so now i can tell my mom i read the book. . . ..

>> guest: i think often times the conventional wisdom is wrong, and the conventional wisdom in money and politics you essentially have good intentioned government officials who who are being influenced or attempts to influence them by corporations or public unions and if we can only figure out a way to seal off essentially these public officials from this outside influences, everything would be great and so i call this the jimmy stewart mr. smith gooas i call this the jimmy stewart washington scenario and that does happen. you have well-intentioned politicians being tempted by outside forces but my experience in the washington politics in the writing is so often not the

opposite is true but you have a lot of corporations into a lot of entities that essentially want to be left alone by the federal government and the executive branch looking for ways in which to have their needs to get the corporations involved. the high-tech industry as a classic example if you look back 15, 20 years ago the company is like google and microsoft have a lobbying presence in the united states and it is essential they are off doing what they are doing and we have a series of actions taken that have essentially forced those companies to set up lobbying operations, so my view is often times what happens in washington, d.c. is left to do with bribery and more to do with extortion. they have important issues are caused not being used as bribery

or extortion. people would be surprised if you look at a lot of you know major u.s. corporations, they tend to get two people recommend the politically. so they would give to democrats who perhaps are not predisposed to support their position. the money times often times acts as a means of access or a gateway. they were went back through the high gasoline prices and one of them even called for the next potential nationalization of u.s. oil companies. but after that meeting that very same elected officials might consider organizing a fundraiser

for them. if you are an executive and you just heard this sort of threat that we should try to nationalize and then there is an attempt to say that you raise money for me to me it is hard not to see that some sort of a practice. >> you said you want to believe that your based on knowledge expertise and background but a member of congress will end up on the powerful committee like the house ways and means committee. only if he were she can raise the money the more powerful the committee assignments that more money they are expected from the industries that they oversight or regulate. >> host: >> guest: i always assume a member of congress gets elected and maybe they are a distinguished attorneys that they are going to end up on the judiciary committee or served in the military so they will end up on the armed services. the shocking reality is in both political parties.

it functions as a price list and it is deemed to be a powerful committee from which you can raise a lot of money. house ways and means for example, which has oversight on wall street and the banks those are in committees. you have to raise somewhere on the order of half a million dollars in the cycle to actually go to the party committee whether that is the republican or democratic congressional committee and if you don't raise that money there will be threats and if you continue to not raise that money you can be booted from the committee and put on a so-called fee committee. the fee committee is one that you cannot raise enough money from the people tended to not want to be on them. the veterans committee which does important work in making sure the veterans are taking care of in their needs but is considered to see committee because apparently the ability

to extract money from the veterans were from an industry connected to veterans is not being so great. so the sad reality is that the committee assignments in dc are determined by this price list and your ability to raise money and if you don't raise the sufficient funds for your committee you will be removed and put on a lever or considered lesser committee. >> host: among the many books you've written on ronald reagan have you ever met him or did you meet him next >> guest: i met ronald reagan after he left the white house in 1994 at his office in los angeles. i think looking back certainly saw a little bit of the forgetfulness that came with age or alzheimer's. but we had a 30 minute meeting that came as a result of a book i'd written on ronald reagan and the cold war called victory. that was one of the results of the book being published. >> host: what was your impression of him? >> guest: he certainly co. he certainly has presence. i have met other current

president had corresponded. he certainly has presence. he was very engaging and certainly still had an understanding of i think sort of the core issues. ronald reagan struck me as someone that had a sense or understanding of a few very important things. i cited actually one of the books from oxford he sort of talks about the way people think they know about a lot of things that you can look at somebody like richard nixon and say they understand the minutia of a lot of issues is that you have the foxes and the one hand, hedgehog on the other created they are people who know about a few very profoundly important things, so i would put ronald reagan as a

hedgehog. he wasn't a technocrat or detailed guide that he understood human freedom is human psychology and i think i made all the difference in the world into the type of leader that he was. >> host: one significant moment was his meeting with mikael gorbachev in reckoning and he walked away from that meeting. why? >> guest: he walked away from the meeting because ostensibly it was to come to an arms control agreement. possibly seeking the nuclear weapons which had been a concern of ronald reagan for a while. a lot of people who understandably see him as very hawkish failed to recognize that he had concerns about nuclear weapons and said he was prepared to potentially come to some sort of an agreement on the eventual limits and elimination of nuclear weapons. the problem is that the mikael gorbachev goal was to end the missile defense system and that

became very apparent when you look at the russian transcripts of the meetings that was gorbachev's objective and ronald reagan wasn't prepared to give that up because he couldn't understand why the concern was up a nuclear weapons capability, by gorbachev would want to get rid of a weapon system that would prevent ostensibly nuclear weapons from being used against civilian positions. >> host: after this he said the following ronald reagan is impossible to understand outside of his battle with communism. it was a struggle that consumed more of his attention that any other endeavor and touched the center of his life. it cost him his first marriage, brought in his second wife damaged his relationship with his children and brought on the threats sitting at a nice garden with his kids into the 32 caliber pistol. tropin three assassination attempts, a fourth ranged assassination of john hinckley

took them an inch from death and ronald reagan came to believe that his wife had life had been spared by god for a divine purpose, defeating communism. >> guest: this is an interesting turning point. while reagan is a leader of the guild and voted for fdr four times. voted for fdr four times come and i think that the turning point or the tipping point for ronald reagan came to the political philosophy has less to do with tax rates and some of these other issues although they did influence him and i think it had more to do with a violent strike that occurred where there were elements within the screen actors guild who were supportive of the communist party and were members of the communist party and these individuals have a very, very violent strike and ronald reagan wanted to reason with them and was shocked to the extent that they were willing to use violence to expand their agenda. and i think that had a profound

effect that shook him to his core and led him to become the communist party was and that related to transform the fundamental way. >> this book is a fun book and i was asked would ask about his upbringing because he grew up in a troubled household and he did have a sense of humor. >> guest: he grew up in the troubled household" his mother very much. his father had a drinking problem and had fits of employment in the times when he was not employed and what's interesting is the way that he dealt with that. he essentially dealt with that by becoming a man of strong conviction in sort of a light touch and by that i need he used humor in a way not only to sort of life in the moment but to convey.

it was a ludicrously of the problems that you have in the soviet system and gorbachev would've laughed and was a moment of lightheartedness because the jokes that had certain truths that i think we designed to convey the views of communism. >> host: we are in the very beginning stages of the 2016 campaign but certainly jeb bush is front and center and your book, the portrait of a dynasty. i want to share part of what he said in the cover of the book but you said blood runs thicker than politics of patronage. john adams called it a families. a family spirit a desire to promote the essence of our family for the bush bushes it is deeply ingrained in the earliest longtime family friends to note that they present a strong tribal sense into domestic instinct that drives them and get as you talk to other candidates to be passed from one to another clearly are referenced.

>> guest: could have a lot of admiration for the family and they do have a strong sense of civic duty but it is troubling to me that we have a circumstance where you have the names that have taken over american politics in the republican party and there is a sense of the brand of representing the future of governance. it would have enormous respect for nobody in american politics is irreplaceable. the notion people would have in the democratic party right now that kerry clinton is the only democrat that could govern us and is the only one that could win and likewise saying that i just don't think american history bears that out. i think that it bears out the

unexpected, the potential for people that look like ordinary leaders to be great leaders during times of crisis so i think the reliance that we have that we have to go back to another family yet again for another leader strikes me as something that isn't particularly american. but i'm saying the american east coast is about new blood and new leaders. >> host: that was to continue for five weeks. you have a son on the phone with the officials basically saying what's going on here. we have george herbert walker bush looking on carefully and then we have george w. bush in two can almost read his mind saying what's happening.

>> host: one of the things i respect about the family is a sense of loyalty that transcends politics. they have an amazing ability to convey loyalty but also to have an innate competitiveness within the family which i think has made them so successful as a political dynasty. it's very different. i draw a contrast in the book between the kennedy dynasty which was more top down. you have joe kennedy calling the shots as long as he was able to interact interacting the courier in steering the careers for jfk and ted and bobby. it's this expectation that you are to contribute in one way or another and there is a competitiveness between them. so why are they love each other very much there is also a fierce

competitiveness to be the one that extends the family dynasty or family brand as it were more than the others and it's a unique and very effective model as far as dynasties go. >> host: he was the one i was supposed to land in 1994. >> guest: very interesting how that worked out. coming back now these decades ago, he was running for governor in 94 and everybody in the family knew he was going to run and expected him to and they thought he was going to win because he really is a policy guy that eats and breathes policy and understands it very well. he is the one that when george h. w. bush was running for president or for congress was involved and engaged in the campaigns in a way that george w. never was a kid in the same year was running for governor in texas against ann richards who was a very charismatic campaign

governor of texas. so when i interviewed family members and ask them what did you think was going to happen they said chad is going to win george w. isn't going to win because even though he's more of a hothead of course the opposite happened. so, totally changed i think the dynamics in the family. it led to a lot of soul searching because everybody expected him to plan and he didn't, and i think it led to george w. being recognized in the family as a way of having political smart but maybe hadn't been appreciated before. >> host: you write about this in the book the selection of the running mate. it was a decision made late in the process by today's standards. obviously it had gone through the whole vice presidency coming back. walk us through that decision-making process and how significant that was and is in the relationship between ronald

reagan and george herbert walker bush. >> guest: is a great question because now in the recent political elections the tendency is to pick somebody on the outside for the vice presidential running mate mate but maybe he wasn't running against you but it's going to add something in terms of the state they are from or the demographics. in 1980 it was unusual because he won the nomination of george h. w. bush was the runner-up and george h. w. bush became the selection after this internal debate within the reagan camp and essentially it rested on two things. number one, george h. w. bush had a lot of knowledge. he served as the cia director the u.s. ambassador to the un. he has served as the envoy in beijing china so they have the expertise but more importantly than that they recognized they had a temperament of being a team player. in other words the belief that he wasn't bigotry to undermine

ronald reagan and wasn't going to try to crab glory for himself and so that became the two qualities i think that led him to be the choice. that was not without dissension. it ends up being an excellent choice and they have a very good relationship. they were not close or powells. these were very different people. people forget culturally they came from very different backgrounds and they have differences. ronald reagan was the antiestablishment republican potentially looked at running and 68 against nixon. the nearly lost so he was the antiestablishment republican and george h. w. bush of course was an establishment republican having served even the chairman of the republican party itself. i wouldn't say that they were close but they worked well together and it was a mutual respect on both parts, which i

think was a key ingredient between the two and they have different strengths. george h. w. bush is not the orator orator or the visionary that ronald reagan was. george h. w. bush understood the mechanics of the government and how things work and so i and so i think that they complemented each other very well. >> host: you also get a sense versus 1976 when gerald ford selected bob dole and the moderate senator to be his running mate and went on to serve as the secretary and his administration. but that has changed over the last 15 to 20 years. >> guest: in the case of the republican party has become more activist. it's become less establishment. and i think that is -- there's a number of currents that run through that. part of it is geographical area that used to be the main state or the republican party was like pennsylvania which republicans dominated for generations.

