>> host: let's just jump into the most controversial

aspect of the book you tell a story that has done a lot of attention a call from governor romney to president obama after the 2012 election that he said the president was offended from the racial undercurrent from his concession one of his aides said it was his own that the call took place that this story is not true and is very angry about it. how to those who were not in the room except which of you is right? >> guest: there are five people standing around the president when he spoke to governor romney hint they already said their recollection was already the same as mine to relate the facts that governor romney had said we really surprise them with the waiver able to get the vote down in places like cleveland and milwaukee

i didn't get the sense he was trying to be ungracious but to give a compliment to the campaign but a parable through the lens of which they saw the election and that a boil down to more than what happened in that was his frustration i was just surprised at the reaction i applauded the loyalty of governor romney. but i think he blew it out of proportion in data have any reason to believe the president got off the phone to say something that didn't happen. >> host: talk about your role in deal on the white house. people don't pay attention to the detail they may not appreciate how big it is for presidents to install the chief political adviser as a staffer.

george h. w. bush or clinton did not. it began with president bush you did hire karl rove and then president obama trusted you. but does that say about our government that the trend is occurring and will it continue? >> first of all, want to distinguish my role from carl's role to some degree and don't extend the debt to understand exactly what carl groves role was but i would say it is more akin to what mike did for president reagan i was involved with the president's message from the beginning of the senate race in 2004. hint worked with the

messaging approach on speeches and policy rollout and communications and strategy. i don't think ed is that unusual and i don't think that began with karl rove for me. i think it goes back some time but it says the president's want someone around who understands their message and understands them to help represent the point of view to others in the white house so there is some message consistency that reflects the values the points the president wants to make. >> host: the president has had unusual ambivalent relationship with the politics and you're right

about that. were you there to remind him you don't fit to govern the you do have a conflict you do need to listen to people like you verses is ideological instincts? >> guest: but i think everybody strength is their weakness. his strength is that he believes there are more important things than winning elections once you are elected to the things you think are important to enhance the country, so we had a conflict often about the need to have the techniques and the conformities of the campaign in his presentation. a good example is the discipline of how you answer questions.

to get your message out front to keep the answers short and make sure that you punch through what you want to punch through. he did interviews bin town of beatings he would see those as of the discussion and would want to answer a thoroughly then he would get to the .7 minutes later and that is the frustration to me. >> host: in my -- the book is subtitled my 40 years in politics. one of the themes is the ethical responsibilities of a campaign of a competitor who said we use the tools of our trade and then he is not suited to it from obloquy of

which. what responsibilities do you think they have? what responsibilities to the general public? >> first of all, this subtitle i wanted what was too long was how my idealism survived 40 years of politics. but having read the book my interest goes back to when i was five years old in jfk came to my community and fired my imagination i didn't understand what he said but i knew was important and it seemed important to me. so i approached politics from that place but when you're a campaign consultant

you're hired to get someone elected sawyer tried to choose carefully the people they work for. but i confess i did not always choose right but once you do the race your job is to get the person elected. you operate within ethical and moral parameters. or you should. i've left campaigns i was disillusioned with the candidate. so i quit. but there are the ambiguous situation when someone is less than you hope to but not so egregious that you will walk away. i found myself persuading myself that they were better

than the alternative and that is a lie would motivate myself to go forward. >> what turned out not to be true? , remember michael white the longest serving mayor in history bayou deliver a negative verdict at the end of that. i know his long tenure did not end prominent but here you first right about hope and change in division and unity with you obama campaign. idealistic as it was the problems proved stubborn in the was tarnished by corruption in charges. the city was heading into trouble before michael white but much deeper. when you look back and that

he is responsible but he knows his career to you? >> first of all i would put the emphasis on the word entirely. but a lot of the iconic structures that brought back downtown cleveland or revived it like us stadium with a rock-and-roll museum could make them happen. he may have overstayed his time and there were problems with associates but i would not suggest either its demise was his responsibility or he did not do with the thing for cleveland. i realistic this is all good

or all bad or all accomplished. that is not the way it is. i think he was idealistic to get important things done in the important way. i was happy and i did the race i might have advised him to leave earlier than he did but he did important things for cleveland. >> so weidenfeld lens. year rose to be one of the most important of the democratic republicans in the state of illinois working in many campaigns for comedy successfully.

