♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: john dickerson is here, moderator of "face the nation," and a columnist from "slate" magazine. so many jobs. he has covered six presidential campaigns. his new book is called "whistlestop." let's talk about the book in a minute. where are we in this campaign? john: each party has gotten theibest four days to get

there. that means two things, talking about the candidates and the turf on which they want to debate to take place. they are describing two different turfs. donald trump describes america in threat at home and abroad. he is building a presence only he can fit. hillary clinton shows challenges, and yet because of this, we can take on them. she is building an america where she is the best one to lead. there is a lot of debate over the initial diagnoses before they get to what the notions are. where we are right now is where we were months ago when the trump campaign said the threshold question was whether they could hand the presidency to donald trump and he will not break it, whether he has the temperament and judgment for the job. that is the number one right. people want election change. the question is whether donald trump represents change or dangerous change.

charlie: most campaigns are about the future. at the same time, she has her own questions about trust and favorability and those. can that be taken out by trump's disqualifications? john: donald trump is relying on a vision of the past. he says what you miss, i can return to you. charlie: i am asking what that is other than america? john: where people feel like they grew up with values that are still a part of the common conversation. people are, depending on, it has to do with an economy that works and people feeling like they can leave their children in economy and in the country where they

feel better. they feel it is threatened, and if they went back, if you got rid of policies of the liberal obama, america would settle down into its natural state. that is why he says make it great again. charlie: great before obama? john: that is part of it. and then they say what time are you going back to? that is a difficult answer to get, for people to give you. to your question about where we are now in hillary clinton, the trust question, just as donald trump had some stumbles on the question of temperament, hillary clinton has reanimated questions about her truthfulness in talking about her e-mails. she got four pinocchios from the washington post. charlie: knowing how talented she is, did she not recognize it? she defended the fact it was not a lie.

so on the one hand you can recognize it is not a lie. on the other side you have self-protection that forbids you to acknowledge. john: that is what most people are worried about, a permanent blindness that causes that situation, that would be detrimental, default position is to always move for the answer is not the forthright one. charlie: she is unlikely to take responsibility as his critics would like her to. john: the secondary part is, what do you do when no one is watching? that is the first part of the server question, a system cooked up against the spirit and letter of the law. but nobody was watching. so they went ahead and did it. charlie: was that knowing it was in decent spirit?

she did this, knowing it was wrong, against the law and -- she said it was a mistake because of the aftermath. john: she has not said it was a mistake initially. charlie: to want to be able to protect yourself by having control of your own server. john: that statement of over the most. as scrutinized as she has been, of course she would want a private system. rather than saying i will decide, and i will just quit. john: and that is what irks people about her and the choice

people are going to have to make. trustworthy people feel about hillary clinton based on things in office or what they feel about donald trump. they are voting on trust. how many people for them is trust a key question? for donald trump, it is somebody, it is someone who has views on multiple things including signature policies, moving a lot on the question of muslim integration. do you find that change in position worse than hers? i want to ask a question you might find in this book. would most reporters you know rather spend the evening on donald trump or hillary clinton? john: it depends on the question. charlie: let's say people are reflecting. it is not a policy dinner.

[speaking simultaneously] charlie: i am not asking that. it is not a deception of policy. it is let's get together and talk about what is going on in 2016. who would be more interested, more provocative and different than the public might assume? john: i don't know -- it depends, provocative, donald trump. but different than the public, private -- charlie: i am saying the most interesting. john: i don't know. you can imagine both being interesting. charlie: but you talked about this. john: in part. charlie: what stories they talk about, it is mainly about stories. john: what this is about is stories which happened in the public. these are turning points in the campaign, the country.

on the other question, you can remember them being fascinating, saying they were opening up. donald trump had experience doing big deals, dealing with -- real estate in new york is a complicated and strange thing. hillary clinton has seen with extraordinary amount -- charlie: it is clearly her. john: if you care about history and want to have an honest conversation, think about where the democratic party -- this is not the hillary clinton party. in a private dinner -- i guess that is true. on certain things like trade. it is in the interest of the campaign to ally. she would know the contours of that change really well, having run -- she has been running for the last nine years.