not so much anymore. the new england states of course prescott bush, george h. w. bush's father, pretty rare when you see republicans having a statewide office in some of the new england states. as of so the party migrated south and it migrated west. and i think that's contributed that contributed to it. you also have the wise activist wing of the party. you have 15 pretty strained. and even before the tea party became involved, you have conservatives that ronald reagan very much nourished who were not part of the republican party establishment that became the precinct chairman and state chairman and committee member so this is a more conservative party than it was 30 years ago and i would say probably within the democratic party is more liberal than it was 30 years ago.

>> host: disney than our speech rate of production and children at risk. when did this come out? >> guest: is moved into florida in 1994 and became very interested in sort of disney and what it meant to florida. this book was an exposé on how disney functioned and some of the problems that existed. what i'm particularly proud about in this book is two things that we sort of highlighted that disney was involved in that we felt the way that they can data themselves publicly was inconsistent with the change. the first one is that as we pointed out in the book disney found that there were profits to be made of these online or the hotel business and disney actually was an investor in the company that did that. they were not doing criminal background checks and we have

people with a variety of offenses including pedophiles are seeking to work at disney because they did no criminal background checks and there were people that were coming there and working there that have pretty long rap sheets. as a result of the book they sold their interest in the company and they started doing criminal background checks. so those are the things i was particularly proud of another. >> host: you spent a little time working with casper weinberger who served in the administration. your relationship with him and why this collaboration on the books? guesstimate him in 91 one it got one it got to know him in 93 when i worked on my book victory. he was a wonderful man. no question about it. very hawkish on foreign policy. i certainly didn't. you don't even people that

disagreed with him politically they if they saw them for the gentleman that he was into the genuine person that he was that had these strong convictions. so i worked on victory he gave me a lot of interviews for the book, and as a result of that week, but they we collaborated on the book called the next four, which was a series of fictional scenarios and it wasn't predicted. we were not saying this is what's going to happen. but they often times did war games to look at the capabilities and see how well we would deal with certain threats on a large continuum so it was a novel by threats that we talk about. some of those were sort of obvious middle east crisis developing of the nuclear weapons. some of them i think were perhaps more surprising. we have a scenario where the government of mexico collapses and you literally have tens of

millions of refugees over the course of two months streaming across the border and a humanitarian crisis trying to figure out how that scenario might be dealt with. he was always generous with his time. i was a young writer. but he really took me under his wing and was very encouraging and supportive and i will forever be grateful for him in the way that he worked with me and told with me. >> host: war can occur in many different ways but the first ones usually have been because when power believes it can advance its objectives even without a war at all were one of ten whenever consequentially miscalculate both psychology and psychologically therefore they always make it a part of the play.

in the debate about foreign policy what should the role of the united states be. when people look at cap weinberger they look at the fact that he built up this large military. but you know he was very reluctant to use u.s. force and he was only willing to use it in certain circumstances when he felt they were at stake and american lives were at stake and there was a clear pathway to victory. he felt one of the problems with vietnam was we didn't go into the war saying here's what we are going to do here's how we are going to accomplish it. the kind of stumbled into it and continued adding to forces with no plan for victory to say here is how we are going to try to achieve victory. second he was a reluctant user of forcing one of the reasons we wrote that was to highlight the way that you prevent the war by being militarily strong.

it was to use the force to the prospects of the war become much greater. >> host: the use of the work word miscalculation, iraq, vietnam, afghanistan where those were those miscalculations? >> guest: i would classify them blithely differently as it related to iraq and afghanistan in the execution of the war. in the case you had the initial shock and all that achieved but there have been a lot of debate about this and i think the mistake of courses that we with the army in a way and a lot of them ended up becoming insurgents in fueling this amazing cycle of violence that we have to deal with in iraq. but i do think that in iraq after the miscalculation about what would happen to the forces in the country you had a pathway

to stability. and i think that we did achieve that in 2008, 2009. i think that what the u.s. withdraw forces there obviously future is far more precarious. so the challenge of vietnam and we learned a lot about this in vietnam is the entire assumption behind the military operations wasn't here is how here's how we are going to defeat the enemy. to be certain extent even before that, jfk. the use of military force was simply the means to try to condition the enemy to come to the negotiating table so you have this story where lbj would sit down and applaud what we are going to bomb and it is all predicated on on applying enough pressure to bring the vietcong were to bring the north vietnamese government negotiating table. i think one of the lessons we learned from that is that you cannot have as your endgame we

will negotiate a settlement. we have to have as your endgame military victory. but it needs to be military victory. so i think we've learned about and of course we have to relearn these every generation. >> host: the first sunday of every month c-span2 book tv. he's written or edited more than a dozen books and we want to hear from you. for my part open at 748-8200 for those of you in eastern or central time zones. if you're in the mountain and pacific (202)748-8201. you can also follow us on twitter and send us an e-mail at otb@c-span.org. let's get your reaction to this response who is a clinton campaign spokesperson saying no

one has ever supported the theory that hillary clinton took action as secretary of state is was pretty impressed at the daughters of the clinton foundation. a pretty direct response to your book. >> we have to form in the e-mail or the recorded telephone conversation somebody saying give me this money and i will do that in exchange. that is a standard that nobody could live too. but you could look at is a pattern of behavior and we do this all the time by the way not just in regards to the clintons but in the political scandals that are on the rise in. the question is do you see a pattern of behavior in which money flows in the actionable results and if you look at some of the recent cases of the political corruption, whether that is governor mcdonald in virginia serving jail time because the gifts that were legal in the context of the

virginia law that they were favorable actions that he took as a result. he actually has gone to jail on the sturgis. we have senator menendez in new jersey. there is no smoking gun per se where they had an e-mail or phone conversation that talks about such an exchange and yet he is facing prosecution. you have a governor down in alabama who is in jail on a similar challenges. so but the struggle that i have had the problem that i've had in the clinton response is that they seem to be creating a standard which is totally and wholly under related to the standard that we hold with any other politician. and i would daresay if you have an american secretary of defense who was considering a matter before them and he had a family foundation that was $145 million from that company that the company that had the matter before him and he took action it would at least war in some investigation by the government officials and get that and indicated that in other examples

occurred in the clintons and the belief is there's nothing to see here for you >> host: the leaked copy of the book before it was released and reviewed much of what what you said and they pointed out there were some errors in the book and created a website three. did you expect that? >> guest: i was actually surprised and i was pleased in a way. if you look at a wad of things written about any public figure, by and large the tendency is to ignore it. they ignore it and expect you to go away. if we look at a lot of the reporting that has come out they were extremely concerned about this book. and so i take that as a badge of pride. i want to reveal the truth and i think they were concerned about the fact that they are as detailed in this book. it's not done in an overheated way. and i think the fact patterns are very compelling.

any time you write a book like this where you are dealing with literally hundreds of transactions there are going to be slight errors and there were some in the book. the have a couple of speeches that occurred in 2011 that we have listed in 2010. but none of that undermines all the fundamentals behind the book and a lot of the information above was confirmed in the nuclear deal which is two chapters in the book. "the new york times" had a front-page story confirming the findings of the vote. the clinton campaign hasn't really refuted any of that except to say there isn't anything to see here. we had similar things have similar things in the "washington post" and abc news and others so i feel very good about where the book is and i'm heartened by the fact that i see a lot of journalistic outlets taking this sort of frame of looking at the money going to the clinton foundation or the money bill clinton collected in speaking fees and seeing it as potentially a transactional

business model. >> host: your publisher said it was a well researched book and get in the research you did george stephanopoulos name didn't come up in your research area he later admitted it to contribute in $75,000 to the foundation and the first interview that you did was on abc with george stephanopoulos you >> host: that is exactly right. it is interesting. i knew that he was going to be aggressive but i got a lot of aggressive questions and it's that's fair enough, chris wallace on fox news sunday was very tough. andrea mitchell at nbc was very tough. frank says no and cnn. so, i don't mind tough questions. i think the problems i had with stephanopoulos was the interview that he conducted had the audience know in and had and had i known that he was an active clinton foundation donor and that he had appeared at at least seven clinton foundation events in recent years clearly

he has a connection and an affinity for this organization. i think the interview would have been seen in a very different context. he tried to frame that as i haven't proved any criminal misconduct so is there anything to see here. so it isn't the standards of abc news or if they don't do political reporting area they only do political reporting if they can show a crime that has occurred. so so to me it was troubling that they were trying to frame it in this way. >> host: did you get the sense that they talked to the campaign advisers and used information from them to frame questions towards you? >> guest: i don't know for a fact that he did that but the position was extremely

consistent with the campaign adopted, which is there is no evidence that a crime has been committed. you are simply saying that this happened and hasn't happened and assuming they are connected and what we tried to show in the book is a pattern of behavior. and i think that is ultimately what people want to look at. they want to follow the money and see if it creates a favor for some individual and what is particularly troubling in the clinton case is the amount of money in fact we are talking about the entities. these are not the u.s. financiers. they are entities engaged in this and i become sent to have an influence on the foreign-policy of the secretary of state. >> host: as a leading anchor for nbc news and george stephanopoulos sitdown with hillary clinton as a candidate or president and the fair and objective? >> guest: he is going to a foundation that bore for a clinton's name at times and was it participant in the clinton foundation events.

