when the board elected my father to become far the economy. it dropped to $5.50 a share and

then was trading $90 a share. i am pretty proud of the job he did it turn the company around. get the product out that people wanted. that allowed him to save a lot of jobs and create a successful enterprise. geek is still around. >> one of the interesting things, when your dad ran for president he characterized his campaign as being like a mini skirt, short and revealing. what do you learned? >> you'll learn how challenging

its is. to a great degree to the questions that were asked by others and the media, and presidential debates on the republican side. you would like to define yourself, what other people want to ask you. that is part of the difficulty, one of the difficulties of writing a book is you can't -- these are the things the country needs to do and get beyond the questions into the meat of the concerns. >> john mccain had a book. many presidential candidates write books before they run for office so when you talk about your father's campaign, one issue on a personal basis would be your religious faith, your

mormonism. is that a problem? you don't talk about this in the book though you are very open that you are a mormon. >> this is a book about america and my concerns about our economy. mike concern thy concern that wg that foundation. i don't get into homeland security because they don't relate to those economic foundations that i felt was appropriate. has to my views on my faith i am proud of my religion. i'd don't try to distance myself from it. for some people i am sure it is a problem because they don't know the faith very well. for others they value the fact that i am a person of religious belief but for the great majority of the american people they don't care what religion someone belongs to.

they are pleased to select somebody based on their skills, the most important issues that may exist. >> you don't think you might be being pollyanna share. one of your opponents was mocking of mormonism and the devil is jesus's brother and that kind of thing at a certain percentage of americans especially evangelicals seem to view mormonism as not a christian faith. >> i think there will be some people for whom that is an issue and i won't be able to do much about that. that is just the reality of political life. there are other people for whom it is an advantage. i take the bitter with this week. i am who i am and people can accept it or reject it. that is why i gave the speech that i did that related to religious diversity in america. that is in the nature of the

founding of this country. there were people seeking opportunity and religious freedom. we apprise the religious freedom that exists and it is a hollow concept if we allow certain people it to serve in public office or other positions of responsibility based upon some religious test. that was particularly and specifically prohibited by the founders. i don't think that is an issue for the country and i hope it won't be for anybody whether i do, time will tell. that wasn't at the heart of my campaign. i find other things to do wrong and i think senator mccain did an effective job in touching the american people as the primary process was proceeding. >> where do you stand on abortion? >> i am pro-life. >> is it clear to the base of a party that you are strongly pro-life? >> i believe so. since the time my was serving as

governor i faced an issue that related to life. i came down on the side of life. it hasn't changed since that time. >> on the economy, very capable business, the same thing about your experience running an your success. the question is how do you view the fact that so many americans in our history are anxious about the economy and see the economy as a big problem? the question would be has president obama pursued policies that you feel would help to revive this american economy because you see that as one of the pillars of america's global strength? >> we are facing short-term

economic stress and long-term economic weakness and the combination of those is troubling. it was the result of many people and many failures and it was popular that wall street is certainly to a large degree to blame for what happened. so is mean streak. shore -- sore the mortgage bankers who gave mortgages to people with no capacity to play them. what about individuals who signed loans in excess to everything they could pay? the regulators who didn't blow the whistle, the rating agencies who say that these industry -- that wall street was selling were somehow highly secure and even the president said the bucks stops here. he shares responsibility as well. president bush. for the economic distress which is occurring. president obama has not been as

effective as he could have been. he has scared the private sector. when you say you are going to raise taxes next year that scares' new investors. when you say we are going to have kept in trade in an energy industry that will pull back. when you say we will take away from the american worker the right to vote by secret ballot for a union that scared away workers. trillion dollar deficits friends both financial sector, anyone who needs money to grow and thrive. it has not been as effective as it could have been. but longer-term the foundation of our economic vitality relate to the entrepreneurialism of america, be educational base, family formation and investment parents make, energy independence. all these things form the basis of our economic vitality. those foundations are very much