but now it is in a rough economic situation. chicago has the worst credit rating rather than detroit and suffered heavily one of the top three states of unemployment for the great recession and also locked into that pension situation. >> a lot of those are tied together. the pension system and has been filtered down but the city is trying to fight its way out but the state problems are associated with the city's finances that have contributed to their problems. no doubt they have legacy problems and i can say the

results of both republican and democrat administrations making an affordable deals honestly with public employees and the results come away go through to governors that went to prison and some of irresponsibility a especially on the governor -- john. >> host: that one of your candidates but it was at the beginning. >> but i had concerns what type of governor hugh boy be. he asked if i would work for him is a wide you want to be governor? he said you can help you figure that out i said if i have to help you you should

not run. >> but this was built by lots of people and they were clients of yours. >> many of them were not. >> host: but as you look back at the political choices in the state of illinois that you did so much to shape comedy look back and say that was good work? >> guest: which of my clients do you think were responsible? i am curious about that. the time i was involved in illinois politics the state legislative leaders were not my clients. i work for the mayors of chicago but harold washington served briefly in the '80s to break down

racial barriers in then to remake the face of the city and was considered a model mayor. at the end there were fiscal issues several for committed to do things that he did and left some fiscal problems for mayor emanuel but i am proud for i am happy to respond if you have a particular politician who you think was responsible for the state's problems. but i am curious'' that would be. >> host: i don't think it is one person but the handiwork of many and as one looks back as a career in illinois politics because the state is in such a dire state. let me ask you. >> guest: the other iconic candidate was paul simon

that they think was the essence of integrity. i am proud of him. i knew the illinois political landscape very ball and i chose my candidates carefully. >> host: day you think it's fair to at stereotypes that politics in illinois are nautical? does that capture a genuine problem? >> i think there has been corruption through chicago politics for some time. i think that institutionalized corruption is not the problem that it was said yes we have problems with corruption in

one of the reasons why i gravitated to barack obama is he was on the reform side of the fight so it was the first campaign finance reform bill passed in illinois in a quarter of the century and paul simon recalled that in the previous one that made it illegal to take campaign contributions for your personal use up until barack obama you could use it dash alone personal income and he ended that practice. illinois in chicago has had its problems but those are the people i tried to gravitate towards. >> host: you worked for ms. brown issue was accused

of fraud and rostenkowski went to prison? >> i dunno about brown other than in the campaign was accused but there was never anything like that. >> i did work for dan rostenkowski. he was interesting person with the most powerful people in washington i don't know anyone that so relish the process to make lot id work across party lines. he went back to the advent of medicare and was close to people in both parties and clues -- including the first president bush and loved it. on the other hand he was prosecuted for what i consider little stuff like

cashing in stamps for cash which may have been a government issue was a practice in the '50s but those norms had changed. >> if it is true there is something about chicago then what is it? a great trees rotation hub or money that flows through the did not belong to local people that they could siphon off without feeling like you took from the constituents? is that the ethnic politics? >> guest: i don't know the sociology that led to some of the corruption is endemic to illinois. and i am not willing to say that there and other localities that have not

experienced some of the same but i do think things are much different now. we don't have a fast patronage machine. i have not heard any information about from the manual not protecting the interests of the city. this is the decision of the past but it would be a disservice to the city to characterize chicagos today there are pockets of corruption but i don't think that defines the city are certainly not the one that i know today. >> with this book there are scenes that runs through the campaign. like a change of hope before hope and change of

middle-class economics economics, partly dealing with issues of the overtime but also your approach with the work you did with president obama, how much of that campaign was waiting for him or was done to you? provide the real question is how is it that we came together? i have no barack obama first 25 years in reintroduced in 1982 in chicago. she had met him and said this is the impressive young man. but why him?

she said i think he will be the first african-american president in this is when he just returned from moscow. she knows how to spot a winner well in advance. i would take her to the track. but we shared sensibilities. president of the harvard law review critic been there all going after him is and the trident of voter registration in driving and it was clear he wanted to make a difference for the right reasons. with politics as a business you can see that it is a calling. and in 2002 when i became

disillusioned because i saw a book with a pitch was going to be elected and was becoming very disillusioned with where i wanted to continue if he had just lost a congressional race if he had one more campaign left in he would run for the senate to but we shared a lot of sensibilities about politics and issues about the approach to politics. i think it is a little of both the letter really productive partnership to help renovate the message. when you build a campaign message if it is going to be a successful test to be authentic.