presumably you will only do that if it is an organization that you be leaving. if i were to go to an event for the red cross, i would do that because the red cross is in a good organization and i believe in their mission. to me george stephanopoulos was published to giving any interviews with the clintons and i would also say frankly with republican candidates for president i think anything involving the 2016 e. election in my mind would be suspect given the ties and relationships but he still has with the clintons. but that's why he gave them the conservation. >> guest: he certainly would argue that. the problem is that this is a very politically connected to charity. there are lots of charities. if you were interested in the health with haiti there are numerous organizations out there that are not connected to people running for president of the

united states. he could have easily given it to them if you actually look at the clinton foundation model are that they actually don't do hands-on work with people. they partner with other organizations. so, even in the standpoint of effectiveness if that was his goal there are other organizations he could have given to that are not connected to the presidential candidate. >> host: he worked with the clintons during the campaign for one term in the clinton white house had left, went on to teach he wrote a book very critical with some excerpts of clinton and his handling of the administration. so why do you think that he came back to contribute to the foundation? >> guest: when i sat down for the interview, we didn't know if that's time. i kind of assumed that his connections were a previous chapter in his life and i was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt in that regard. there are a lot of people that go into journalism.

there was a previous -- politics and then went into journalism and did i think a fairly good job of so -- it's always hard to speculate why people make the decisions that they do. but clearly committee had an affinity for them. it's not just for me that the $75,000 which is a lot of money. it's probably for him not a lot of money but it's time and the fact that he's taken so much of his time to go to the foundation events and to judge the contest sitting next to chelsea clinton and about chumminess that isn't appropriate for somebody that has declared themselves to be a journalist and anchor of the major television networks. >> host: a lot more to talk about but let's get to your phone calls. >> guest: as i have explained its wholesale florida but let's leave that alone.

i would like to make the observation that this interview is the first time that i'd seen mr. schweitzer on television since the week after the book was published. it's amazing how there is a media blackout on the book which if there is someone who could explain to the danger of the conflict of interest between the donors to the foundation and about corruption it's mr. schweitzer, and he should be on the media route. >> guest: there has been media

coverage when the book came out great guy continued to do some media on fox news that i've been surprised for example with cnn. i did an interview with cnn and all of the media sources on sunday as it related to the case of george stephanopoulos. he really it really hasn't been anything else that has been done. i did a ten part series with cnn as it related to extortion and throw them all out. but when it came for just the subject of the clintons i have been disappointed how some of the major news outlets handled the reporting and lack of interest and there were others but i have been surprised and encouraged by. as i said today in the article come from and the findings on the uranium story at the "washington post" i think has been fair in the way that they've characterized a lot of reporting that yes in the mainstream media in particular the television networks have been quite shocking. >> host: james is next.

good afternoon. >> guest: my comment is regarding abc news. it's become such a travesty of what news is supposed to be. i'm not sure that we would expect anything from george stephanopoulos. he's kind of sold out. so it seems kind of consistent with your saying that his connection in the clinton foundation and all of that is part and parcel to my mind of the whole american news in general but certainly abc has gone a long way towards the bottom. >> host: i think one is a lot of news in the question of how superficial is it and it doesn't come into a lot of detail, doesn't focus on the issues that are important. we have a presidential election coming up in the political races

in 2016. it does seem to me the media gets preoccupied in the horse race aspect of the story. much more interested in how things are playing rather than what policy prescriptions are and what the candidates are coming up with and i think that he is right as well that the stephanopoulos case to me as a particularly egregious one. i mentioned this to the nbc news anchor and we went to the situation where he was exaggerating some of the experiences which obviously i don't think it's a good thing that as i explained to people but brian williams did as he was going on shows like letterman and exaggerating those experiences. and you can fault him for that. in the case of george stephanopoulos coming you are talking about the very product itself. we are not talking about going on a talk show and talking about an experience. you are talking to the news product itself and if people want to have the sense that are

delivering their news to have this end-to-end billing relationship with the people they are reporting on it if they do have those entangling relationships. that wasn't done and that's why i think it was particularly egregious. it's shocking that brian williams has faced the sanction that he's faced from nbc. and nbc has done nothing as it relates to george stephanopoulos. he's sort of gone on his merry way. for me it is just a shocking and a stunning display of a lack of interest to be without a bias and an agenda. >> host: as the head of nbc news news with you but brian williams back knowing everything you know? >> guest: that's a tough questions. i think that sanctions will be required because he was talking in a way about things he was doing in the news but unless there were exquisite examples and i haven't followed it

closely. if there were examples in the news broadcast when there was an exaggeration, i would probably ban him from the nightly news. if we are talking about cases where he's coming into talking going into talking on a college campus and he's maybe exaggerating one of his works then i don't think it would warrant the kind of band that he has faced from nbc. >> host: how america's allies are using economic espionage to steal the secrets. >> guest: they seek to reinvent themselves in a way that makes them useful and paintings the power and this is a book published right after the cold war basically saying that a lot of the spy apparatus would have been built up by the cold war for the purpose of spying and the soviet union.

>> host: you came out with the secret strategy of the union in 1994. >> guest: my lesson from that is bold action taken by bold people can truly transform history. i argue that the collapse of the soviet union was not inevitable when it occurred to read it occurred because of very aggressive policies and actions taken by the administration particularly by ronald reagan himself and also the cia director and secretary of defense caspar weinberger. >> host: do as i say and not as i do. >> guest: the lesson i learned there is most people, regardless of their own of the state of the political state of political philosophy or ideology most people would've their lives as conservatives. and the contention of the book is eventually a new look at people like michael moore or bill clinton were others that they function often times in a way that is to their benefit so

they live their private lives as conservatives because they find it much more helpful for their children as their own lives. >> host: the longest subtitle i've seen from the makers and takers why conservatives work harder and feel happier and have closer families give more generously are less materialistic and even hug their children more than liberals. >> guest: this was sort of a mischievous book. there was a professor at uc berkeley that argued that to understand conservatives you have to understand they are psychologically flawed and that they grow up at home where there's corporal punishment that took place and that their parents were not very affectionate with them. there was a host of psychological explanations that were given. and i really took offense to that. i think people are not

reprogrammed to a certain political beliefs. have certain political beliefs. i think that it's a marketplace and people embrace certain ideas and philosophies because they find them attractive and the point i was trying to make in the book is that ideas do influence the way we live our lives. one of the examples i found is that people that were hostile to capitalism and believe the capitalist system is rated do not tend to have the same work ethic as people that don't use things in that way. that may be common sense but to me that as an example of how the ideas and beliefs influence that very practical way that we use the lives and so i concluded the book by saying that ideas have consequences but hopefully we can get past this game of trying to say that one side or the other is psychologically flawed or that these are terrible people or good people and recognize that it's really ideas that animate the way people live our lives and we should focus the debate on ideas rather than

on people themselves. >> host: with go back to north carolina, thank you for waiting. good afternoon i should say. >> guest: thanks for taking my call and for entertaining my question. like every time i call him guy never can get my thoughts across to the point i want to make. but this has been playing around with my mind. why a country as diverse and large and rich can't we find someone besides clinton's or bush for not cutting across both lines but to run when our nominees bought and paid for and the money stacked against nyc all the popularity is at the other candidates but it gets down to the fact we are not really free. and i'm going to get one more question in -- >> host: let's get a response to the first brigade and follow-up. stay on the line.

>> guest: the question the caller asked about why can't we find somebody other than clinton or bush is a question a lot of people have asked and i think that when you look at the two party two-party establishment, the democrat and republican, they are essentially playing it safe by giving would have these candidates. the notion if you are a democratic party or activist and want a democrat in the white house in 2016 we need to pick somebody that we think is going to be a safe and sure bet. hillary clinton has been in the public light for a long time. we know it's out there. this is their mindset and so a safe bet is to go with hillary clinton. plus the fact that the political machine is the machine that dominates the democratic party. they are able to raise money and get activists out in the primary that is unmatched in the decadent party. the republican party is the same thing. it's an established brand. he was governor in florida.

we know the family is. they have this ability to raise money so they are the sort of logical or safe choice within the republican party. it's riddled with the corpses but that didn't pan out. i hear this sense of throwing their hands up and saying it's not going to change. that's been echoed through history for decades into the fact of the matter is the safe choice isn't often times the one that wins. so i would say to those that don't like the choices of the two over that are concerned about the politics in the united states, don't lose heart. it's not predetermined and there are choices on either side that could be exercised. >> host: quick follow-up from the portrait of a dynasty. you point out as he was called by his brothers and sisters the

thoughtful one and it talked about running for president as early as age eight. >> guest: yes. he's always been a civic minded. when his father ran for the senate and lost lost lost it when his father was engaged in the public service in the various appointments they took the most keen interest in what his father was doing. he always had this inclination and it's easy to speculate going back to 1994 if indeed george w. bush lost in texas and had won in florida i think that the odds were that he would have been in nomination in 2000 and would have been president and then you can have both the kind of speculation of what decisions were what choices might he have made differently than his brother but it's interesting how one's open election that perhaps you don't think over the larger span of national history the governor of florida and governor

of texas could have changed the course of american presidential politics because of this unexpected loss and -- ischemic or if he had chosen someone else as his running mate. >> they were more in tune with his political philosophy. >> you can see the liberal news media that's just overwhelmingly in control in the life with george stephanopoulos he planted the question about abortion. he really got to the debate going against the republicans. they are all -- i can't think of

the word right now but why -- i will leave you with this. why do the liberals take over the debate. >> it is a perpetual complaint they have and i think certainly with merit in some cases somebody like cokie roberts. she hasn't been active as far as i know and that's fine we should judge them by their body of work and again, the case is a unique one and i think certainly it is a question in how much the media influences the political debate to look at what the agenda points are and the sort of

questions they ask and when they ask them and whom can have a profound influence on the electoral politics. >> i want to thank you for your passion and some people might think this is an unfounded lynch hunt whereby conservative attack on the clintons again. but my question is why do you think that political adversaries of hillary in particular why do you think they haven't taken action especially legal action against the accusations in your book.