what is the country life in 2008, how is it different now? her advisers say she was one of the ones who recognized the sanders thread. she did not, as observers say, he is not a real threat -- she took it seriously. so some people found him attractive. if she was speaking honestly about history and politics, that would be fascinating. charlie: what role does her husband play? what conversations they might be having. john: i think he is, he is her closest adviser, who knows her and where she comes from and where her heart is on these issues, but i don't think he plays the role -- you know, i think the campaign is separate from him. i don't see any clattering around him this time. [speaking simultaneously]

john: in 2016, the campaign is much more orderly. the candidate has had stumbles, but nothing much where there has been talk about infighting in the brass. charlie: it was a learning experience. they look at 2001 and 2012. john: in the cut and thrust of the campaign, when things are going badly where we seem to have had a pretty good path to the nomination, you have a lot of infighting with clinton, those who have known them over the years from the outside lobbying in advice. you could imagine being more dysfunctional than it has been. the candidate has had plenty of challenges, that hillary clinton has presented to her own campaign. the day-to-day operations have been smooth.

charlie: you said she is not a big campaigner. john: she is. barack obama has said she is not good. charlie: what does that mean? doesn't like the ebb and flow of the drama? john: when you watch bill clinton give a speech -- obama used to talk about it at the jazz performance where there is a call and response. there is a reading of the room, and then there is preacher mode, and then professor mode. joining in the enthusiasm for politics -- everything i heard from hillary clinton, she gets enjoyment talking about policy, talking about the stuff you don't talk about at a rally so much. and the rally stuff is, and that political commerce is more difficult for her.

it does not give her the joy, talking about policies would. you can say this because listen to her talk about them. look at the depth of her policies. we don't have that in political campaigns much. a lot of campaigns don't go to that level. charlie: how do you measure her convention speech? b, b-? john: by hillary clinton standards, it was probably b+. maybe a-. it was not -- she had a tough set of acts to follow. charlie: she had a certain presence in the way she delivered. a certain timing with no donald, that sort of thing. john: it depends also -- it was not a bad speech. there were some speeches that

were really, that were -- as a performance, that were better. charlie: obama was the best of that, do you believe that? john: people are looking at hillary clinton differently. and yet her speech ticked off every box. if you look at the four-day message, hers was, she touched everyone they were trying to touch. anytime you want a speech, it can feel dense and kind of blocky. it had a movement to it you would not expect with the speech doing that much work. charlie: what does this joy give you? john: the joy of it is -- it is the same with you, what is going on in the country. it is a chance for big national conversation.

the joy is having that conversation and figuring out how to -- because of the end is people who are frustrated their country is not going the right direction. so it is a mystery. you are handing for clues. when you find something that is real, that is enjoyable. as with the writing focuses about. now i see how people have their fears and hopes invested in a person, and i see that person responding to them, and the big mystery is, is donald trump in a speech that was not soaring, they called it the look at nixon 1968 speech, nixon not known as a great orator. it had lift. he talked about the lift of a drying dream. trump did not have that, but there are ways where it may not matter. we may be at a time where the kind of speech trump gave is a better speech even though it is not flowery.

charlie: how much of that was in the themes of the nixon speech? john: the line order of 1968, there was a couple of things. the anti-elite, that was part of the whole republican message. donald trump cares about people on the worksite, that is a very common message from george wallace. the feeling about america being off track because the elite let it there, that is the same message. the feeling that the candidate is saying what he believes, and we have run into a society where nobody says what they believe, and people suffer because nobody speaks up. this candidate is doing it because he shares the irritation with, and you can fill in the blank. when you talk about law and order, nixon's phrases stealing from wallace, who had beaten him online order in the beginning of 1968 --

charlie: finding relevance not only in the south but also chicago. john: with humphrey, it is fascinating, you look at what humphrey did to block wallace with blue-collar voters. you said you think he is for the working man? look at his record in alabama, thousands of dollars less. he had been a union buster, which is what clinton is doing with trump. you think he is for you, look at how he treated his workers. charlie: but is what she has to do, go to his face and make inroads. she may very well be able to. he may easily win because the movement is larger than we all imagine. the discontent is deeper and wider than we know. if he is going to win, that has to be a reality. john: we know the discontent is big, but the question is if you can final this into the electoral process.