in distressed. not only do we have near-term problems but we come out of the near-term. severe recession. we will come out. but long term we won't be as strong unless we address these fundamental problems. >> you think we are on our way out of the recession or there's the possibility of a double dip? >> i think we are on the way out. it may double dip. hard to predict whether there will be another downturn but we will come out. there is nothing permanent about recession. we have come out of all the others. the president could have helped us get out faster and could have kept us from having 10% unemployment. that number will hang like an albatross around his neck. he spent $787 billion saying he could hold unemployment and we go to 10%. it was not as effective as you needed to be. we will come out of the

recession. in productivity per person, gdp per capital, income per capita only if we have the foundation and fundamental strength of a leading highly productive economy and that is something our energy, education, health care, tax, in thailand programs calling to question. >> in the book you praise secretary paulson and the bush administration for helping to bail out the banks, the t.a.r.p. money but you are highly critical of secretary timothy geithner for continuing what looks to me like the same policies explain. >> there is no question in my mind but at the time secretary paulson and president bush said we are in real distress and we could have a financial calamity, was essential to do something to provide confidence to the people

around the world that america was not going to have all of its banks go under and there was a very real risk that we would have a cascade of bank failures first with the big ones and for a up the country and ultimately virtually every bank in the nation go out of business and people's savings gone and the dollar worthless and we could have had a true financial system calamity and t.a.r.p. kept that from happening but it was not implemented terribly well. i don't mean to say secretary paulson did it perfectly and secretary timothy geithner did it entirely terribly. they both made some mistakes, they both did things well. but under timothy geithner who has been the champion or the master of this for a long period of time, well over a year, the process has been relatively opaque as to which banks got money and who got it and what the provisions would be. i think if you are going to put

money in a bank that saves it that the shareholders should have been virtually wiped out. the government should step in to bail them out. why did the shareholders keep majority ownership? they should have had to pay dearly for the government having to rescue an enterprise and when the government came in the taxpayer should have gotten a healthy stake if not a majority stake in the enterprise that was saved. i have a number of criticisms on how the plan was implemented but was it needed to keep our financial system from collapsing? yes. those people who today go back and say it was terribly bailout wall street, i didn't hear a lot of those voices at the time we thought we were going over the cliff. the benefit of hindsight now that we have come back there say we didn't need it but at that point there were a lot of people with white knuckles and we are concerned about where we are headed and did what was politically unattractive to make sure we did not have the calamity that would have

demonstrated not just wall street but every street in america. >> do you think it was smart to bailout the big car companies? >> when the deed for it ceo showed up in washington saying give us money the right answer was to say no. you need to pursue a managed bankruptcy process, shedding yourself of exceptional costs so that you can re-emerge as a stronger enemy. that was the right course. ultimately that was the course that was taken and detroit is now on a much stronger footing than it was prior to those managed bankruptcies being carried out. but washington spent a lot of money, tens of billions of dollars that was wasted. instead of the company management teams and the board's guiding the bankruptcy process the government guided the bankruptcy process so we go to the right solution, managed

bankruptcy but only after we waste a lot of money. >> i am wondering if you think that the party movement and people on the right to look at the bailout not only of the car companies but the banks and say washington is too big, too intrusive, too big to fail is really just lining the pockets of the executives who take these huge bonuses at the end of the year with no concern for the middle man from mainstream america. >> no question that this idea of too big to fail should not be part of the election. if a major institution is on the brink of disaster either let it go bankrupt, having them go through the bankruptcy process. bankruptcy doesn't mean close the doors. bankruptcy means that shareholders get wiped out or nearly wiped out. under the shareholders the

enterprise has failed and shareholders shouldn't be out. [talking over each other] >> executives should be out. [talking over each other] >> the other companies might have gone -- >> they went for managed bankruptcy. they shed their excess of cost and are emerging out. >> with a tremendous help from the u.s. government. >> the guarantees can help enterprise get going to try. the money that went in, tens of billions of dollars could have been better spent. >> what about the reaction that is that the basis of the tea party movement? the government should not be helping out car companies, should not be helping failing financial institutions on wall street. >> no question that the perspective of those in this country that think government is

