war to end war and so forth. and it went terribly wrong. it could have gone right. there were many points where if he had played his cards better, if he had listened better, if he had analyzed the available information better, he could have made different decisions that would have resulted in a vastly different outcome. and consistently he refused to do that. it is a terrible story. >> did you find any of the mental decisions reflecting themselves in his domestic policy? >> not to as great of an extent as in foreign policy and war. he had a very high strung personality. very petulant at times. and when he was at his worst, these tendencies carried over to

the worst. but at his best, his innate intelligence took over and wisdom. when i was writing this book, i had taught correspondence -- courses -- on this subject for a long time but i wanted to go through the wilson papers, every single volume and page to just make sure i had it right. as i did the research, about 90% of the time i had it right, yes. in some cases i had no idea how bad it was. but in other cases, i was surprised to see how good he could be sometimes.

sometimes. to give you one example, in january of 1916 he confessed, and this is a rare thing that he had made a mistake. he had been resistant of planning preparedness and it struck him not a good idea to be powerless. so he sends legislation to congress and made a whirlwind speaking tour of the midwest. i was amazed at how good his speeches were. not just in terms of rhetoric. but the pumpkin, tough bonded speeches. and i thought if only he acted this way in the years before and after this month how different history could have been. how do you explain that? you can't. you cannot fully explain that.

it is as a strange and terrible story. >> thank you very much for your time. it was very interesting. >> up next on booktv, after wards with guest host chuck todd of nbc news. tucker ben carson and his latest book "one nation: what we can all do to save america's future." in it the prominent former neuro surgeon and critic proposes a road out to what he calls u.s. decline and contends his solutions appeal to american's decency and common sense. this program is about an hour. >> host: dr. carson, welcome. i think the best way to start before getting into the book is getting into you. you have a very inspirational story in many ways. tell me about where you grew up. >> guest: i grew up in detroit

and a couple years in boston. my mother came from a large rural family and got married at 13. >> host: from where? >> guest: tennessee. she and my father moved to detroit because he was a factory worker and she discovered she was a bigot later and she had to raise us. >> host: how many were you? >> guest: my sister and i. i wasn't a good student. i was it dummy. >> host: how do you get from dumb to neuro surgeon? >> guest: any success i have had i have to contribute to god and may mother. she came up with the idea of opening our eyes and looking around us and noticed the homes

of the people that she cleaned people didn't want tv, no offense, and they read a lot of books. she looked at where they lived and where we lived and it clicked in her mind if i can get my boys to stop looking at tv and start reading and she imposed that on was. >> host: what was your favorite show? >> guest: i loved everything. you didn't need a guide around if i was there. she restricted us to two or three programs a week. and we had to read two books from the detroit public library and submit reports and she could not read but we didn't know that. >> host: when did you find out your mom couldn't read? >> guest: later on in high school. she got her ged the same year i

graduated. but my making us read, which i used to hate, something happened. i used to admire the smart kids in the class. and as i started reading the teacher would ask a question and i knew the answer. it got me excited. i got to the point where if i had five minutes i was reading a book. i went from being the dummy to the top of the class in a year and a half. >> host: what was your first book you remember? my dad made me read profiles and courage in the first grade. and that got me started. >> guest: in the fifth grade i read a book about a beaver and then read about all of the animals and then moved on to

rocks and i could get boxes of them and identify them. >> host: sounds like you were a scientist and i didn't realize it. now i am making the connection. >> guest: one day the teacher held up a shiny rock and said do you know what this is? i didn't raise my hand but finally i did and everybody looked around and thought this is going to be funny. they knew i could possibly not know the answer and thought it would be something dumb and i said it is obsidian and i explained how it was formed and they were shocked. but i was more shocked than anybody. it dawned on me i wasn't stupid. >> host: what grade is this? >> guest: the teafifth grade.