barack obama from the time he went to law school cared a rock called the economy worked and didn't work for large numbers of people per gulf and he believed politics listen noble calling as someone could summon those warsaw a change as something to embrace rather than something to fear. he was a natural exponent of the message it reflected and though he was. by gravitated to those types of candidates my tagline for paul simon in the 1988 isn't it time to believe again? because i do believe hence

the title of the book come of the beaver and public service is a way to grab the wheel of history is on the obamacare -- share that view. it was the happy partnership between people who share sensibility. >> host: to much of your career domestic politics has been a middle-class frustrated with increasing difficulty to get ahead struggling with memories that things were different after world war ii with middle-class people if you stated your saving the position you were better off he didn't have to be anybody special. >> guest: and wages rose

with the gdp. >> host: now they don't. that is above the din -- levied of your team -- the. john injudicious the democratic leading rider is book was published in the early part of the decade but he suggested he may have oversold his argument based on an disillusionment with the experience of the past six years. this is not a homework assignment but how low do you react? >> guest: i think this

issue of depression of wages , increasing gulf with wages in the struggles of the middle-class and those who are trying to become though class is forcing politics for decades it has created disenchantment whoever the incumbent party is because it is of function of forces larger than policy that requires some policy answers but it is the function of changes in our economy is advancing technology and globalization and receive the same issues in other advanced economies. it is a persistent theme and continues to be a challenge. each succeeding party has

the brunt of disenchantment about it. and readjust came through massive economic crisis that was in full fury when obama took office that would exacerbate the problem to depress wages even further to make the problem of disparity even greater. but i think if you ask who fights for the middle-class who makes it their focus of that was the president or republican operation -- opposition you would get a larger jury is the president why he won a substantial reelection in 2012.

governor romney got some points for economic literacy in proficiency but fighting for the middle-class he lost an overwhelmingly. i think it is the misplaced fears that the republican party will repair the benefit of that unless they come up with a compelling insert. what i find interesting well generally they are just missive of arguments of the middle-class and inequality in economic mobility in the past, all candidates are now speaking to it which suggests to me what is an enduring problem is. >> host: i am looking here there is the charge, the

steady from brookings in the early part of 2014. he was a leading health care economist on economic distribution. . .

when you look at other things in the administration has done, the president's recent initiatives calling for free community college while taxing the savings vehicles that the middle-class families used to pay for four-year colleges and his big speech in kansas probably the most important economic speech of his presidency was he announced a strategy up public sector projects that will pay higher wages to government workers or government contractors and will trickle out to the rest of society. you look at this and say is this the middle-class strategy or a strategy for the beneficiaries and providers of public services at the expense of the rest of society and is that the cause of the recent political difficulties that the democratic party has? >> guest: it's a long question.

it's a little off topic from my book but i'm happy to address it. i haven't seen the study that you are referring to and i assumed that it applies to the distribution of subsidies. >> guest: and the taxes and the internal subsidies within the insurance market. i know you are at a disadvantage and i would have given it to you before the interview. but then maybe you dispute their conclusions but. >> guest: i can't dispute their conclusions because i haven't seen the report. i came on here to discuss my book and not their report but since i haven't seen it let me just comment on what i know which is that the ability of people generally under their insurance plans because the affordable care act has certain guarantees for people under their insurance plans do not have annual or do not have

lifetime caps is vitally important to people who get seriously ill. i know something about this because just getting back to my book for just a second i dealt with a health care system and i have a child with significant health care concerns. that is a tremendous sense of relief. i also dealt with the notion that i couldn't get another insurance policy because my child had a pre-existing condition. that is no longer a concern. that applies to people up and down the line. the security of knowing you can get insurance at an affordable rate if you lose your job or if your employer your insurance is a security that is important to everyone. so, you know i can't david comment on the economics that are imputed in that report because i haven't read it but

i'm very certain that the security that the affordable care act affords not just the bottom 20% but the people who have insurance is important now and will be important in the future. >> host: this goes to the book's great frame -- same because you are a believer as you say in your somatic thinker. you come up with these broad themes that are tremendously powerful to sway national elections. how do you reality check your beliefs? i am writing the music. the people across the way in the executive office building or writing the lyrics. how do i test this? this is a matter of my own conscientious belief the reality check of my music against bears. >> guest: no look, my concern obviously is not just in the