if he could get all the people -- charlie: can she come in and steal some of that by casting, reflecting on who he is, and at the same time being able to overcome whatever the resistance is to her? john: yes, yes, i think that is right. overcoming resistance to her is hard. charlie: it has built up over years. john: it has built up over years, and there is more -- it is harder once a person has an opinion of you in the subject of a campaign to convey trust. campaigns are chopped up, given in speeches. how do you convey that? so if you are trying to attack donald trump, somebody learns a piece of news about donald trump producing an ad with his name on it, that could change their mind. what about your honesty? that has to happen more over time, --

charlie: and over some kind of different exposure. john: the campaign does not offer that right now. social media chops things up. so it is easier for the clinton campaign to take donald trump down than anything else. charlie: if someone was a wise political strategist and have the ability to tell donald trump no, would they take away his ability to tweet? would they take twitter away from him? john: i think they probably would. what he needs is message discipline. he needs to stop getting in to fights -- yeah. charlie: the khan family. john: that was not on twitter. charlie: but he could not stop, and that is why he employed twitter, that is always what he does. he goes beyond what has been said.

he cannot resist. and he thinks he is misunderstood. where he thinks he is understood. john: after four days of the democrats killing the ground and preparing for people to see him as lacking the temperament for the job, his actions fall into that preprepared territory. and you have mitch mcconnell said he was not a viable candidate because he lacks discipline. and marco rubio said a version of the same thing, a couple of months ago. he said whether he can show he can occupy the office on questions of national security that he will have to deal with. the temperament question is one everybody is watching for. and twitter, while it thrills people who love him, it runs into problems on temperament. charlie: what he needs to do is not thrilled the people who love him.

it seems to me, if he said, i shot people on fifth avenue, they still love him. john: he needs to expand his group. he can do it with blue-collar workers, and college-educated republicans who are leaning left. charlie: they talk a lot more. john: they are in the cbs poll. hillary clinton is increasing her lead with that group. that is where republicans traditionally always win. charlie: going back to the book, this is acknowledgments. first my wife and, who has not only read this book but also makes me better in the last 27 years with putting up with my writing. next bright and nan, you too cannot imagine what a joy it is to come out from behind a desk

and join your world. your questions are my favorite things in the world. what are their questions? john: their questions are the simple ones. they are 12 and 14. 14 soon, in a matter of days. their questions are simple about the world and how you treat people and why somebody is doing this. how are we supposed to behave when something happens, and it is a beginner's mind, looking at all of this stuff a fresh, which is great. when you get down in the narrow fight of something, you forget people are still coming to this anew, and all of those original -- and gets you thinking about those things. charlie: why do you think that is so important? steve jobs said you have to look at things with a fresh eye. you cannot be hampered by all of the other stuff we gather in a lifetime. there are things you have to look at with fresh eyes and is just the beginning.

--orter: you are painting with a fresh can of paint. john: because you can't ignore those questions or you don't want to, you have to wrestle also with things you accept as wisdom that ain't so. charlie: only a 14-year-old can explain. what were you in search of? john: at first it was the race. had we seen a pattern, and if we see a pattern, what can we expect next? if we can't see what is next, it tells us it is new, and what does that tells us? the other stories are people with high stakes made a choice, and they paid off or it was a failure. charlie: these are public choices in the pursuit of power. john: and how do people in pursuing power, when they give up what is inside them, how does the public react?

if you look at the election of 1824, one of the people we don't talk a lot about -- people look at andrew jackson is a demagogue. we hear that in politics today. you heard jackson say, don't let choices be determined by a group of elites. we hear that from donald trump and bernie sanders as well. so you see these things coming up again and again. charlie: conventions chains and political parties change. next time out, it will be different. 1968, 1972 was different. john: so are we in a moment of radical change, or how big is what we are going through right now? charlie: is it radical and transformative? john: there is a research matter -- some of these stories start out on broadcast. i have a fantastic researcher in historian, he would send me

mountains of papers from 1824, old pdfs of newspapers i would read as i was covering this campaign. and the books, you can get them digitally. you can carry them around. in the old days, you could not. charlie: does this election remind you of any particular election odor john: 1968. 1954 -- he was a surprise. people liked his plainspoken ness. charlie: but race was a part of this. is it a part of that? john: it was. 1964 -- charlie: different from black, white? john: i don't know. charlie: or does it come from the same feel? john: it comes from economic