the teacher invited me to the lab and i started looking through the microscope. >> host: do you remember the teacher's name? >> guest: mr. jake. >> host: you never forget those that take a little extra interest. how long ago was this? >> guest: that was more than 50 years ago. i went back to the school, several years ago with good morning america, and they wanted to trace my roots and mr. jake was still there. balding and pot belly and i wanted him to show them the animals because he had a cray fish and all of these things and he said he had to get rid of them. >> host: do you have a relationship with your father? >> guest: not a strong

relationship. last time i saw him was the day i got married 39 years ago. >> host: do you have a relationship with the half brothers and sisters? >> guest: no. >> host: did you forgive him? >> guest: absolutely. i look at the big picture. my mother tried to make up for all of that. my father was involved with drugs, alcohol, and women -- nothing wrong with women but you cannot have more than one. and that would probably not be the best influence on me. so in retrospect, even though i was devastated as a kid, i realize it would not be the best thing. >> host: detroit today. what would you be doing to fix it? >> guest: bring back fiscal

responsibility. a lot of people blame the unions for what happened to detroit. but i actually don't. >> host: they were representing their members and their members want a better deal. >> guest: the executives understand all of this and knew if they kept conceding to the union there would be a problem but did it anyway because they knew they would have a golden parachute and be long gone before that. >> host: you blame the executives as much? >> guest: it is the same thing i see around the country. we keep letting it be somebody else's problem. >> host: you have gotten this spark of excitement.

you assume you were a conservative when you did this and i get the impression you were not always a conservative. >> guest: obviously like most young people, growing up in a place like detroit, i was radical. >> host: where did you go to school? >> guest: i went to yale. >> host: what is a radical at yale? you say berkeley, i know. >> guest: there was the black panther rally and all of this kind of stuff. but it was just the way it was at that time during our history. and radicalism was very much accepted among young people at that point. but i consider myself more of a logical person than i am a conservative or liberal or anything. i am not all of that fond of

labels. most of the problems could be solved if we threw away the levels. i would love a situation where party assignment wasn't on the ballot. >> host: you go to yale, when did you decide you want to be a doctor? >> guest: i decided that at eight years old hearing the missionary stories of bringing great sacrifice and mental and spiritual healing. but turning 13 and growing up in

poverty i decided i would rather be rich and thought a psyc psyciatrist would be bett bette. i started reading psychology today. everybody would bring me their problems and i would sit down. >> host: and you would charge them a nickel. >> guest: and i majored in psychology in college and studied freud and all of that. but in medical school, i said everybody has a special gift and i realized i had hand-eye coordination and the ability to think in three dimensions which

is essential for a neuro surgeon. you have to keep in mind where all of the tracks are even though you cannot see them. >> host: how do you think you got that skill? >> guest: from working in a steel factory >> host: what did you do there? >> guest: crane operator right out of college. and you are going through narrow area and dropping them in the bed of a truck and they would let me do that after one day of practice is a little scary. i said these guys see something in me. >> host: you think they really saw something or you were just the next guy up?

>> guest: that was a summer job and guys who worked their permanently didn't get to do that. i thought about it and said you would be a great neuro surgeon and at the time there were only eight black neuro surgeons in the history of the world. but i didn't think about that. i said this is my talent. >> host: i hear in surgery, in some ways, the rotation where people can identify the bests are sometimes the plastic surgeon rotation in some way because you have to know they are precise and artistic at the same time. it is more -- is there truth to that? >> guest: i think there is. a l a lot of my career is developed around cranio surgery.

>> host: you are not practicing. do you miss it? >> guest: i miss the way it used to be. >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: there was a lot in the process of changing. most people, when they chose medicine, they chose it because they had a atonomy and in the early days there would be a kid from bolivia with this problem and no resource and i would override it and figure it out. and no body said anything because the hospitals had a big enough chest it was okay. once the insurance companies got to the point where they could dictate how much they were going to pay and hospitals no longer had a margin and then you want to do what for free? are you kidding me? and it is just changing so much

and so much of my goal is to make doctors excited to go to work. >> host: should doctors be getting rich? >> guest: i think they should be well compensated. rich is a different thing. >> host: who should be more paid in the society? teachers or doctors? what would you say? >> guest: i would say that is an irrelevant question. i think people should be paid for what they do. i recognize that doctors spend a very long time training to be doctors. they go to college, medical school for four years, internship, residency.