>> guest: the opponents running on the republican side or democratic side or another the position to take legal action. you've got the fbi which can do an investigation. in the department the department of justice there's the question of political hijinks and whether they've been able to do that. the obama department of justice i think it is highly unlikely that you're going to see legal action taken in this area and i think the third option would be the congressional committee with subpoena power to ask questions. so recently senator grassley who is the chair of the judiciary committee has written a letter to the attorney general with a series of questions relating to this deal into the details of

which, so i think there is a possibility of those taking place. but if you talk to journalists and i've talked to many of them, they are by far the most nasty and most aggressive people to go after. journalists will tell you if you write a story exposing something relating to bush or other democrats you might get an angry e-mail or complaint. talk to your editor because they don't like the story literally in their office talking to the editor. you're dealing with a very powerful political machine and when it comes to legal issues or journalism that it is a question of courage and a lot of people have to ask themselves and calculate do i want to put up with what i'm going to have to put up with on this particular issue because it is warranted

and i think that is far nobody has demonstrated the courage to do that. >> if you have the ability to ask one question about what would it be sex >> guest: always asking the questions of public officials but are you going to be honest straightforward answer and i would say on both sides of the aisle you have difficult questions for not going to get him, what i think is probably most important would be to get to the bottom as it relates to the e-mails because it's never been a straight answer to the question. the e-mails that were excluded where they are is based on the revelations that have come out and there were e-mails that were not given to the state department that were not of a personal nature and of the clintons never turned over to the state department. so i think that is a profoundly important question. i wrote and finished clinton would have finished clinton cash

before the e-mail scandal came out. and if you ask me now about the scandal i think it works hand in glove with the issues raised in clinton cash. i think the 30,000 before raised were primarily related to transactions are those that were pinging speeches for bill clinton wanting something from the secretary of state. >> host: one of the speeches that you added to the movement that famous line that i would remind you that extremism and the defense of liberty is no vice and that would remind you justice is no virtue. one of the most memorable speeches of any convention speech after. >> guest: having written for the political figures i would have said that different. any time that you use the word extremism in the phrase cut

immediately becomes a magnet everybody looks to. it was written with him and some speech writers, but he was very detailed and intense on the speeches so it was intended that he was involved in that process. but the principle he's stating his true that when it comes to liberty we have to have a principled standpoint. we can't have a sort of situation we are willing to compromise on the issues of liberty and freedom. .. emanuel. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. >> host: hello. >> caller: i'm here, just been taking in the information from some of the responses --...

to me this is an extreme right can give it is commented mainly done on here and i can assure you this is not my bench. i met the other end of the spent drum. there's really nothing else i can say. i understand clearly the contents of the book. they are fine. i am not questioning that.

if they were questioned i was there that's fine. i'm not object into that. when you went over the continuation. i remember distinctly before bill clinton ever became president and from then on there's been an organization to bring in all these cases to the supreme lord and for a supreme court concerned, those decisions relating to the second amendment and relating to citizens united. if that hasn't destroyed our country i would like to know what has. i wish you well. >> thank you for the call. i would say i am concerned with what the caller said. he said first of all this is a right wing agenda that is trying

to move along and the contents of the book may be fine but that is another issue. one of the problems they have in the country becomes easy to throw around a label. what i would challenge the caller to say is that the look at something written by a liberal or conservative, evaluate and whether it is truthful or factual or not. that should have a certain consequence in the way you view the tenure of hillary clinton and secretary of state and the transactional nature of what is taking place. i tried to shy away from labels. sometimes labels are necessary. liberal or conservative. but i look at a variety of sources or look at the nation and mother jones. desire to news outlets and i am

sort of a limited government conservative. but they have valuable things to say in their streets within those pages from time to time. there's some interesting things published. i would encourage the caller should not be so quick to assign labels to people and say there may be truth over here but because it is conservative i won't pay attention to the truth. post though -- post co. -- >> host: >> guest: yeah, if you look at the 1990s the economy did fairly well. there's always debates in any administration how much is congress, how much is the president how much his fundamental changes within the economy. in the 1990s you have it like government. unique bill clinton and republicans controlling congress and the revolution beginning with the internet. certainly a lot of things bill

clinton did that were helpful to the economy. he was in favor of free trade. he dealt with an agreed with republicans related to limiting certain taxes. you can look at what bill clinton did concede there were some beneficial things he did. there they were also troubling thing today. >> host: and sierra mist arizona. >> caller: good morning. i am trying to figure out mr. schweizer, why we should receive your book in the same vein in which vince foster was killed in the white house. it does seem to be a continuation. if i'm wrong on that assumption, the assumption is based on the history of air and i don't know that you've done enough to separate yourself from bad

history to make the implications that you are sort of implying they are criminals again. this is the one reason i don't want to see a clinton because i know we are getting ready to go down this progress path once again. but the creepiness what i don't understand. how do you think we don't see through it? >> guest: cert might there's a lot of crazy things that have been written about the clintons that i would not agree with. what i ask you to do if you don't want to buy the book and put money in my pocket, go to the library and read "clinton cash." there is no cocaine in this book none of these sorts of outlandish charges are in this

boat. i look at money that came to the clintons and when the money arrived in what happened in response. let me give you an example because the basic premise is the clintons enrich themselves through their public position. and they give you one example. bill clinton has given speeches after he leaves the white house in 2001 after hillary's tenure as secretary of state and does this today. the biggest single payday speech ever comes in 2011. until this point is average speaking fee is less than $200000 a year. should become secretary of state. the payments he gets overseas entities paying him hugely inflated prices goes through the roof. bill clinton has given 13 speeches for which he gets paid half a million dollars or more.

of the 1311 occurred while he was secretary of state. the single biggest payday of a $750,000. ericsson and 2011 was having problems with the state department. all sorts of cables came out in wikileaks. they are upset because ericsson is selling telecom equipment for the government of iran. another thing the state department does not want them to do. they are looking at long extensions to include the technology they are selling to iran. in the middle of all this for the first time ever they never paid before besides $750,000 for a single speech. he gives a speech nine days later the state department issues a statement that says we

are not going to broaden sanctions to include technology. we ask ericsson and other companies to police themselves. you can tell whatever conclusion you want. what i show as dozens of examples like that. the question becomes decide for yourself. do you think this is a coincidence? they don't dispute the decisions made. they say it's all a coincidence. i don't believe they happen not frequently in politics. >> over the last dozen years couldn't have been involved at hundreds of transactions with foreign investment and foreign corporations around the world. there is barely an oligarch, royal family or a foreign investor in trouble with the law not represented.

>> what we did is look at the clinton foundation contributors. those are disclosed because of a wise decision barack obama made as president of the united states. for hillary clinton to be secretary of state they were required to release the names of other contributors and do so on an annual basis. they have been a great and remit to the effect. the new york times had undisclosed multimillion dollars donors that were not disclosed. they violated their agreement with president elect obama almost immediately. when he looked down the list are familiar names. general electric, boeing et cetera. when you look overseas you see obscure companies that operate mining companies in the democratic republic of congo, guys who were financiers in

nigeria to be convicted of crimes at aiding and abetting an enterprise or money laundering. there's some unlikable people in the clintons are eager to take their money from them. don't be a question a lot of people would consider. my experience of the book has been conservatives who don't like the clintons have embraced the book but we've also had a lot of progressives who believe the clinton are for sale who've embraced the book because they see the sorts of people they take money from. they have lucrative deals. that should be troublesome not just to a conservative who doesn't like the clintons but somebody who would be concerned about human rights and corruption and other issues. >> as you know supporters call your book fiction.

has a political hatchet job masquerading and if you failed to outline the many good things the foundation as done in the poorest areas of the world. >> host: i think the information speaks for health. it is all about transactions and follow the money. i do think the clinton foundation has done some good things. it is hard because it is hard to ascertain what the clinton foundation does and that is not just me saying that. that is what charity groups you can go online and they look at the finances and evaluate that. how effect of our day, how do they spend money. they do not even evaluate the clinton foundation because of what they regard as the quote unquote unusual business model. it's hard to ascertain what the clinton foundation does.

the way in which the structure of, the last internal financial controls the better business here and others have taken them for makes it difficult to determine what are those. >> host: george's next. limit 10 11 night. >> caller: good morning. i have a comment and a question. i want to compliment mr. mr. schweizer and the gentleman from maplewood, new jersey. i think they were very good answers and accurate. with regard to that question, last fall i saw richard vickery who originated direct mailer to campaigning successfully defend certain mr. short there is a layer stated that he favors a

governor. the clear implication was a sitting governor for the republican nomination. he wouldn't reveal who that was clear back last fall. i wonder if mr. short third who is obviously very informed might be one to speculate who the republican governor is. >> guest: i certainly would know who he was referring to but i would share his sentiment. if you look at american political history, when we have presidents who have executive mix. his background they tend to adjust better and function better as president because they know how government works. if you're a legislature in not saying you can't overcome this. if you've never run a large bureaucracy and you're not used in making executive decisions you have a much larger learning curve. history bears that out.