fear. and what is different with it -- you can be fearful your job will be replaced and not be thinking about race. when donald trump talks about immigration, people are thinking about race. you get people thinking about race and their jobs being replaced, they are all a part of a coalition. the tricky thing is labeling one as a racist because they are worried their jobs are getting replaced. so that has been true ofhe republican party since wallace. sometimes sending a signal. charlie: hillary clinton believes in law and order. john: when a talk about predators in the cities and use look loaded language like that, people hear an attempt to play on white fears about african-american inner-city. they are very volatile and quite dangerous. but not everybody is fearing for their safety, has a racial-based

fear. so the mixing of all of that is what makes these issues so difficult. ♪

♪ charlie: do you believe that donald trump means what he says or simply says what he says

because most of all he cares about winning and power and everything, the end justifies the means? john: i think that is roughly right. the terms of the victory, obviously you know, how he gets there is all negotiable. i think it is, negotiation is the thing that keeps coming back again and again. yeah, i think -- and what constrains him are the facts that certain decisions would make it untenable the end result , untenable. use not going to say something that will make him lose all support of republicans. charlie: who does he really admire? john: it is interesting -- charlie: would he sate lincoln, somebody not in public life? john: he would say his dad. charlie: beyond them. their mother, you would say that is obvious. john: and you know -- about herhen he talks

mother, it is self-serving. john: it is the first level. anytime you talk about your family in a political speech, it is self-serving. what you want to do as you know better than anyone is what is behind that what is really , behind that. what would youmother tell you before you left the house? what did your mother tell you when you came home from college? it is getting at the story. the emotionalism is there, but you want to get at what is really there, not kind of presented faced forward, that is true of all politics. charlie: you know, i was reading about normandy recently and how those young kids died. they called up to their mother. the searing thing of mothers protecting meaning of life. john: you want to know what donald trump's relationship with his dad was really like and his kids is really like. those are both things used in

the public relations sense. but you want to know what they were really like. charlie: what does excellence mean? hillary clinton too. what does excellence mean to them? do they look at it and say, that is a quality that i admire because -- it is one thing to win becauseto excellence is about winning or is it about equality, doing of the thing that matters? talk about some of these stories in here. i have always been fascinated by this marathon. hamlet if ever there was a hamlet in american politics. on the tarmac. john: and decides at the last minute he cannot do it, which gives bill clinton -- what -- charlie: he decided at the last moment -- was he always going to say no? i just didn't -- john: oh yeah the plane is on , the tarmac. he registered in new hampshire.

charlie: he decided not to do it, but not that he always -- he did not know himself. i mean he knew in a sense he could not do it. i mean, why did he not do it? did he not do it because of fear of failure, because of -- john: that is the eternal question with cuomo, whether he just could not take that final leap into what could have been a failure against george bush, who at the time was quite popular. nobody was nobody would think it , was a smart move to run against george bush, so why chance of what i built up against this incumbent president. charlie: what do we learn from this? john: i think what you learn is the power of words. there are politicians who have great power in campaigns that never win, or they are never even the nominee. at the democratic convention, before governor cuomo. they played his father's words. think about the power of those words. they live on.

people never nominated. same with ted kennedy. played the dream, shall never die. that happened at the 1980 convention. people look back at i don't , know, but you could imagine them looking back at bernie sanders, elizabeth warren who said 18 years past. , whathink the cuomo struck me about the decision work two things. some people never get the nomination. and how even, people can think of this election, there is no way we are going to win against this incumbent president. he does not jump in the race. bill clinton does jump in the race and ends up winning. charlie: i had people at the time bill clinton jumped and the rest and said he is really going for vice president. he hopes to run a great race. and this is somebody who wound up in the cabinet. others that he was destined to be president and thought then obviously he was obviously a risk taker. why not? bill bradley will acknowledge to

you now he should have run. john: that is what kennedy told obama, don't wait, run now. run as fast as you can or as soon as you can because you cannot wait. chris christie, the same deal. probably should have run in 2012. so now that jack kennedy said the same thing when he was the losing vice presidential nominee -- yeah. so in 1960, charlie barkley was saying, why don't you slow down a little bit? truman said the same thing. he said i got to go now, or they will forget me. so i would not say he started it all, but after jackson loses in he is running for 1828 in 1825. starts, we think of starting early as a modern thing. charlie: ronald reagan ran four times. john: i mean beginning the next campaign the minute you and the last one. charlie: and ted cruz. john: running from the