ho >> host: you say say it is 1 years of post-gradute work. and there is a lot of sacrifice involved and you are working extraordinary hours and you have the tort issues. with neuro surgeons it is particular bad because everybody thinks everything is supposed to be perfect and it is high-risk real estate. that was one of the reasons i had a real problem with so-called health reform that doesn't include tort reform. >> host: the president talked about this. let me ask you about -- you talk about christianity throughout the book. science and faith sometimes collide. how does it -- you have this highly scientific mind. and you a deeply religious person. some people say that doesn't

compute. that doesn't always compute. how does that compute with you? >> guest: i would say i am not deeply religious but i have a very strong relationship with god. there is a difference. >> host: what is the difference? >> guest: religion turns to be more form and faith is more substance. and in the name of religion, a lot of silly stuff has been carried out. however people who have a deep relationship with god i think have a tendency to do things in a different way. >> host: okay. now back to the science versus religion. >> guest: i believe science and religion can be compatible. i have had interesting discussions with nobel lorerates who say how can a person of your

intelligence believe that god created heaven and earth and all of this stuff. and i said how can a person of your intelligence believe that something came from nothing. explain to me how that works. well, we don't understand everything. i will give you something, i say. and now you will tell me it explodes and we have a perfectly organized solar system to the point where we can predict 70 years in advance when a comet is coming and the earth rotating on its axis just happened. and they say if you have enough explosions over long enough, then one of them will be the perfect explosion. so i said if i blow a hurricane threw a junk yard eventually

there is going to be a perfectly formed 787 to fly. and i said i have no problem with that believe. i am not going to downgrade you because of that but it requires a lot more faith than it does for me to believe. >> host: if someone said are you a creationist or evolution, what did you believe? >> guest: i believe that god created earth. you take someone like charles darwin who you probably no started out in a simnary. and he things with beaks and said that is evolution. and it depends on how you look

at it. the only ones that survived with the ones who had beaks heavy enough to break through the seedlings taking the nutrition. so i believe you have a creator that is giving its creatures the ability to adapt to the environment so it would not have to start over. >> host: sounds like you believe in natural selection. so you believe in some part of darwinism but not the whole thing. >> guest: i may not call it darwinism but i believe in adaption and creatures have the ability to adapt. if i were a creator i would give them that ability. >> host: 6,000 or 6 billion? >> guest: the earth? i don't know the answer to that. >> host: i heard people say what day -- >> guest: there is nothing to

defend that or tells us how old the earth is. i believe the reason god is god is because he can do stuff we cannot do. if we wanted to create something that had age in it he could do that. absolutely. that is why he would be god. >> host: so your scientific education you feel like doesn't conflict with your religious belief beliefs. >> guest: i have never had an instance where my belief in god complicated my way of being a good nurse. >> host: alec baldwin was a surgeon with a god complex. is that an unfair hollywood view of most surgeons?

>> guest: there is no question that there are some surgeons who have fairly large egos. it selects for people like that in a way. you don't get people who are not confidant. it does select for those kind of people. but i know a lot of incredible and nice surgeon and decent people. >> host: i guess i get why they might have a god complex because they are the only ones that can solve a problem in their heads. and that is where this comes from a little bit. how did you prevent from that? it is easy to feed the ego. you are the elite of the elite. how did you keep your head from getting a god complex? >> guest: because i personal remembered where i came from and i also recognized that a lot of

things depend on a lot of other situations. there were a lot of important people involved in everything i have done. i make that clear to people. i tell the resident and everybody else, you know, there are always other people involved. if my mother had not given me what i needed i would probably end up working in a factory -- not that there is anything wrong with that. but i would not have realized my potential with the very complex operations. you think about the first set of conjoined twins joined at the back of the head and that kind of thing had never been done. but i had to consult with a cardio surgeon who was really good and understood hypothermic

arrest and work with the plastic surgeons with how are we going to get this covered. a lot of people besides myself are involved with those kinds of things. >> host: let's get to the heart and deep part of the book, but first a question on science. what does your scientific background tell you about climate change? >> guest: it tells me if you look at the earth at any given point temperatures are going up or down over a specific period of time. as you may remember, you might be too young, in the '70s, i don't know remember who had the new glacier with the ice age coming and now it is global warming. here is what i say. either we are getting colder or warmer and we have a responsibility to take care of the environment.