there's certainly examples that would take them on the head. abraham lincoln come you don't see a lot of executives there, but he functioned as an extremely high level enormously effective in getting things done. i would share the sentiment. always be equal. i would favor a governor because there's no substitute for knowing how to run a date and to do so effectively. >> host: sonia is next. thanks for watching. >> guest: the book is about follow the money, follow the power. my hobbies over the years watching conservatives. the washington spec tater february 1st 2004 the top story goes unobserved. how many of the bush family members have lucrative

connections to contract was in iraq and my making a lot of money. take the "washington times," a stronghold republican newspaper until he passed away a few years ago. reverend sun myung moon a rail ltd. owns the paper and was responsible for brainwashing young people around the world and affording the american government for hundreds of millions of dollars. republicans to this day allows for to enrich themselves. very strange bedfellows they have. very strange. >> guest: i can't speak much to the "washington times." i look at the newspaper. i don't know what the ownership structure is now. the profiteering as related to iraq in others.

it is legitimate to look at any of our political leaders since the weather is taking place. i've come to the belief in conclusion one of the biggest problem we face a self-enrichment by the permanent political class that you have a group of people republicans and democrats that have a lot more in common than people realize and they function in this way in which self-enrichment to public service has become a very effect means to enriching the families and themselves. >> which is the subject of your book "throw them all out" land deals and cronyism that would send the rest of us to prison. in the book you say the following. permanent political class is figured out how to extract wealth based solely on position and proximity to power. if you have a seat at the table you're in for a feast. if you don't you're probably on

the menu. >> guest: is a function of centralized power. one of the reasons found others in so many others who've written about politics are concerned about the concentration of power is the concentration of power in one of the things i talked about in "throw them all out" was the fact is lott congressional staff numbers. this went on in a widespread way. in 2009 when you are debating the affordable character upon the care talking about reform in roughly% of the u.s. economy you have members introducing amendments who were pushing for those in doing so quite lucrative way. there was nothing illegal doing so. members of the senate armed service committee approving the

military budget for the procurement of weapons of who own stock defense contract reason they are trading stocks accordingly. the list from london the statistic of the quantitative economics. they looked at the stock returns of members of the u.s. congress on the u.s. senate and compare that with the stock transactions of hedge funds and corporate executives and what they found is the average american underperforms the stock market. it beats the market by 5%. the average hedge fund at the time was beating the market of 7%. the study found the senator was getting.market by 12%. the question became the just the senators are great financial investors that to be running hedge fund or do they have

access to inside information and trade on the inside information. what i did in the book is similar to what i did in the clinton book as i followed the market. i looked when stock racer made what legislation was before their committee and probably the most stunning case i found and bought the then republican chairman of the house financial services committee, spencer bachus during the 2008 financial had a closed-door meeting with the fed chairman in the treasury secretary. top-secret meeting on capitol hill. a handful of senior politicians required to cell phones at the door because it was joe top-secret. we found out henry paulson based on his memoir said he gave an apocalyptic rendering above would have been to the u.s. economy based on a financial crisis. the next morning spencer bachus

bought options sure in the u.s. market. he got something called crocheters ultrashort gt gu that the market would go down and a second time in the book it wasn't much of a bad because the treasury secretary to chairman the night before ended up making substantial amount of money off of the deal >> host: you read about john boehner said he was reading the opposition to the house of representatives. he was entirely alive with him when he came investment decisions. specifically what are you referring to? >> guest: i'm not sure i can render the actual name of the companies. john.and to benefit from the affordable care act as john kerry was doing at the same time. my contention based on the experience was not as stark as it was with one day of

information in the mind of god i said we should have a requirement that are members of congress outgoing trust when it comes to stock investments. i think it makes no sense to our members of congress to actively trade and sell stock at their own free will. why they're making decisions in health care, national defense, the economy in general to have a profound effect on the stock prices of companies. the affordable care act was a prime example. >> host: our next caller is from richard. good afternoon. >> caller: thank you. good idea on the blind trust, sir. a question going back to the donation by george stephanopoulos and to the foundation. i am puzzled on exactly why that is bad because if i donate to a charity, that doesn't discourage

me from the challenging charity leaders. i can stop donating anytime i want. he who pays the piper calls the tune. in this case stephanopoulos is the one paid men. he is not under any control. it seems to show if you stretch you might say it means he supports the clintons. it's easy enough to find out what his political views might be because it gives opinions at various times over the years he has. i don't see how entangled him in any negative way. >> host: precisely the interviewed george stephanopoulos did was the clinton foundation itself. you have an entity that is given $75,000 because he obviously believes it's a good thing which is fine. if you are grilling me about my

criticisms of the clinton foundation, it seems to me you have a basic obligation to say just as a point of clarification reported disclosure on the clinton foundation donor. i've given $75,000 into go on on without her question he wants to do. that's the concern of problem. >> host: nexus from tyler, texas. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm a little nervous here. i'm from middle america. a middle class individual. just going to be retired. i retired after 30 years. what i have seen from local state and federal. is federal. just a set of communications for the presidents whenever they came in the smith county. also a set of wiretaps for a federal investigation. what i've seen is all too often

i'm talking about the very grassroots at the bottom of the way to the president of the united states that there is corruption on all sides of the issue. we want america to work. we want our constitution to work. right now i watch all the news programs and whenever he turned the tv off i go outside, i'm full of anxiety. everybody seems to have the side that no one wants to do what is right anymore. >> guest: i think you bring up a good point. corruption is rampant and the question becomes how do we deal with it. one way people deal with it is sale throughout my hand and walk away. if you take the position, whatever your political views whether liberal, conservative or

middle of the road that is the wrong solution. then they see the change of the permanent political pass in the self-enrichment. the second solution some people propose is we need new laws and regulations. history shows us they always find a way. there's always a way to get around a new law for new regulation designed to restrict them. the question becomes what is the solution. strip them of their power and put it on them rather than restrictions on the american people. for example campaign finance for all sorts of laws have been setup designed to somehow prevent politicians from being influenced by the flow of money and i don't think the lots have been successful. to me the larger issue is one of extortion that i talked about earlier that politicians go out and actively seek businesses and

industries and introduce bills and regulations explicitly designed to collect money from those entities. the way you deal with getting rid of our limiting the amount of money and the amount of influence on our politics is by regulating politicians not the american people. in 27 states around the country including florida where i live we have a simple law that says in the florida legislature meets politicians cannot solicit or receive campaign contributions. the restriction is entirely on the politician. if you violate that you violate the law. to me that is a very, very sensible way to get around the fact when congress meets not very far from here, you have politicians who are marking bills are drafting bills and walking out of their office building, getting across the

street where they can legally do so talking to a lobbyist or people interested in the bill and raising money from them. why not simply say the same thing you have in congress. by the way, if nothing else we have a much shorter congressional session because they want to go out and raise money. today we have to start fundamentally thinking about these things in different ways. >> host: back to your book what you took away from architects have ruined them how they wrecked the global economy and will do it again if no one stops them. >> guest: the unintended consequences of good intentions can be disastrous. the 2008 financial crisis and what i argue is suffers by housing not just another entity is to broaden homeownership in the united states is something republicans and democrats have raised was well-intentioned, was a good idea but absolutely

disastrous because you have a lot of people buying homes that they couldn't afford, that they were unable to pay the mortgages on and that played an important role in the financial crisis. >> host: "extortion" how they distract both the minor own pockets. >> guest: politics is a little bit like professional wrestling. what you think of going on is not actually going on. this is an analogy that in my mind some people with a cynical that really explains what goes on in washington d.c. when i was a kid in seattle washington i would turn on channel 13 which is one of the independent channels and you could see professional wrestling than a guy having a guy with a chair and throwing them out of the rain. i thought this was amazing. these guys hate each other's guts. when i watched it more paid more attention i realize these guys

don't hate each other. these guys are in business together putting on this display for our benefit. there's a lot in washington that goes on. a lot of what we see as the partisan divide israeli manufactured in a way in a lot of ways the political parties have in common in disagreement. >> host: we are about halfway through our three halfway through our three hour conversation with peter schweizer. we have time for one more caller. jerry from south dakota. >> caller: hide. yes, i like your analogy about the wrestlers did i just finished reading a book about pretty boy bobby human and boy bobby hume and indicate the inside about how they rode down to louisville, indiana and got

paid to throw the chair they lost the match. it was great. i tell my sons actually i love those guys back in the 70s. anyway, back to what i'm talking about. i basically have always registered and they've already been democrats. as far as hillary clinton, i don't see it. they are -- you know i think a power-hungry machine like you would say and i just don't think she's the right candidate. he was in the 80 years. okay, get out. put more money back into america. when you hear about president

our schools will put your money here. we have problems in haiti, south africa and whenever. what is wrong with good old united states of america. maybe if they put some money into the school system we can hire better teachers. i lived in the tampa bay area for pretty much 28 years and i was there with martin child beat him in 94 and douse a problem. the first thing he did was no child left behind. jeb bush would give vouchers that was his plan if there is a school feeling and you had an exceptional child that was straight a's they could give a voucher to a private school. that is what concerns me about

him. >> guest: who are you going to vote for? >> caller: i haven't checked the web via. i think sanders -- i like what he says. he is a throwback i think his age. i don't like the fact that he's older, but the person that i think is interesting as a conservative friend of mine said years ago i voted for kennedy because they didn't need money. they came back to me when he decided to run. he's rash, controversial, but i don't know. i actually like jesse ventura.