republican convention in -- for charlie: taking a stand 2020. because if things go really bad for donald trump, he can say, i saw this coming, i took a great risk. john: there was a parallel with what rockefeller was trying to do in 1964 when he is booed at the convention for goldwater. rockefeller thinks rockefeller , could have, he did have his moment again after that. he took a similar stand in 1964 that ted cruz took and got the same kind of reception. charlie: that he would come back in 1968. john: thought he would come back in 1968 and the party would not be in the conservative direction they were moving in. you have got to moderate as a party. charlie: what are your stories in "whistlestop" from the founding fathers? john: well, i love -- the election of 1800 -- charlie: jefferson. john: jefferson against adams

and aaron burr goes in the house, they take 36 ballots. what i end up writing about is this guy james calendar, the first attack dog who nobody much knows about because history has not been kind to him. but basically jefferson said in the press the battles were in , the press. it was the gutter age of the american press. they were all partisan. they were vicious to each other. what they were fighting about and being so vicious about was the direction of the country. this was real. these were men who believed in these ideas. and they thought if they got it wrong, the whole experiment would collapse. this is not just a twitter war. these people were deeply engaged in the set of ideas. charlie: forever the the decisions made now will affect us. john: a big decision. charlie: about federalism and things. john: yes, do we support france, the revolutionaries there, or do we align with england a country , we have just broken off from? charlie: all that stuff in "hamilton." john: and if you have seen

"hamilton," calendar is in that. and calendar, who was working for jefferson, who says the fighting in the press, it is so untidy, he is funding it. then calendar turns against him after jefferson wins and is the first to disclose jefferson had an affair with sally hemmings, his slave. so this guy is responsible for the first two sex scandals in america. charlie: was hamilton someone that people like? john: no -- i don't -- charlie: or was he simply very good at what he did? [speaking simultaneously] charlie: he seemed to be someone who was so ambitious that some people said enough. john: that is exactly right. in the musical, there are a few of those throwaway lines. you know, who is this guy speaking for six hours? he just won't shut up. the amazing thing is the drive. there is that line where burr says, talks about the federalist papers and says hamilton wrote

51 -- i cannot member how many of them he read, but he is irritated by the constant and also envious. it is in that line the full hamilton, you were dating, show up -- your rotating, -- irit ating, show up, constantly going, always in your face, which is what made him so impressive. charlie: always observing his ambitions because he was chief of staff at the center of the action to george washington. he knew he needed battlefield experience for the political career that he wanted. john: right, the glory that he wanted. charlie: and i always believed patriot, and he believed that was the best way to serve. it was not all about just about what this will do. he genuinely believed in patriotism. john: right, right. charlie: genuinely believed you to use a word in

our nomenclature, to make a sacrifice. john: right, right. right, right. dying is easy, living is harder. that is also another great line that george washington says to him in the musical, which is the opposite of that, the wholehearted nest -- wholeheartedness, there is something harder. so we could keep going for an hour. charlie: i will take one more in that campaigning is poetry and government's prose. john: think about that. the aforementioned mayor cuomo gave that quote. so thinking of rhetorical presidencies, 1948 truman is a disaster on the stump. we talked about hillary clinton, whether she was good -- truman was horrible. he had speeches, he would just read them. show people the top of his head, so they hatched a scheme to have him start speaking off-the-cuff, as they called it. he starts learning to speak to people, goes on the whistlestop

tour, three of them, thousands of miles across the country. what he does is connect in vote by vote on the road, he has researchers at each town telling him he is going to so he knows something about the town. he gets down off the back of a train and counts teeth in the horse's mouth and nose how old -- knows how old the horse is. everybody is shocked the president of the united states knows how to do this. he was not poetical, he was not a flowery orator. he was actually campaigning in prose grinding it out stop by , stop. charlie: what are the biggest differences between bill clinton and barack obama? bill clinton does not make the kind of aspiration speech of who we are as a nation. he is more someone who talks , brings governing to the idea of explaining he , explains it as we now know, the great explainer. whereas obama is in some sense more poetic and more caught up with the view.