too big and too intrusive is absolutely right. no question that the government has grown to be a massive player, much larger than the founders would never have imagined and right now a portion of the gdp made up by the government is roughly 33%. that is excessive. it should be less than that. we can go item by item and say certain things the government needs to do, defend the country, needs to manage the judicial system, we agree with that. there are certain safety net features the government can provide that we can agree on and we can say was the government right in doing what action or another and we won't agree on all those actions. i can tell you that with regards to the car companies they were wrong to bail them out. the right course was to move to managed bankruptcy and with regards to t.a.r.p. that is something that should be ended. no reason for the government to use that money. we backed away from the cliff.

financial institutions did not collapse but at the time it was put in place it was essential to keep our system from collapsing. >> let's talk about unemployment numbers which seem to be rather stable but at a very high percentage. you are anti protectionist. you believe in free trade and open trade. is that not something that we need to protect the american family and look after those who might find objectionable? >> they may find it objectionable but if they think about what happened around the globe and in history, they realize protectionism has always been associated with economic peril. nations that tried to put barriers around themselves find themselves falling into deeper and deeper financial. the number of people who feel impressionism -- protectionism put in place at the advent of

the great depression was one of the reasons we put into the depression. that is because america sells a lot of stuff to the people and if we put walls up around us it keeps foreign goods out and keeps american goods from being able to go other places and there are a lot of jobs in this country and a lot of good paying jobs and a lot of growth in this country in the jobs of things that are going elsewhere so you have to realize -- [talking over each other] >> you introduce the idea of the worst generation. you talk about the idea that we don't manage that, the chinese hold so much of our debt and other countries do have protectionist practices, our competitors. how do you put those ideas together? >> my view on american's worst generation, i wanted to alarm the reader when they get to that chapter. what is he saying? i want to point out that if we

don't change course, we will seriously imperil the future of this nation and its ability to defend freedom and protect our prosperity and overspending we are carrying out an overborrowing is very much one of those elements that can imperil our future. our unwillingness to deal with entitlements, to make them sustainable leaves us with tens of trillions of dollars of obligations of the next generation. are failed to deal with failing schools, our energy dependence. these are elements that are frightening and disconcerting to those who want to make sure our future is bright. i don't think for a minute that the way to deal with these challenges is to point and say it is someone else's fault. it is immigrants fall. it is trade's fault. let's be honest about our own problems and deal with them directly. it is not easy. it is hard work.

but scapegoat mr. king has never created a great nation or strong economy and there are nations that try to protect themselves and cheat and there is no question if there was somehow magically to keep other people's goods in but to allow our goods to go out everybody before that, some nations try to pull that off, we have to make sure they can't get away with it. one thing is for sure. people watch america too closely for people to think we can keep foreign goods out -- >> the think it is fair when you hear from some in the tea party that president obama is a socialist? do you think that is a fair description? >> i don't choose to use that term to apply to the president for people i disagree with. it is obviously an incendiary term in a lot of respects. i do think there are those in his party and i can't speak for the president himself, who would like to see a health care system

like the socialized medicine system that exists in europe. the president may as well for all i know. that in my view would be very detrimental way for our health care system to move. i won't step away from the fact that i think there's a great effort to try to socialize the medical system in this country and with a very serious implication for our economic future and our well-being from a health standpoint. >> you wrap up by talking about a new commitment to citizenship among americans and you suggest we find common cause and do less special-interest politics. you talk about an optimism you believe is part of the american character, artwork, but you must be aware that when people are asked by political pollsters do you think the country is on the right track or the wrong track it is up 80% of americans who say we are heading in the wrong direction. >> they are absolutely right.