>> host: we will give our guests a chance to respond. just go the clinton and bush not as much enthusiasm in either side of the inner party. the clouds that bernie sanders is more energetic. certainly in terms of enthusiasm and you find something similar on the republicans lied then you have people in the republican party establishment that like the idea of jeb bush asserted a good faith established choice. a lot of enthusiasm from people saying he's been number one choice and i think he's the best candidate. it is going to be interesting. people that can say this process is so long.

it's going to rent two years to have the general election from him the whole thing started at the beginning of this year. we're trying to sort out and said through the way people want to lead our country. it should be a marathon. if you look back at the 2008 election the big assumption was hillary clinton in a slam dunk and then along came this young senator from illinois named barack obama who won the nomination. that is where scenario can play on either side. >> host: if people want to follow you to reach out to you or viewers here, where can they do so? >> guest: look at my website which is peter schweizer.com. if you want to look at clinton clash -- "clinton cash." i have an organization called the government accountability institute. there is a way to get in touch

with me in sending a message message there if you'd like. basically an organization based in florida. we've got about 50 employees were redoing depth investigative research. >> host: do you treat? >> guest: i'm still trying to get the testing. >> host: we will come back and continue our conversation with peter schweizer. he's written and added more than a dozen books. what he's reading now right now and also cap weinberger who influenced him over the years. we'll continue our conversation here on c-span2. ♪

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>> we continue conversation with author transfixed. he came from one washington to the other. >> guest: that's right. grow up in seattle. my father was an engineer at the link. went to my first two years as an undergraduate at a small liberal arts college called pacific lutheran university where i was on the debate team. i enjoyed the debate team in high school and college and transferred to george washington university and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree. 1988 i went to oxford raced in two years and a master of philosophy and international relations. fantastic experience. i'd encourage anybody who has the opportunity to go there to take advantage of it. the approach to learning is

different in a way. it's solid and expand the system and i really thrived in the environment enjoyed it very much. i did make the mistake of writing my master's thesis which fell apart the next year. >> host: whether your kids think about what your dad does? >> guest: they'll find interest in. some are more interested in politics than others. my parents were never ones to say this is what you're going to do. i am glad and grateful and excited that i get to do what i do and have got kids that i love that i enjoy spending time with. >> host: by d. like to write and how do you go about the process of putting the book together whether it's clinton cash for editing speeches what is your approach? >> guest: honestly i hate the writing process which is strange

thing. one another's research and that's what i thrive on. if you've read most of my books you'll find things you hadn't read somewhere before. i looked a research project. on the "clinton cash" book i love looking at what was happening creating a template of these transactions while hillary clinton was secretary of state. once the narrative is together in my mind based on the fact they begin writing. if you look at a book in the process of writing a complete the pier just take a chapter of time. i'm going to write this chapter on uranium and you complete the project and going to the next one. if you take it in small bite-size chunk six becomes less

intimidating. an e-book coming out in september. it is an e-book because of course it's a lot of books released by publishers in new york you have a long way to time in the editing process and review. that will be coming out in september are applying the same principles we apply to follow the money to see where money flowed in a third benefit that accrue to those providing the funds based on jeb bush's public career. postcode taste on his financial disclosures he's made a lot of money since the governorship in florida and in part using the bush team to capitalize on it. >> guest: you have the issue in family relationships which is the key. "clinton cash" is about a husband and wife, secretary of state and the flow of funds they

are enrichment that takes place there. and what we're investigating his jeb bush substantial increase in the earth basically went from 1.3 million to somewhere in the magnitude of 20 million to the accumulation has something to do with the fact that part of the time the president of the united states and the ability to influence government was related to it. >> host: what is the title? >> guest: the title is up in the air. it has been proposed bush bucks to go with "clinton cash." i think it's something that conveys the notion which is our political engage in self enrichment. some of them are some of them aren't in the key determination is trying to look at the flow of money, the timing of the flow

and let the reader decide. we showed the cases and that the ms outlook this warrants further investigation. i think anywhere i say i'm ordinary criminal act has taken place. >> host: give us one thing you want people to read. >> guest: what we look at is a series of transactions in an airport we built with state funds and the people who benefit from the transaction are talking to the bushes and that's all i can say. i will probably have researchers back and forth. but you heard it here on c-span c-span 1. >> host: will go to paul in kearney, nebraska. good afternoon. >> caller: you're getting a

lot of mileage out of here -- [inaudible] i'm going to try to get through this fast. i'm a little bit left of center. it doesn't mean i'm completely left. the main question i'd like to have what amazes me and our country today i don't know -- this country is run by big business. various industrial complexes could you name it, the big industrial complex. the education right down the line. i liked your comment also on the supreme court and the corporations that people to

campaign. also, as far as the news media, for instance in nebraska 80 with you immediately have that there is fox news. i can hardly recall since obama has been elected one could think about the obama administration. >> host: a lot on the table. thank you for the call. >> guest: the caller brings up a good point when he talks about the role of corporations in the way americans govern. this is one of those examples of the professional wrestling analogy i would use. the assumption a lot of people convey is big government and big business are at war with each other and i was completely reject that. there's a lot more collaboration between big government and big business. big business regulates excessively and it may sound

counterintuitive but the reason they do so is that allows big business to have smaller competitors fall by the wayside who can put up with regulatory requirements. one example is dog for a financial reform that took place. very complex very detailed regulatory requirements. obviously a debate about more regulation of us. a large financial and petitions like citibank and goldman asked by a march like a dog for reform. it is going to be expensive to comply that the smaller competitors are not able to comply with it and they are driven out of the market place. i would agree with the caller that will pit business and government together or not opponents. they are collaborators. the question becomes what do you do about it.

for me the only solution is to try to limit the size and scope of government because government has become co-op by large corporations and the way you force large corporations to compete is to get the government out of the way and allow more open competition to occur. i would disagree with the caller. fox news when you look at the new side which is their job to report news does a fantastic job in doing so and they have regarded well by their journalistic colleagues. i know they are. i think often times people conflate evening programming which is commentary with the new side. they get upset when something is said on the evening broadcast that they don't like. the purpose of the evening broadcast is to do programming

driven around the hose. it is not designed to give a new steel per se. that is what msnbc does and what cnn does. >> host: tulsa, oklahoma. david, peter schweizer. >> caller: yeah, so many times when i watch television i hear pessimism about politics, negativity and politics. i was wondering who are some politicians today that you respect and you believe do it the right way. >> guest: that's a good question. first of all i can be pessimistic about politics but i am optimistic about the country. it is my nature to be optimistic. the key question is are we going

how the government that reflects the bias of which is that the american people operate government held captive by what happens inside the washington beltway. the caller before who reference fox news is i did a couple one-hour specials that fox news for full disclosure. those were specifically about the washington beltway and how washington d.c. has become so fabulously well be. that is a function of government that is out of control and too large. to answer your question politicians that i respect and do the right way for the cronyism and corruption standpoint that could give you a couple names on both sides of the aisle. if i were to look on the left side of the aisle that i wouldn't agree with him on policy prescriptions. i would say barney frank is somebody in congress there's no

evidence i've seen involving financial misconduct for self enrichment. there's no evidence he's engaged in self enrichment or cronyism. on the conservative side the concert they look at somebody like ted cruz for example without evidence of self enrichment taking place at ted cruz. the larger issue is over a span of a parrot time. one of the reasons i endorse term limit is i do think the longer somebody stays in public life the harder it becomes to resist temptation to cut corners and make themselves wealthy, et cetera. i do think new blood is something very poor. >> host: is that you've co-authored author, including friendly spies how america allies are using economic espionage to steal secret.

the area the reagan administration's secret strategy with the collapse of the soviet union. the next were you co-authored with kat weinberger. reagan's war the epic story of the 40 year struggle and final triumph over communism. chain of command you co-authored with caspar weinberger. do as i say not as i do profiles than hypocrisy back into destiny. architects have ruined a big government liberals wrecked the global economy and how they will do it again. throw them all added up to cap politicians and cronyism a couple years ago and your more recent book "extortion" how politicians extract your money and mine their own pocket in your most recent book, "clinton cash." back in erie pennsylvania.

>> caller: good afternoon. i make $10 an hour. which group do you think congressmen and women are more likely to act on behalf of. constituents or donors. a manic, to follow. >> host: how would you answer that question? >> caller: i'm asking that if your gas you don't mind. >> guest: most politicians are very responsive to donors. but the point that i would make is somebody in your situation for the situation all americans are in the sydney to look at elected officials and say which one will create a circumstance that allows greater opportunities for me. it is going to be very hard to change the equation as to who is maurice on third to what you want. the question you have to ask yourself is which one will create a circumstance for greater opportunities to flourish in. that is who i would like to for

political leadership. >> caller: with citizens united we are opening ourselves up to foreign money. i wonder what have the republicans done to stop citizens united. as you were saying, you are right when he don't look to people who will help us. former senator rick santorum was trying to get rid of social security. but i really wonder what republicans have ever done to help the 99 chris and people like me. i just don't understand why people would go for republicans to tell you the truth. >> guest: i would not for a politician to help you. if you look for a politician to help you, good luck.

a politician will respond to what is in their interests, not what is in your interest. you should look for the politician who will create greater opportunity for you. that is different than helping. as it relates to citizens united, she mentioned citizens united was increasing the flow of foreign money. that's not quite the way i would characterize it. i think people have a fundamental first amendment right to communicate ideas they believe in. if you are wealthy billionaire if you're concerned about the environment and you want to run as if they want to do something about global warming you have the first amendment right to do so. the point to highlight in the "clinton cash" book does go to the core issue of foreign money and wise so troubling. we have the census in american politics that we don't want

foreign money influencing our political system. if you're a foreign corporation you can't set up a political action committee. you can't donate to the campaign. the clintons have done by bill clinton taking speaking fees from foreign entities, we now have a conduit and a model but if we don't deal with them in the future will come to influence our political system and allow foreign corporations and entities on a major scale to influence our political process and that is what i'm particularly concerned about. >> host: at the debate that took place back in 1992 he says during the debate with church herbert walker bush and bill clinton i notice bill clinton mention the father of george herbert walker bush early in the debate. my observation is mr. clinton was very sly. there is a smirk on his face.

mr. bush appeared in only to react in a melancholy manner because of the attitude george herbert walker bush had the love and essentially president bush. >> guest: that's an interesting observation. i will have to see the debate. it would not surprise me if that is what he says occurred and george h.w. bush had that response. that would not surprise me. there's no question in the family there is a generational respect and a very clear sense of a future generation of the bush family you are standing on the shoulders of the previous generation and they are very thankful for the heritage they have. i think it becomes very difficult for the family as it would for a lot of people that when family members are brought into the political debate were attacked or criticized its hard

for them to respond because there is a strong emotional bond. i write in the book about how george w. and they were competitors different people but they did reconcile beginning with the 2000 presidential election and the whole drama in florida and now they are close. ..