he'll most does it in my perspective as if he is looking at himself do it. he is amused by the fact that he knows what he is doing. john: you mean obama? yeah. charlie: i think clinton takes a delight and saying, if you believe in this, this, this, things you should not believe in then you should vote the other , guy. but on the other hand, if you are influenced by the better angels of our soul, then you should vote or john: when i made may. that case for hillary clinton, which is basically that she is a change maker, that is his argument, required following him down the lane -- in other words change does not happen by magic, , it happens by hard grid. here is a history of this in her life. therefore if you want change -- in a change election, he was trying to make a different argument for change. i am wondering how much that argumentation will work in politics anymore. do people go to a rally and look for an argument or go to a rally

and look for a huzzah? the argument for hillary clinton as a change maker is not a passionate as bill clinton did one. in his speech, it is more fun -- charlie: a passionate argument, that is not we are, barack obama. how many times have you heard barack obama say, that is not who we are, talking about -- for example, the ban against muslims entering the country. that is not who we are as americans. look at us and think about what we stand for, what are our values. saying what this person is doing is not who we are. not american. john: when i say passion, you can have passion that is not shutting out people who are coming in. barack obama gave passionate speeches that did not have arguments in them. they were altogether. that was the passion of a different right. not red or blue as an argument so much as -- charlie: that is my point. clinton is aspiration but -- obama is more inspiration, clinton is less aspirational, kind of explaining things.

here is an interesting thing which brings us back to where we began. this is president obama today, really interesting, i think. the notion of where we are seeing a whole acumen relation of things coming down on top of donald trump's head, they will -- whether they will make little difference in the past or may reach some kind of precipitating and crystallizing force that we will look back and say there was , a moment in which he was defined and never could escape it. if you can see the future, you are better than i am, but here it is. president obama: i think the republican nominee is unfit to serve as president. i said so last week. he keeps on proving it. the fact that he does not appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in europe and

the middle east, in asia. means that he is woefully unprepared to do this job. this is not just my opinion. i think what has been interesting is the repeated denunciations of his statements by leading republicans. if you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him? this is not a situation where he has an episodic gaff. this is daily and weekly where they are distancing themselves from statements he is making. there has to be a point at which you say, this is not somebody i can support for president of the united states. charlie: that was not as dramatic as i have seen, but it

is unfit. dangerous, all of those things. has that been a part of what we have said all along, because it is the moment, it is part of this standard rhetoric to say this person believes in the , wrong thing, all these other things, rather than, he does not have the quality of character or mind to be in that office? it is not somebody you want to do, as she said, be baited by a tweet. john: i think it is -- this campaign has always been unfit versus not trustworthy. i mean it has always been, the clinton people want to make him seem unfit and the trump people want to make her seem untrustworthy. ♪

♪ charlie: i think people care deeply in america about character. and trust is about character. john: yeah, i don't -- charlie: it has to do the not so much with behavior and personality. temperament. john: well, but i don't know. this is what we are finding out. whether people, when they think of trust, if they think of them in the oval office making tough , decisions. charlie: trust of them to tell me the truth, trust them to be transparent about government? john: yeah. i think the fitness argument has always been, and the trump people acknowledge it, there has

been the key hurdle for him. charlie: in terms of character. there have been a lot of times in which we have found people who we believed did a lot of very good things as a public leader, but we did not have a huge appreciation of them or approval of their character. john: well sure. another guy comes to mind -- john: if you look at fdr's private character, people would find some flaws in another guy o his -- charlie: philandering. i am talking about other kinds of things. philandering is just one thing. we could all be in trouble. john: even so, let's talk about honesty. you think of honesty being central to the presidency, the story, the apocryphal story of washington, i do not tell a lie, about the cherry tree honest , abe, so honest that was his central characteristic -- lincoln and fdr used dishonesty dealing with candidates all the time. charlie: what he did in terms of

trying to get through the emancipation proclamation was end slavery. -- john: and letting two people each on opposing sides think you are on their side. that is dishonesty. you think i am with you -- charlie: doing things that were right to the line. john: well, i think we can both agree that honesty is a quality in presidents that some of the great ones have not shown it, and they have been successful when they have not always been honest. and so -- charlie: bob gates has said to me and to others that the one quality all the best president s he worked for had or knew was temperament. that reagan, he included reagan and eisenhower and roosevelt. always had temperament.