that is the bottom line. we don't have to argue about getting hotter or colder. we need to argue about how we take care of the environment. >> host: the fact is something changed and weneed to prepare for it. -- we need -- you look at new jersey and new york city and does that mean bigger sea wall? you have to make policy decisions based on what you think is coming so that is the importance of figuring it out. >> guest: but it is important to not get overly involved and paranoia about it. we should be working with research facilities and industry to say how can we best utilize our natural resources and at the same time respect our environment rather than saying we are not developing this or that because i don't think that is a wise use of our resources

and intelligence. >> host: remember the great concern about the hole in the ozone layer. it was a lot of focus on what we thought the problem was. and basically the entire aerosol industry changed. we have moved on and industry adapted. >> guest: i am not saying we should not do that. >> host: you believe we should pursue some of the scientific research? >> guest: absolutely. but i am saying we need a balanced approach. as you saw from reading the book, i say that in just about everything. remember at the national prayer breck fast i said in order for an eagle to fly it needs to

wings. >> host: let's start with chapter three. i think it is interesting. you went to the best school and taught at the best schools. and you are concerned about elitism. explain. >> guest: the reason i am concerned about elitism is because there is a class of people and you see it in a lot of the universities right now who believe they are sort of the beacon of light for everything. and anybody who doesn't agree with them, not only do they not want to hear them, they don't want anybody to hear them. if they have a business, they want to shut it down. if they have a reputation they want to destroy it. where did that come from unless you believe you are the cats meow? >> host: you feel academy elitism is among them. when did you first say i am into politics and i am following this? when did you make the transition

from scientist, you know, and highly acclaimed surgeon, to saying i want to get into the political frame. what was the trigger? >> guest: i don't know there was a dramatic moment. if you looked at it through the books i have written over the last 20-30 years you will see that i have been talking about these issues for decades. if you go back to an issue i wrote in 1999, you will see a reform program layed -- laid -- out there. i am not johnny come lately but the thing that changed my perception was the prayer breakfast because i spoke my mind and why i was concerned about it. i very much love the nation we live in and i don't want to see

it fundamentally changed. >> host: you have a challenge in chapter six that you say to somebody, and this is a concern i have, in that people consume too much of one side. if they are conservative they follow conservatives on twitter or liberal only follow liberals. and you say pretend you a member of a different political party and make a rational defense of one of their issues. so, if a rational defense, and i will put you on the spot, a rational defense of the president's health care reform. >> guest: that is easy to do. everybody should have health insurance and we need to find a way to make that possible. and since, you know, we know a lot and we have a lot of bright people, you know, we can probably figure out better than the private sector so we will --

>> host: let me push you a little bit more. what parts of the president's plan do you think were good parts? any parts you would keep? >> guest: lifetime limits certainly. >> host: you have done very expensive surgeries and you understand that a young family having a pediatric neuro surgery for their child is a bankrupting deal. >> guest: preexisting conditions and including people on the bases of that. those are horrible things. i talked to a hiring administration before this was passed and said there is good stuff in here. i agree with this and think virtually everybody would. why not take those things and make them the foundation of health care reform. it will be a bipartisan effort.

and then build it together. because health care is something we all need and why can't we work on this together. if you push it through on one party and you have unanimous disagreement, all you will do is create war and you will not have cooperation for anything, why would you do that? and he said you are probably right but this is washington and this is politics. so that is the very problem. we take important issues and make them into politics and polarize them and a wise man said a house divided against itself can't stand. >> host: a very wise man. >> guest: so why to we keep doing this? why is the book called one nation? because i think our strength is in our unity. not our division. we the american people -- >> host: you would have made the

first goal of health insurance reform, what you are saying you like the reforms in the insurance industry but it was the next step of figuring out how to expand and get universal access is where the collision happened. >> guest: and we can get access because we spend twice as much per capita as the next closest nation. thinking we need more money into it is foolishness. but we need to think about how to design it in a reasonable way and that is why i emphasis the health savings account. people have control of what they are going spend their money on. >> host: you have an idea from birth to death you get a health care savings account. how is that funded? >> guest: it is funded through a variety of different ways. people who work, it could be funded through their employer.