music but also in the impact of the policies and i'm not an economist but there are problems that i think are important but more importantly the president felt was important in the country felt was important and the question was are those topics going to be addressed? one thing i would say though is part of the role of the president is to set forth these challenges, set forth these problems and promote the base and the discussion. i see the republican party now introducing five years later an alternative to the affordable care act but there's acknowledge meant that there were significant flaws in the system. we are having a debate now about this issue of the viability of the middle-class in this economy and what we can do to help

secure a broader inclusive prosperity. that's a step forward for this country and republicans and democrats are participating in that process. maybe they have different prescriptions. that's the nature of democracy and we have to fight those out but at least we -- immigration reform is another. people are unhappy with us as a precedent set but i don't hear people suggesting, at least the mainstream of american politicians and voters saying let's go back to where we were. so part of leadership is identifying big challenges and moving the country forward and it made propagate the base. there may be imperfections in the approach that is taken and they have to be perfected over time. there may be alternative ideas but at least you are talking about the big challenges facing the country and what the obama campaign was about in 2008 as much as anything was to try and

tackle some of these things. you may not like his prescription for health care but you have to at least give him credit for taking a bond because there was no political calculus that provoked him to do that. in fact the political calculus was on the other side. in my book i write about this in my own discussions with him about what the difficulties were in moving on health care and yet he took that on. and i admire him for doing it. he took it off because he felt the health care system would implode if he didn't. this was something that was urged not just by people who are concerned about the uninsured or the underinsured but by our budget people who felt that we didn't reform the health care system, the system would implode and he she took on the political risk to do that. he took on the political risk to intervene and that's another chapter or another story in the book to save the american auto

industry at the time it was on the verge of collapse. it was controversial then. it was unpopular than. it's not unpopular now. people won't look back at that as a mistake because the auto industry has come roaring back. >> host: the book is obviously a personal book and you talk about the pain in her early life and the challenges he faced. you have some self-examination about whether you allowed your ambition to damage the marriage and a generous tribute to your wife who spoke out. it wasn't just you speaking and i salute that he gave her great credit for accommodating and making a lot of sacrifices for it. at the same time as it's intensely personal it is generally a tactful and circumspect book but every once in a while you lift the veil on

some of the issues in the white house those outside of her were vague -- reverberating from the conflict in bears attention with valerie jarrett who you worked with in earlier campaigns. i want to ask you as you look back on that now you tell the story that rahm emanuel in particular was eager to get valerie jarrett into the senate. that is one of the things that led to the downfall of rocco clive fitch. rod blagojevich. you explain rahm emanuel had such acting as a senior adviser was a formula for trouble. since then there has been a lot of trouble. valerie jarrett has become one of the most controversial members of the administration although the administration internally circulated a memo about the magic that would have done credit to the kim family in

north korea. was rom wrong or do you think he was onto something? >> guest: i think rom had legitimate concerns and they were based on his experience in the clinton administration. if you are the manager is hard to manage people on the staff who have an independent personal relationship with the president with the first lady and i said before that has its challenges. i will say also that there is benefit and many presidents would say the same. there is benefit to having someone around you with whom you have a long history who is fundamentally loyal and is unquestionably in your corner. he has that relationship. they go back a long time and

there is value to that so i understood rahm's concern and he did work hard to persuade gallery that she should run for the senate seat that obama was giving up in order to become president. at the end of the day he was the president who wanted her in the white house and i have not heard him ever suggest that he regretted that decision. >> host: and how has it been for subsequent chiefs of staff? have they found it difficult to manage that relationship is rahm emanuel that it would be? >> guest: i think all of the chiefs of staff have dealt with that relationship in their own way but they all recognize the value that the president feels that valerie brings in and they work with her and with him to make it work.