we have got to get to 100% of people. washington politicians have put us on a road to decline. they are taking america in the wrong direction. this massive growth of government, the inability to deal with energy, the failure of our schools, failure of our immigration system that welcome the brightest innovators to our country and instead open borders to those -- all of these elements together imperil our future. my optimism flows from the fact that the american people when confronted with the truth do the right thing. you are seeing that happen. the reason the tee partyers are gathering and expressing their views is they say it is time to speak out. that is a movement which gives me some encouragement. people are paying attention and recognize that the consequences of continuing down this washington driven path, those consequences are not good for

the country. >> that action might lead them away from the son of a businessman, the governor of a liberal state that you are and push more in the direction of sarah palin or other -- >> i can't tell you where it is going to lead. i welcome the energy and passion that seems to be part of the american political scene right now. that is a good thing. whether i am part of the scene or not, time will only tell but we have some great leaders in the republican party who will be able to capture the imagination of a majority of the american people. the president's course unless it is dramatically changed in the next few years, his course will end with only one term and we elect a president who will bring us back to a center-right coalition of republicans and democrats who will take the

action necessary to preserve america's greatness. >> mid romney's second book i called "no apology: the case for american greatness". thanks for joining us on afterwards. >> thanks, good to be with you. >> our special booktv prime time this week continues today live at 6:30 p.m. eastern with simon johnson on the role of big banks in the economy. he co-authored 13 bankers, the wall street takeover and the next financial meltdown. henry paulson talks about his memoir on the brink with warren buffet at 7:30 p.m. eastern. at 8:30 p.m. eastern, race and reconciliation.

>> in a few moments a forum on nuclear security and the middle east and the head of the internal revenue service, commissioner schulman, speaks at the national press club. a couple of live events to tell you about today on c-span2. a preview of next week's nuclear security summit with 40 leaders who are gathering to discuss securing nuclear material worldwide. that is at noon eastern. on c-span at 8:00 p.m. eastern we will take your calls and questions on federal oversight of car safety standards two former leaders of a national highway traffic safety administration and the president of the alliance of automobile manufacturers and to follow up on monday's announcement, a $16 million fine on toyota. that is live online at

c-span.org and on c-span radio. up next, washington institute forum on nuclear security and the middle east. it is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon and welcome to the washington institute for middle east policy. i am the baker fellow and director of the gulf and energy policy program here. it also falls to me today to share this session. it is one of those curious occasions when i am also a speaker so i hope i will get the balance right. if i have to disagree with any aspect of myself. with me today to address this important topic of too little

too late nuclear security in the middle east, gregory schulte and george perkovich. gregory schulte is currently the senior visiting fellow at the national defense university center for the study of weapons of mass destruction. there is no way you can get that on one line. from 2005 to 2009 he served as u.s. permanent representative at the international atomic energy agency in vienna. george perkovich who i had the honor of listening to this morning as he was at his endowment is the vice-president for studies and director of the nuclear policy program for the endowment for international peace. he has done a lot of work over the years on nuclear issues and he wrote a very good book on

india many years ago which i referred to frequently. welcome to you both. i am going to start by asking gregory schulte to speak. as a government employee, he has a variety of conditions to described the restrictions he is under. i will leave it to him. greg. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is a privilege to be with you. when i was u.s. ambassador, george perkovich and i agree on most issues but he got india all wrong. on many issues we agree so it is a pleasure to be here with him. i am senior fellow at and why you which gives me academic

freedom to speak my mind. i am not speaking for the u.s. government. a year ago in prague president obama warned that nuclear terrorism poses, quote, the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. the president vowed to lead international effort to, quote, secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years. this month's nuclear summit is intended to advance that goal. like president bush and president clinton, president obama recognizes nuclear terrorism must be at the very top of our national security agenda. to prevent nuclear terrorism we must detect, disrupt and destroy terrorist networks. we must develop our defense for the homeland. we also must lock down the material that terrorists can use to build and improvised nuclear device or dirty