people who are indijant. and you don't lose it if you don't use it. you are having a birthday party and where you can sigh contribute to my hha. and it can gather throughout your lifetime. >> host: there are countries at the beginning of birth they hand you money. some for child care. would you put government money in the hsa at the beginning? >> guest: people who need money put in. >> host: need-based? >> guest: right. if we take needy people in the country and put money into their hsa we will still fall short

with inefficient programs. people begin to be responsible. you need to have something done. you are going to think let's see, i want to go here. remember when the food stamp program first started. a lot of people said you cannot do that because people are irresponsible. there is no way they are going to use them appropriately. they go out and will use the them up and then starve the rest of the month. and you didn't need limits because people learned themselves to buy hamburger and hamburger helper. they learned to stretch it work and would do the same thing if they had control of the health savings account and that would bring health care into the free economic. >> host: it sounds like you would make the argument that hospitals are as much the problem as anybody because they will charge a ridiculous amount.

my father died of a long disease and my mother went through the bill and found double things and sent them to the insurance companies. but they were charging crazy amounts of money. >> guest: you know why they do that? the cost may be only $2,000 but if they put the cost down the insurance company only pays $300. but if we put $20,000 maybe they will pay more. it is all game. >> host: this is a case where it sounds like the administration -- and the hospitals were the tough one to crack, working with the insurance companies not the hospitals. >> guest: but remember, if you are in charge through your hsa, you are not going to go to the hospitals that do that. you will go to the other one and it will make this one start

acting like this one. that is the way the free market works. >> host: you think the only way to reform the health care industry is to almost get out of the health insurance business. >> guest: you cannot have artificial influences. >> host: you are saying a health savings account would replace insurance? >> guest: no, i am saying 80% of everything you deal with will be through this. but people have major and catastrophic. and that is what it should be for. >> host: cancer policies were big in the '80s and they don't sell them anymore. but that is why it was that you get insurance for the big diseases and problems and take the other stuff off the

insurance. >> guest:. remember. you sprain your ankle and think you need an x-ray? that is coming from the hsa. birth control pills? hsa. no hobby lobby. so what happens? you are not impinging upon the major medical and what happens to the cost of it? >> host: it should come down. let's live in the real world with insurance companies, hospitals and people getting rich. health care is among the fastest growing sectors in the economy. it is considered a money maker and we know without medicare and medicaid -- so how do you enact your plan in the world we live in? >> guest: insurance is insurance. it all works the same way. your homeowners insurance; if you have a high deductible, guess what happens to the price of it?

it plummets. if you want everything taken care of same thing. >> host: chapter seven you use the phrase enslaving our children. some of your language you used has certainly, and you talk about this, the politically correct belief of this, and words do matter and it did offend folks. so why not curtail your language? >> guest: what offends people that i said? >> host: i think it may be your political positions. there are all kinds of ways people get offended. >> guest: i am talking about nut expressing how you feel. >> host: some african-americans would say slavery was awful and this and comparing to national debt to slavey is doing a disservice to slavery.

>> guest: and what i would say about that is the whole hypersensitivity thing. a lot of things don't bother people but then it is did you hear what he said and you should be offended by that. it is the same stuff that went on on the third grade playground. we don't have to deal with that. we have major problems and the reason i talked about enslaving our young people is because this level of debt -- i don't think most people can understand 17.5 trillion going to 18 trillion. if you tried to pin 18 trillion at 10 million a day it would take 5,000 years. that is an absurd amount of money. the only reason we can sustain that is because the united states dollar is the reserved

currency in the world and that goes along with being the number one economy in the world which we have been. we are going to lose it soon. >> host: china? they are a mess, too. >> guest: but they are growing at 67%. how much are we growing? they will pass us up but i don't believe they will be the same force. look at their banking system. >> host: there is a lot of problems they will face. >> guest: russia is talking about it and other nations are talking about creating a basket currency so instead of the u.s. dollar being the bases it will be a hodgepodge. it will rob us or deplete us from the ability to print money. what happens when you can't print money and you have the debt we have? stop and think about that.