>> host: we are recording at a time when there is great controversy over pending invitation to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu to come to congress and the president has been very open up his disapproval of this invitation. the relationship between the president of the united states and the prime minister of israel has probably been never worse than it is today and the relationship between united states and israel has rarely been under more pressure than it has been today. you referred to paul simon who was elected to the senate in illinois in 1988. he ran that campaign. 84, sorry and one of the big themes a republican named charles percy who have been critical of israel and one of the themes he used the israel issue against charles percy and in favor of paul simon. what would the david axelrod of 1984 how would he analyze the

crisis of the u.s. israel relationship to that? >> guest: first of all we didn't use the issue as a messaging issue as a macromessaging issue. it was the source of a lot of fund-raising for senator simon who is viewed by aipac and some of the organized community has a stronger supporter of israel then percy was. i told the story in the book after one of the aipac leaders who was central to that campaign offered to subsidize to put me in business as a consultant and was happy with the way the campaign came out and i said that i made it obviously was a great offer to a young guy who had no other means to start a business but i asked if that meant that if it were a republican or any candidate who

is good on israel but bad on the council that could work against that candidate. we could do that and i opted out of that. i am uncomfortable with that kind of an arrangement where one issue, however important that issue is to that is how someone is evaluated. in terms of the current situation, i would dispute one thing. there's no doubt that there has been friction between president obama and prime minister netanyahu and i don't think that is news. it is important to note that in terms of military assistance and military-to-military cooperation and so on this is far from a bad time. the level of cooperation is as great or greater than it's ever been and people on both sides would say that.

president obama believes and believed when i was there and still believes i am sure that it's vitally important to resolve the issue between palestinians and israel for the long-term security of israel as a jewish democratic state. i think at times he was frustrated because he felt that president netanyahu was more consumed by domestic political concerns there been pushing the peace process forward and it created friction between them. >> host: i mean has there ever been a presidential prime minister relationship as bad as this one? >> guest: well i don't know. i remember bibi netanyahu lost the prime ministership once before because of his poor relationship with president clinton so it's not new for him

to have a testy relationship with an american president. >> host: he may win the prime ministership because it is bad relationship. >> guest: he me but i think it's close enough that his visit to the ice is congress is much part of that campaign. i think that he was looking for this event to try and help them and what had not been a campaign that was moving in the right direction and they're still great controversy about it as you know because you are student of the israeli press as i am. there is a tremendous amount of disquiet about what is happening to the relationship and many israelis view his trip here as a needless provocation and a violation, a violation of the nonpartisan relationship between the two countries. >> host: when netanyahu got into that crisis with president clinton in 1997 it damaged net

not -- netanyahu very much because clinton is a friend of israel. today a recent poll shows that 60% or more of israelis think that the president is not regarded in that way and it doesn't hurt him the way if he would have been on bad terms with bill clinton. >> guest: the problem i see david is shows there's a great concern about his relationship between israel and the united states in part because of the actions of the prime minister so again we can debate about this stuff. i hope that we can talk a little bit more about my book while i'm here. >> host: i think we are talking about the campaign and i hear the question drawn from the book because one of the things you talk about and you talk a lot about your opposition to

cynicism and how you remain a believer in the best of politics politics. and yet we are in a cynical time and sometimes you have used that cynicism is found in the voters as a political tool. i want to ask you about a story and this is one thing i find disturbing. this is the re-election for john streets the mayor of philadelphia about time. he found a bug in his office and you masterminded a campaign based on the fbi department just did it and you masterminded the campaign to use this and he said john ashcraft and attorney general were trying to pick the mayor and he won in a landslide which you were proud of but the fbi investigation to continue. 15 people were sent to prison on

corruption charges. his brother went to prison on tax evasion charges and of course as you know the attorney general doesn't side and cleaning up this book russian. >> guest: first of all david that was a partisan race between a democrat and republican. the justice department practice has been not to surface these investigations in the final weeks of an election so i don't think and i think people in the justice department will tell you if they are going to place a listening device in the office of a high public official that rises to the level of the attorney attorney general. let's set that issue aside. john street was never prosecuted, was never convicted of anything and it was a tremendous disservice to him for

that story to surface a month before the election. it was going to be surfaced. it was going to be surfaced once the bug was found. it was going to be surfaced and so you know my view of john street in the race in philadelphia was here was a guy who essential mental and saving the city from financial disaster in in partnership with ed rendell. here was a guy as mayor who had fulfilled some significant promises to getting cars off the street after-school programs and many of the things that were desperately needed in that city. so i battled as hard as i could for him. it actually was his opponent who ended up in legal difficulties after the election and end up having to pay someone a million