talk to me, don't worry about what my husband would do. so there's that sense, i think whether you're talking about a sibling or whether you're talking about a spouse and you are part of a political dynasty, it's really impossible to avoid questions about family members. but it's not always the easiest thing to deal with, because there is that sense of loyalty but also, you know, being independent. >> host: we hope you like us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv. you can also follow us on twitter and send us a tweet @booktv. we'll go to steve in montgomery texas. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, sir. mr. schweizer, your book on the clintons "clinton cash," gives the impression that only the state department under hillary clinton had to approve of the

uranium transaction. but weren't the some federal and state agencies that also had to approve of the deal? and i would ask that both you and steve tell the country which other federal state -- federal and state agencies had to approve of the deal. for instance didn't an agency of the state of utah also approve of this same deal? >> guest: yeah. yeah, i point out in the book and i've said in numerous interviews since then that there were nine government agencies that had to sign off on this

transaction. the reason that i think the clinton, hillary clinton signing off is particularly concerning, however, is really twofold. first of all, hillary clinton is the only agency head of the nine that had to review this whose family foundation received $145 million from the shareholders who stood to make huge money from this deal. i mean, think about that for a second. you have a small canadian uranium company that wants to be sold to the russian state-owned entity, and nine people can connected with that company -- shareholders, the chairman of the company, etc. -- send $145 million to the clinton foundation. that, to me, cries out for investigation, and i think if it were any other political figure, it would. the second reason, though, i think that it's important to look at hillary clinton signing off on that deal as opposed to the state of utah as you pointed

out or the department of homeland security is that hillary clinton -- and i talk about this in the book, and anybody can look at the public record -- had a very strong record of opposing precisely these kinds of deals. this came through a process called sifius which is the committee of foreign investment in the united states. they had to sign off on the deal, these are the government agencies that needed to approve the deal. hillary clinton, going back to 2005-2006, had an enormously strong record of being a hawk on precisely these kinds of deals. she was opposed to the dubai ports deal because she didn't want the government of dubai owning ports in the united states, there were a series of other deals that i talk about in the book. she wanted to strengthen sifius, and she made blanket statements numerous times that she did not want foreign government agent agencies to own critically

strategic industries as hands in this case -- as happened in this case. yet she approved this deal. that's why i think her in this decision chain is particularly important and demands further scrutiny. >> host: let me go back to the book that you edited, "american conservative movement speeches," and ronald reagan, his inaugural speech, he made references to that, he used the word "renewal" quite often in his speech, renewing our determination, renewing america renewing our faith. and he said it's now time for us to realize that we are too great of a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. do you have a sense though, that reagan knew at the beginning of his term how he would conclude his term eight years later? >> guest: i don't think he knew how the term would be concluded. i don't think that he knew, you know that the economy would take off as much as it did, but i do think he believed if he could implement the reform agenda that he had both

domestically and in terms of national security that we had a great chance of turning things around in the country. this is what i think is so important, republican, democrat, what's so important was reagan's optimism. but it wasn't optimism that was sort of, you know, unicorns and rainbows. it was a optimism based on his belief in the ingenuity of the american people, in the power of the free enterprise system, the commitment that the american people had to freedom and to american national security interests. and i think that's what made him a great leader. he was able to harness that and then he was able to implement a reform ape general da that -- agenda that's so contrary to what we had in the united states running up to that point. >> host: let's go to bob in blackwood, new jersey. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i'd like to start off by commending your guest today not

only on the obvious sincerity of his efforts with his books which you can tell by listening to him anytime, but also for his bravery. in these books he goes up against some pretty big people in this world, and i commend him for that. it takes a lot of bravery to do that. >> guest: thank you. >> host: bob, you still with us? >> caller: yes, i'm here. >> host: okay. >> guest: yeah, okay. i'd like to ask first about the citizen united case. i know your guest should be, from what i understand, pretty versed on that. it seems a little odd to me, and i kind of got a little strange feeling about that. a lot of people may not know, and i'm sure your guest does and a lot of people do know but not everybody knows that that started off as a smaller, kind of insignificant, you know in my opinion case. and then somehow it seemed as if rockets kind of -- roberts on his own, you know, merits, kind

of directed that in the direction to where it turned out to be. and based off of his history of, you know, from what people have said that he seems to be, you know maybe 5-1 with his decisions on more corporate government versus things that, you know are better off for the american people, it just seemed kind of not to pass the smell test. and i was wondering if he thought there was any -- i'm not asking him to place any blame but ask him if he had any feeling there might have been a little premeditation at kind of how that thing kind of evolved. it didn't seem like a normal osmosis, it seemed almost too beneficial to be ironic how that worked out. >> guest: well, i'm not a supreme court watcher so i would hate to speculate why supreme court justices are making the decisions that they do make. what i would say is that citizens united is pretty consistent with the decision going back, i think, to 1976, the so-called buckley decision. and the buckley decision basically had a very simple premise and argument that gets

extended by citizens united which is spending money on a political idea that you have is a fundamental first amendment right. it is akin to being able to protest outside of city hall. that does not mean that you can give unlimited amounts of money to a political campaign. citizens united does not say that either, but what it does say is that if you are an individual who are wealthy who's wealthy oryou want to get together a group of people who are not particularly wealthy but you are concerned and you want the country to have a stronger national defense, you know tighter environmental regulations, lower taxes higher taxes, whatever you want, you have a first amendment right to give money to a political cause and to express those ideas and views through the media by buying ads etc. that is a view that a i happen to share. -- that i happen to share. i think the notion that if we got rid of the right of people to give money to political

campaigns, our politics would be much more clean, i would reject that notion. i think the core problem that we face in politics is the same problem that is faced in politics around world which is when you give people power and people have flaws and people are ambitious and people are greedy, when you give people power, you have to watch them very closely, because the tendency that they are going to have is to accumulate power themselves and accumulate wealth for themselves, for their family members and friends. so the notion that we're going to get money out of politics which is kind of a catch phrase out there, that that's going to clean up the political process it's not. you can look at a lot of other governments around the world that have a different political system than the united states who are racked with the same kind of political corruption that we are. it's not going to solve the problem. what i argue we need to do is regulate politicians and their access to money and how they are able to use money, and we need

to watch them like a hawk. we need to have absolute transparency on anything that our government is doing with the exception of a few rare things related to national security. >> host: from this book, "extortion," you make a couple of points. congressman alcee hastings paid his girlfriend $622,000 over a four-year period. congressman jerry lewis paid his wife $512,000. congresswoman maxine waters paid her daughter and grandson a total of nearly $500,000. >> guest: yeah. these are the so-called leadership pacs that have been established. so a leadership pac is a little bit different than a normal political action committee. leadership pac is set up by members of congress or senators, and ostensibly you raise money let's say you're maxine waters, democrat from california, you're raising money as part of your leadership pac so that you can give money to other democrats so that they can get elected so you can enhance the population of

democrats in congress. the problem, as i point out in the book is, that leadership pacs have become slush funds. because they don't face the same restrictions that are on regular campaign committees or on joint fundraising committees. you can take leadership pac money and use it to enhance your personal lifestyle. you can hire family members and put them on the payroll, you can take the family on a golfing trip to scotland and have the leadership pac pay for it and you know say that you met with one person there. it's a way of subsidizing a lifestyle, and i think it's an enormous problem, and it's an example of this kind of self-enrichment. and there's an example where i would say you should not necessarily say that people can't give to leadership pacs, but you should restrict what people can do with leadership pacs and the way that they can spend their money. and there's, to me, no reason politicians should be allowed to use political committee money to enhance their own lifestyles. >> host: john is next madison alabama. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. i've got a question and a

comment. >> host: certainly. okay. >> caller: first is the question. mr. schweizer has been looking into the influence of money in politics for a long time and i've got a question about the drug money, the illegal money that's got to be billions of dollars floating around that's not accounted for, and yet you never see anybody being indicted or going to jail -- you almost never hear about this. and yet there's billions of dollars of unaccounted money out there. in your research, have you ever seen anything like the influence of this money on our politics? >> guest: i have not. but, you know, it would not surprise me to see money flow, you know, obviously they would channel it through something you know perceived to be legitimate means. there's no reason why you wouldn't expect them to be trying to influence the political process. everybody does, and i think that's part of the problem. government has become so large and so powerful and so intrusive in every aspect of our life

frankly, you'd be a fool not to try to influence the political process. and i think that would go for what you were talking about illicit drug money. >> host: john, did you have a comment? >> caller: yeah. the comment is something different. long time ago i was in the army at fort polk in 1980, and i saw the change. i was in the army through the '80s, and i saw the change that happened in the united states army when the reagan people and particularly secretary weinberger came onboard. and it was just amazing. later on i was a battalion commander in the late '80s, and the difference was night and day, and i think secretary weinberger was a great man. i wanted to just say that on tv, and i would imagine mr. schweizer probably agrees with. >> guest: absolutely. i hear that a lot, but it always warms my heart and i know that people work with him, the same thing, to hear that. he loved america's fighting men and women, and his real belief in building up the military and giving us the military

capability we had was precisely to give them the tools to get the job done but to also minimize casualties as much as possible because he cared so much for soldiers. a lot of people don't realize that cap weinberger in world war ii served with general macarthur in the pacific. so he was a veteran himself and was very proud of that fact. >> host: we had this special relationship between franklin roosevelt and winston churchill. you don't write about those two individuals. you write about ronald reagan, margaret that mucher and the special relationship between -- margaret that much -- thatcher. how did all of that come together to bring down the soviet union? >> guest: well, i think that's, those were all enormously important ingredients. you know, margaret thatcher became prime minister in 1979, reagan was still seeking the presidency in the united states, but they had this amazing affin i for each other -- affinity for each other, and they both had different manner of doing it, but they both had this profound