>> host: let me ask you about race. you talk about political correctness and i look at the last 30 years and think when i grew up in the '70s we had more discussions about race. where we are afraid to have conversations now. something happens and attacked the president and we sigh say we are going to have a real conversation about race. do you believe there are people against the president because of the color of his skin? >> guest: i think some people but i don't think it is a large number of people. i do thing people are influenced -- think -- by their perceptions. so if someone told you carson is

an evil and terrible guy and then you met me you would read everything i did into peag being a schemer. and if someone else says he is a nice guy you can see that, too. if someone is always looking for racism, no matter what you say, they are perceiving that as racist. >> host: have you experienced it? >> guest: i am sure i have along the lines but it hasn't been a big factor. my mother told me if you walk into an auditorium of racist people, you don't have the problem. they will have the problem. they will cringe wondering if you will set next to them but you will sit anywhere. if someone has a problem with it, enjoy it.

>> host: do you think race has benefited you? >> guest: i don't think it has hurt or benefited me. i think it is a wash. and i think in the profession that i spent my whole life in, as a neuro surgeon, i fully recognize early on in my career, coming into the room and eyebrows went up. and wow. >> host: so you felt a little bit of that? >> guest: by the time i talked to them and said here is the problem and how we will handle it you would see it melt away. >> host: you entered a if he would that is result oriented and science numbers don't lie. that is going to trump

everything else. >> guest: without question and that is the wonderful thing about medicine. there was a procedure i started advocating that was controversial and people were complaining to the president of the hospital and chairman and mayor of the medical association and even up to the ama but by that time i was able to reveal the numbers showing not a person died and very little in the way of complications that ended the issue. but that doesn't work in politics. >> host: i want to go to an economic issue. you advocate for a 10% tax saying everybody has to contribute. >> guest: i didn't say 10% but it needs to be proportional.

i used 10% because it is easy to calculate. but it needs to be whatever it needs to be to support the government. but it needs to be proportional. what you have to recognize is that by having this skewed system with all of these deductibles and things, there are a lot of people that make an enormous amount of money and 10% would be a lot. >> host: right. >> guest: and i think that is crazy. on the other hand, i believe it is insulting for people who make small amounts to say you are not doing anything and i will take care of you. there is, i believe, if they stopped and thought about it

they would be carrying their way. >> host: let's talk about the group that doesn't pay federal tax. if they go to a casino and they buy a lottery ticket. the gaming industry prays on the poor. they are spending more funding the schools whether it is detroit that decided to go casino gambling. they are putting tax dollars into the pocket and the money. there are ways without writing a check to the federal government they are contributing more it the education system through gaming. >> guest: that is what we are doing is gaming the system with this complex tax system. if we have something that is simple and easy to figure out, first of all, we are going to have a predictable amount of money to bring in and we know

what we need in order to run the government. the other thing you might have noticed is i am not a big proponent of big government. we would have 5 trillion and the federal budget is 3.5 trillion. 60% of everything the middle class and above makes. does that make sense? so obviously we need to reduce it. and i propose a very simple and fair way to reduce it. thousands of government employees retire every year. don't replace them. you can shift people around but don't replace them. you do that for four years you are done it a managable size. it doesn't fire anybody. and then people can focus on what they are doing.