dollar fine for the things he was involved in. so if the question was -- street was the one who never wound up under indictment or legal sanctions. >> host: but his closest friend is being investigated died before he could be charged and probably would be charged and we don't know of course. >> guest: like i said street was never indicted and never convicted of anything. his opponent had some legal problems but that's probably not in your research. >> host: one of the things you have a long life ahead of you and you have told many stories. the book contains a life that is going to go on and if you move the book remains in place. so you are moving now and you

have this distinguished academic career and obviously democratic party politics. the party is converging on the person that you and your campaign beat in 2008 can you tell the story of how your campaign beat hillary clinton's operation. and you quote from an amendment that you wrote at the time about vulnerability in 2008. she is not a healing figure. the more she tries to moderate her image the more she compounds or exposure at. making yourself the candidate of the future will be a challenge. those words on paper how do they fit into your life in the new era of the democratic party? >> guest: well i think every period in presidential politics is different. i don't think hillary clinton was in a strong position in 2008

in part because she supported the war in iraq and supported president bush's decision to go into iraq and that was the defining issue within the democratic party. very hard to be the nominee of the democratic party having taken that position. people were looking for someone outside of washington, outside of the day-to-day tug and pull that was going on. obama stood apart from from from all of that and that made him a strong candidate. people were looking for someone who would challenge the system in a way that he was willing to challenge the system. i think every election no matter whether our president is popular or unpopular every election is defined by the outgoing incumbent and never do people choose the replica of what they have. they always choose the remedy. barack obama was seen as the starkest remedy to george w.

bush who is more nuanced in his thinking because of the policy positions he took in iraq because he stood apart from a system that people were unhappy with. i think in 2016 people are going to be looking for someone who can manage the system. there may be less of a believe that someone can come in and thoroughly change the system in washington but they want someone who can manage the system and move the country forward who they feel is skilled and equipped and experienced enough to do that. i think that's a circumstance that favors hillary clinton. if 2008 wasn't the right environment for her i think 2016 is. i think by the way that may be of benefit that flows through governor bush and perhaps some of the other governors who are seen as people who are good mechanics in terms of dealing with the political process and might be able to work within the

system better than they perceive that the president has. >> host: setting aside the book and target about the next chapter of your life. you are in politics in chicago. this is a choice that people used to make a lot, going to the academy. as you know well much more typically nowadays they make the choice to cash in and i'm sure with your record of success the options to cash in are enormous. you said no to that. that's unusual. why? >> guest: because i have done well enough in life that i don't feel like i need to do that. i never viewed this as a business. as i said earlier i viewed it as a calling and i felt the best use of my time would be to try and inspire young people to get involved in the political process. you know there's a great deal of skepticism, not cynicism but

skepticism -- skepticism among young people because of politics politics, because of the nature that kind of grind we have seen in washington and because frankly they have come up in a generation where if you see a problem you create a nap and organize people on social media. by the way things that the government should look at is the way to approach some problems in a different way. but they are very skeptical about politics and government and the value of it as a means to solve problems. i always say to these kids that congress is going to be with them or without them as the state legislature city council and governments overseas. they are going to live with the consequences of those decisions in the decisions that are made are going to be consequential. in fact all the equities they care about and guide students and the university of chicago across the political spectrum. we are going to be a better country if they invest their

efforts in trying to steer the country in a direction they think it should go to the political process, not necessarily as candidates doesn't have to be that but his advisers as journalists and commentators but be in the public arena. that's what i think is the best use of my time because for all its messiness, and believe me while we talk about the fractious nature of our times you are a student of history and you know the history of this country is replete with examples. i sit here in new york city as we speak and we often in new jersey were sitting vice president shot and killed a former secretary over what was largely a political problem. so i want to encourage these kids to make a difference within the political arena and make

this a better and stronger country. that to me is more inviting than making a bunch of money in trying to trade on my profiler connections. >> host: you are a writer and a newspaper man and it's your work and nobody else's. will there be another book? what is next? >> guest: david you are right or too so you know you write a book and it's a little like my wife describes childbirth to me. it's very painful when you go through it and you can imagine doing it again that when you are happy with the product and over time the memory of the pain recedes so i'm not making any predictions about what i might do next in terms of writing i'm pleased to have had the opportunity to reflect on my life in my career and share those reflections in this book. >> host: and it is very

person