he did not work for roosevelt and eisenhower, but he made that john: when president obama said point. george herbert walker bush is on -- one of the great underestimated presidents, he also had that temperament. the question is what do we mean by temperament. different whole number of qualities under that. cool under pressure, not knowing what you don't know, having the flexibility to hold to opposing ideas -- two opposing ideas in your head at the same time. charlie: i think it was f scott fitzgerald that said that. john: and keats, they all grab that at one time or another. what actually constitutes temperament, and that changes i think probably over time as we assess these presidents. and the candidates. charlie: this was the promotional material for your book. whistle stop tells the stories of reporters rehashing at the bar. each one adding an unknown tidbit or short-handing

reference, caucus in the tank, cuomo's plane to new hampshire, reagan seizing a reporter. they are not just for political junkies, they are full of gambles failures before the , microphone, and the crackup of long planned strategies. in addition to the familiar tales, the book also tells the forgotten stories of the bruising campaigns of the 19th century, showing that some of the most modern elements of the presidential campaign were born before the roads were paved and electric lights lit the convention hall. i repeat all of that in the sense, you set out to look for those stories through all of these books. when did you do that? john: [laughter] charlie: when did you find time to do it? john: i was trying to keep up with you. it started 25 years ago in the strand bookstore. charlie: it began 25 years ago?

john: yeah, there was a whole bookshop of teddy white books. you buy them all for a dollar. and th you buy the gary books. and then you buy, boys on the bus, jewels with cover books, jackson books, and then you collect to them over the years. always when i was trying to do was figure out what is going on in the current campaign by looking back at history. as you are reading, you get animated by the adventure you paid for. charlie: what is i think, what makes this really great reading, is that politics, politics is about the stakes are so high. , it is about power. it is about the capacity to make a decision to send men and women into harm's way. it is the capacity to have in your hands the destiny to influence a destiny of your country. something that we have written about and talked about for so long. it is the cumulative experience

of so many amazing stories and people. i mean, it is all of that that makes the largest playpen even , though it is not a play, in the world. we are the most powerful country. i think we are the most admired in the end, although we have reason for detractors. you have to go out and win it. you have to win it day in and day out. it is not like -- eisenhower had the advantage in the sense where he had a unique kind of experience. they have people that need to set their sights on it. did, ill clinton did, ronald reagan and say, this is what i want more than anything. i want my chance. john: it is absolutely the story of personal drive and achievement. but then, and then they are aware the public comes in, where are they attached to the candidate? charlie: they are the deciders. john: what are they wanting for their country?

campaigns are a sense for people to feel control over their country a little bit. what is it that they want control over, and what is it that appeals to them? charlie: what kind of place do they want us to be? john: when they has speakers at the conventions referring back to the words written by those founders, the continuity each campaign can bring with the american experience, going back to first principles, weather this is what we are and what we , believe in, it is the beginning like gathering the family around the table and saying, we have gotten off course. let's go back to what our first principles are. and then there is debate about what those first principles are. what liberty and equality and freedom mean in the current context. you would not have those conversations necessarily during your regular day so a campaign , is everybody to the table, or it should. charlie: it is the story of 50 states. you know although -- john: now it is sometimes only the story of 12 states.

charlie: at the same time, it is an expression of the will. in the end, it is 10% of the people. 40 but -- 40% of the people, we know pretty much how they will vote. they will vote for republicans, 40% will be democrats. it is in the middle those that will decide the election. john: there are more than them now maybe then the last elections. there is disappointment with the candidates on both sides. charlie: what is the answer to the question, is this a transformative election, or is it too soon to tell, as they say? john: i think if donald -- we we know already transformation has happened on the republican side. the republican party is undergoing a transformation. if donald trump wins or loses, if he wins, it is going through a transformation. there are republicans who are no , longer find comfort in their party. if donald trump loses, if he loses, there are plenty of republicans who are trying to seize the first movers advantage to define what the new party

means. but there will be a lot of people who supported donald trump who say you undermined , him, that is not my party. and that transformation is big. charlie: john dickerson, my friend and someone i depend on to help me understand politics. my congratulations to john dickerson. thank you. john: thank you, charlie. ♪

mark: i am mark crumpton you're , watching "bloomberg west." let's begin with first word news. republican presidential nominee donald trump is in florida where he again sounded the alarm on iran. donald trump: iran is now in power, and they will have nuclear weapons much sooner than you think, and they have plenty of money, and they have plenty of everything now. mark: trump also ripped hillary clinton, telling supporters she should receive an award as the founder of islamic state. mike pence is breaking with mr. trump by endorsing paul ryan in his primary fight. the move comes after donald trump said in an interview, "he