>> host: and then something happens like say at the veterans affairs like the va hospital and things are not getting done and we find out there were not enough people doing this or that. all of these things make a lot of sense in the grand scheme but how do you prevent the politics of the way the town works which is oh, my, gosh look at this problem and we will have to fix it and everybody democratic and republican will throw money at it. >> guest: a lot of people don't understand the problems of the va hospitals. i have worked in them. wonderful people. doctors and therapist and great people. wonderful patients as well. i love them to death. huge amount of politics between this group and that group. that is the problem. get rid of that stuff. honestly there are some things the veterans hospital do well.

post-traumatic stress disorder. >> host: i want to end a little more political and you used a c-word i don't hear conservatives use and that is compromise. they usually use common ground which is 10% you agree on. which is better? you want 50/50 propositions here? >> guest: i am talking about compromising in methods. not necessarily in values and in principles. >> host: and this is in chapter ten i should mention.

>> guest: when i look at the republicans, except the frignge, we want the same thing. but we have allowed ourselves to be polarized. >> host: more people are identifying as liberals than conservative and more people have really -- liberals describe conservatives awful name and conservatives do the same thing and the other side thinks they don't love america. >> guest: that is where we have taken it too far. leadership. it starts with leadership. a leader is someone to takes lead of individuals, creates a vision, and has everybody working together to accomplish

that. a bad leader is someone who says to this group that group is against you. they are the bad ones. we would get everything done if it were not for them. that is bad leadership. another aspect is multi tasking. during the current administration, we have had a former situation. during the previous administration, there wasn't enough multitasking. they were focused on the war and making sure america didn't get attacked again. but you have to be able to mu i multitask. so we have a long drought for solutions that fix america. have we made mistakes? of course. >> host: what are examples of leaders you think did it the right way? >> guest: john kennedy. he came in at 44.

look at the stuff going on. you know? bay of pigs, the cuban missile prices, the civil rights movement, the economy was horrible, unemployment, and the russians passed up in the space station. and what did he do? he said in ten year we will put a man on the moon and galvanized everyone working on the project. bobby, his brother, was put in charge of the civil union movement. he faced down the russians and didn't blink.

ronald reagan. look at the kind of leadership he provided that resulted in the dissolution of the soviet union and the winning of the cold war without firing a shot. bravery, statesmanship, working across the aisle -- he was able to work with the democrats. and kennedy was able to work with republicans. >> host: do you see any leadership like that in your department? >> guest: i think there is potential. and one of the reasons i tend to keep speaking out is i want people on both sides to understand this. >> host: do you think hilary clinton has potential? >> guest: of course she does. >> host: what did you think of

the bill clinton presidency? >> guest: i was happy he was able to work with the republican to republicans to get the budget under control. >> host: and there is an argument you cannot do budget deals with one party. it may be impossible. >> guest: that was good. as you probably notice, i don't spend a lot of time talking negatively about people. >> host: no, you don't. >> guest: i would rather spend time talking about how we solve the problems. we have the capabilities. we are smart and innovative people but we have to create the environment that honors hard work and honors innovation. >> host: you bring up yourself in the book that after the speech at the prayer breakfast people said what about ben carson for president and i ask you why would you consider?

>> guest: the reason, certainly not my plan for retirement after a long career. however, there are so many people it is unbelievable the crowds that show up. i go to a book signing and people are streaming out the door and they are all saying you have to do this. in the beginning i didn't take it that seriously. but it just keeps happening and i have to ask myself at some point do you have to put aside what you are planning and listen? >> you said in many ways you see this like a little bit of god's plan. >> guest: absolutely. i believe america, despite what

president obama said, is a judeo christian nation and i believe that because i did a lot of reading about the founding of the nation. go back and read the letters. the people that say the founders were not acting in strong faith are wrong. i believe it is those principles that led us to a penical of the world. >> host: you don't have a lot of fabulous things to say about the republican party and i wonder and have been thinking about your running, would you be more comfortable running under a political party or not? >> guest: if i ran, i would run as a republican. not an independent because all

that does is splinter the votes. and i don't think i would be welcomed to the democrat party. so i think -- >> host: you would pick one of the two parties? there is a distrust inside both parties. >> guest: no question. >> host: and part of it is this populus thing of the right thinks i am not getting a fair deal and the left thinks they are not getting a fair feel. and you could argue they are both right and that is why i wonder if this boils over into more of a ross pero thing? ...