whether taft was the right person to follow him. >> so he goes for about a year. he left his family to go to africa and what did he do in africa? >> you shooting game. a game hunting -- yet all these hobbits of the time he was done partly because he was asthmatic so he became a birder. he later became a hunter. he wrote books. yet more energy and vitality than anyone i've ever written about. so he is collecting things for the smithsonian, but mostly he went away because he knew he had to do some to take away the loss of the presidency. he loved that job every moment of every day and he had to somehow have excitement and that is what africa matters than it. >> the muckrakers you write about were very influential with roosevelt in a talk to them, listen to them for advice, responded. they supported him, but they turned on taft debate. do you think they're turning on taft is why he turned on taft?

>> what happened when teddy was president, what he understood, the one in taft didn't understand, which is the president the past had he defined the word, a bully pulpit to educate the country in the most power in a way the president has and he was brilliant at it. i mean, you would take train rides around the country. six weeks in the spring and fall and he talked about simple language. he said the harvard audis think i talk into folksy language, but i know i reached them. speak softly and carry a big stick. it summed up his entire administration. he then gave maxwell house a slogan, good until the very next stop. he was able with his relationship, but he was so interesting. he had a mid-a shave. when the barbarous shaving hand, he is answering their questions and they say the barber has to keep up with him as he's moving

around. he understood the press was an important channel for him to reach the public and so he would read their articles ahead of time. investigative reporters would be able to criticize him. they would criticize them. ..

he didn't have the relationship of the press that he had so the president was drifting and the progressives were moving further forward than teddy was at the time. it was a desire to be back in office and his feeling that he had to keep that pressure on the conservative ideology in the country that taft wasn't up to the job but he decided to run against him. >> so you rant against against him and he barely loses the republican nomination so he decides to run as an independent on the newly formed party and while his campaigning he is shot. somebody shoots right into his chest and he nonetheless go ahead and make his speech even though a bullet has been lodged into him. why did he do that? >> guest: is just part of him. it was an extraordinary moment. he was in a car. the assassin did shoot him and

it did go into his chest and they said he can't give the speech. he said i have to give a speech so he goes into a green room and the doctor takes his clothes off. he is a big red spot from a blood but he says i can still breathe. i know i'm okay i can still breathe. he says he's going to to give the speech and he goes in and takes the speech out of his pocket and it was like 50 pages of speech, two-hour speech and i was folded over and he realized when he took it out of his pocket that the bullet hole had gone through the speech and it had also gone through a spectacle glass case which was the only reason he was not killed automatically. so he gives a a speech and he a speech and he starts throwing the pages down finally they keep coming up to him because he's beginning to get woozy. he says i can tell i finish. he says okay take me to the hospital. he's in the hospital for weekend as the sustained the rest of this campaign than i thought he might have had a reaction to the shot but it was i that crazy kind of courage that he showed

all of his life that he felt compelled to do. >> he came second in the election. woodrow wilson is elected in 1912. taft came in third. you think i'd have to not become the republican nomination that roosevelt would beat will send? >> guest: yes, do you think so. think roosevelt was still so popular then that i think yes, for sure he would have because roosevelt and taft together got 50% of the vote so i think it would have happened. the sad thing was because he did this i know, you and i know about this guy. the guy that got so into my emotional head when i was writing this book was a man named archie but who had been a military aide for teddy before becoming a military aide for taft and again for what you look for it as a historian or letters and diaries. this guy wrote letters to his his family of a single danny loves both teddy and taft. he was despairing when it turned

out, he stayed on with taft and teddy thought it was fine at first and then went teddy started running against him he felt he was born into and he was so depressed he was beginning to lose some of his vitality so taft said you had better take a vacation. he said okay i'm going to go for a while but i'll be back before this heats up. as it turns out went teddy finally announced that he was running against taft archie but says i can't leave you now. taft says go now, it will be fine, you will be back in time. he goes to europe and comes back on the titanic and he died. for taft it was yet another blow. he said every time i look in the room i think is coming in. i miss him every single moment but those letters are an absolute treasure in showing how taft especially felt betrayed and saddened by his great friend teddy running against him. >> to me the most poignant part of the book is taft and roosevelt were enemies even

though they have been friends for so long so after the election wilson as president. taft and roosevelt don't talk at all and taft tries to talk to roosevelt that roosevelt ignores them and finally they meet by happenstance in a hotel. what happened than? >> i was so happy this happen. what happened is when i finished the book up to 1912 i did not want it ended with a sense of betrayal but i didn't really know what the relationship had been like past that. i followed them in 1914, 15 and 16. people brought them together but taft says it was like an armed neutrality. in 1918 teddy was in the hospital with an operation that taft had once undergone any work undergone any wrote them a letter saying i know how painful this is an teddy wrote him back. it's often things a little bit so it just happened than some months later by happenstance they were both at the blackstone hotel in chicago and when taft checked in the elevator operator told him roosevelt was in the restroom -- restaurant eating

alone. taft said bring me down immediately. he walked over to roosevelt and the whole room, 100 people dining in a broom and he says i'm so glad to see you. they throw their arms around each other and teddy says please sit down and the entire restaurant collapsed. entire restaurant collapse. there's a journalist there to record this. i said yes i have my ending and then what happens is only six months later teddy dies. he's only 60 years old and he dies in his sleep at night and has a private funeral. taft is an honored guest at that private funeral. he comes and stands at the grave longer than anyone else and tells teddy sister i don't know what i would have done if we hadn't come together before he died. i have loved him all my life. it's ridiculous to say you want a happy ending that you want an ending that sums things up. i couldn't bear the idea of lincoln dying in the end so knowing what mattered to him so much was to be remembered after he died from the time he was

young, that was his greatest dream that his story would be told. when i found this incredible interview with tolstoy given to new york newspaper yes it shows he remembered him even then. tolstoy went to a remote area of the caucuses where they were barbarians who had never set foot outside the apartment where they were living so he was excited to have tolstoy. he said i told him about the napoleon and alexander the great but before i finish the chief of the barbarians stood up and said wait,, you haven't told us about the greatest ruler of the mall. we want to hear about the man who spoke with a voice of thunder and laughed with the sunrise. tell us about man, tell us of lincoln. tolstoy told him everything about lincoln and then said what made them so great after all not a great general not a great statesman.

a greatness consisted of the integrity of his character in the moral fiber of his being. then i knew, here's ending ending for that book. your eyes looking somehow to make it to make it all come beyrle -- full circle. >> so, what is your next book going to be? >> right now i'm doing two things. i'm working on what might be potential movies about teddy and taft. they bought the rights for "the bully pulpit" maybe even a miniseries. [applause] i'm trying to think about muckrakers as a miniseries. a ida tarbell is my favorite character in the idea of this great female investigative journalist and then the relationship between teddy and taft but for a book at this stage of my life i don't think i can afford 10 years on millard fillmore or franklin pearce. there's no big person to go back too easily so i'm bringing all my guys in the room at the same time and i'm going to write about leadership. that's really what i care about

underneath it all. [applause] oh thank you. i just started it. >> after you finish that book i hope you will do a great service for america by running