. then four years later he is running in miami. they did a documentary called the death of the republican party. charlie: goldwater. then after mcgovern and lyndon johnson and the war. there were also proactive things that happened after that. in the case of 1968, richard nixon, who no one thought to salt with hisk, political brilliance, he put together the southern strategy. charlie: silent majority. tom: right. in 1972, guyslost

like that found a third way. a democratic governor of a southern state, he knew where the temple of the country was. that work for them. charlie: conservative on fiscal policy and moderate on social issues. tom: the best thing that ever happened to clinton was he lost his first reelection for governor. -- maket make them nor a more humble but he knew you had to deal with. charlie: some will argue the fact he was a southern governor in had to deal with the legislature was a big -- was a positive thing when he became resident. -- president. senator obama never had that kind of experience. i covered him and then i went to the white house and all my friends are saying, come on, is not going to happen. watch. surrounded by people like that new politics. tom: one quick story. . got to the white house

you whyo them, i tell he's going to win, he and been in office for six weeks. he was an extraordinarily skilled leader of democrats in california. the legislature and the house, he was the speaker. we were doing business and he was a tough guy and he said, this sob is so much smarter than we realize. aboutwas something reagan. he was fearless about picking the right people. baker, one of the smartest moves he could've made was making jim baker the chief of staff. he asked george bush not to continue. you made that documentary of jim

baker. whenever people write secretary of state, they always think of kissinger, but they always come to jim baker. when look at him they appreciate more the style he had. and it had to do with his relationship with the president. found have got to be so -- fond of him personally. but i really believe he is one of our great living statesman. that is not just me saying that, is wherever i go. i want to know what baker is up to. he has become a great statesman, he has conducted himself very well. tough, smart, and it was not about him. reagan byw to serve doing the things he needed to do. that he served george bush 41. charlie: it is great to have you here. it is great to have you here at this table. to see you my friend. tom: charlie, we have known each

other a long time. you have been very generous to me and i am grateful for that. is, "a luckybook life interrupted," now in paperback. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

al: i am al hunt. mark: and i am mark heilemann. with all due respect to the voters in kentucky and oregon, tonight trump may be outfoxed. ♪ mark: what a show we have for you on this semi super tuesday. donald trump, backup and, in the bluegrass showdown. but first, hillary clinton's opening act. there are primaries today, in kentucky and oregon, the latter voting by mail, and this is driven by two ads by a super pac supporting hillary clint'