sense that the cold war could be won. i would encourage a lot of people to go back and look at 1982 1983, some of the speeches and some of the statements that ronald reagan made as president of the united states. here you had a president of the united states saying communism is going to end up on the ash heap of history. him saying that, you know communism is this sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last days are being written. now, in retrospect, everybody can look at that and say yeah you know, communism collapsed. but at the time, the established view was that these were just bizarre things to say. and if you look at the writings of john kenneth galbraith regarded as one of great economists of the 20th century you look at columnists at "the new york times" and elsewhere they all thought reagan was a crackpot. i mean the assumption was soviet communism was here to stay, and we were going to have to cope with it and deal with it throughout human history. it was a permanent part of the

political landscape. mrs. thatcher had that same view. there's an end pose where i write about -- episode where i write about reagan utters some of these phrases they go back to 10 downing street afterwards where margaret thatcher offers a toast where she toasts president reagan's speech and thanks him for putting freedom on the offensive where it belongs. this notion that we're going to be on the offensive we're going to be proud of believing in individualism and freedom and we're going to go on the offensive was a profound change in the psychology of the cold war. and, certainly, john paul ii in theological terms and in faith terms added to that part of the ideological struggle. and this notion that the individual has dignity the individual's entitled to freedom, this created i think, a complete change in the psychology of the cold war. and when you couple that with some of the very specific things that the reagan administration did in policy terms i think it

fundamentally explains why the cold war ended the way it did and when it ended. >> host: we have about 40 minutes remaining in our conversation every first sunday of the month with authors and our "in depth" author this month is peter schweizer. jeff is next in nebraska, good afternoon. >> caller: how you doing? i guess i got just more of a statement than a question, but i had the opportunity to do all the communications on board the white house helicopters through three different presidents, george bush sr. toward the last two years of bill clinton and the first two years of george bush jr. and as a fly on the wall, i will tell you -- [laughter] that the difference between the

respect that was showed to the secret service marines any other person around was just so different and so, it was just incredible how disrespectful bill clinton was to the people that supported his whole -- and it wouldn't surprise me a bit that any of this stuff would be true in his -- because it was, it's just so obvious. when we went to india, they spent $50 million on one trip in india, bangladesh and then sweden. so they don't care. the clintons don't care about our money. and i will tell you one other thing, and if he wants to make a statement or anybody has a

question, george bush sr. riding around with brent scowcroft and john sununu and james baker absolutely the most professional people you could possibly be around treated us unbelievable. >> host: jeff, let me ask you a question. how were the clintons disrespectful? give an example. >> caller: absolutely -- his entire staff were like a bunch of hippie punks. and they treated us as such. when they left office they absolutely raped air force one. because i had friends on air force one. we all intermingle. that's what people don't understand. if you are in that arena with the president whether you're a marine supporting marine one or you're with the secret service

whatever you all intermingle. and my friends on air force one told me they were just a bunch of freaks running through that aircraft. and if it wasn't nailed down, you better betcha it was gone. >> host: jeff, thank you for the call and sharing your own experience. what are you doing today, by the way? >> caller: i'm listening to your program, i find it very interesting. and i hope america understands and kind of listens to what's going on here, because i think we're fixing to vote somebody into office that's going to repeat the same thing that mr. obama has, and i think our country's going to -- we're on our last leg if we do. >> host: jeff, thank you from crofton, nebraska. >> guest: yeah, i certainly don't have any direct knowledge of that. there were certainly news

reports about towels and things taken from air force one but i don't have any direct knowledge of that. >> host: let's go to bob in bradenton, florida. good afternoon. >> caller: yes, thank you. i appreciate your analysis, mr. schweizer. i'd like you to consider something i think is quite important. when i listen to bernie sanders, he talks about the plight of the working person in the united states which i believe we can all agree is under increasing, greater economic pressure and that this has been building for at least four decades, since the early '70s. what i would like to say is that i agree with him totally in that analysis. however, when he goes to the next point to say that this is because of the increasing greed of business owners or ceos, i don't agree. and in my particular case, i've

done some analysis, and i believe that we need to look very carefully at the impact of the information technology revolution on this whole process. computers have improved in power by factor of one trillion in price performance over the last 50 years. the result of that is, is that ceos whose job is to maximize corporate profits -- that's their overriding concern -- now are enabled to replace people with computers and algorithms. and this has been going on through automation and outsourcing for the last 50 years. >> guest: well, i think the caller brings up a lot of valid points. i do think there's no question that the middle class is struggling in the united states. i think he's also right that you know, you can't really connect that to the compensation of people who become wealthy.

and the example i always give is, you know, you take somebody like bill gates who, you know, founder and chairman of microsoft, you know, worth tens of billions of dollars, you know, he didn't make anybody poor when he made money. you know, he sold software, and he sold, you know, technology components to people. nobody got poor because bill dates got rich. he got -- bill gates got rich. he provided a good and service that people wanted. and that's why i think it's a misnomer, this sort of class warfare that's taking place. bernie sanders certainly somebody who has done it. i think bernie sanders brings up valid points when it comes to crony capitalism. i think he's exactly right on that. but i think on this whole issue of income inequality which has also been now embraced by hillary clinton which i find kind of ironic, to me, just is fool's gold. it's an attempt to try to deceive people in what the solution is. steve jobs becoming rich didn't make anybody poor either.

i do think the caller brings up a very important point in that this sort of fundamental shift in the economy, this movement to sort of an information economy, the capabilities that we now have technologically are creating huge challenges for people in the working class. you know, now we're starting to have to worry about robots among all things. and i think those are some very important issues that need to be addressed in a very important and profound way by policy leaders. but you're not going to help the working class by tearing down wealth creation in the united states. it's going to have the opposite effect. it's going to make things worse. it's not going to make things better. >> from "makers and take aers," you say the following on page 17: it is my contention that liberalism and conservativism are not simply political ideologies, but that they represent divergent ways of life. for those on both sides their political views are just the tip of the encompassing world view that addresses the biggest questions about life. this world view influence as

you say it influences the decisions that they make about family work community and life. >> guest: yes. and really what i tried to show based on academic studies and research is that there are different tendencies between liberals and conservatives. again, there are all sorts of exceptions to these rules, but when you look at the day conservatives -- at the data conservatives tend to be married more often than liberals do, they tend to have children more often than liberals do. liberals tend to live in more urban areas, conservatives more in rural or suburban areas. and there obviously, are exceptions to those rules. but my view is that the beliefs that you embrace politically to the extent that you embrace a certain set of beliefs are going to influence the decisions that you make. so, for example to pick, you know, an extreme example if you are somebody who is a very radical feminist let's say and you believe that a patriarchy and marriage are oppressive

institutions, odds are you probably are not going to get married. your ideas are influencing a decision that a you make. if you are an environment, an environmentalist who believes that overpopulation is a massive problem and that the presence of human beings on planet earth in increasing numbers presents this, you know, horrific effect on the environment chances are you're probably less likely to have lots of children than somebody that is a conservative. and so i think this is an important notion. now, certainly, my view is that conservative ideas generate positive outcomes in a way that liberal decisions don't generate positive outcomes all the time. but i always add to me, this is not a criticism of people. i have friends that are politically liberal that i get along with splendidly, we have a lot in common, and i enjoy that interaction. to me, it's a function of ideas. what are the ideas we embrace and are those positive ideas or

are those ideas that are negative and that have negative consequences. >> host: herbert is next, delray beach, florida. a lot of florida viewers today. good afternoon. >> caller: mr. schweizer, i have a question for you. >> guest: sure. >> caller: in my opinion, there is something that is of equal or great canner significance than ongoing corruption itself and that is the widespread semi-covert ops operation which destroys the right's liberties of those considered a threat. and when i say a threat i mean a threat in terms of someone who can detect, identify and disclose the corruption. >> host: herbert, such as? >> caller: um, oh, well, i won't go into detail but i am one specific victim because of something that i did 20 years ago having to do with the real

whitewater the one still kept secret from the public. but as a result of that, i -- and there are hundreds of others for different reasons -- are considered a threat to political interests. so therefore, i have no civil is rights legal rights nothing. there's nothing i can do. >> host: response? >> guest: well, i think anytime you write the sort of things that i write you face the fact that people are going to not be happy with what you've written and i've been criticized by both republicans and democrats. and, look you also do recognize the fact that those that have the tools of power whether it's in irs audits or others are out there. i personally have not faced the sort of things the caller was talking about, but i do think we have to be very cognizant of guarding our liberties in this regard. i personally have concerns about some of the things that are done in terms of domestic security

from the standpoint of heightened terrorism. i think that the islamist threat is a real threat, and we need to have capabilities, but i think they need to be balanced with civil liberties. my concern with the affordable care act is very similar and it's always kind of puzzled me why people who are very upset and concerned about domestic spying and the fact that government agencies have their phone records don't seem to be particularly concerned that that same government entity might have your medical records very soon. so i have a skeptical view about government power, and i think just not speak specifically with the caller's circumstance, but i think in general i think we always need to be careful the tools that we are equipping government officials with because, as i think thomas jefferson once said, to the extent that government can do something for you, it can do something to you. and we need to be clear that it can turn on a dime very quickly. >> host: a couple of other notes. you spent how much time with sarah palin in 2008 after she was selected as john mccain's

running mate? >> guest: i actually worked with sarah palin after that, in 2011 and 2012. i was a speech writer for her, and i enjoyed that immensely. i wrote a couple speeches dealing with crony capitalism and corruption, particularly talking about the collaboration between big government and big business. there was a speech she gave in iowa to that effect in 2011, i believe, that was -- >> host: which we covered. >> guest: yes. very, very well received by both liberals and conservatives. and i think a lot of times when it relates to governor palin there's sort of a reflex reaction that political liberals have. if you actually look at her political history when she went in as governor of alaska, one of the first things she did was take on big oil. big oil had a stranglehold on politics, and she did not like the fact that there was this very strong crony relationship between big oil and the political class. and she really shook it up. when it comes to fighting crony

capitalism and self-enrichment she has a long history there. i was with her, i would say, approximately a year, year and a half. i enjoyed it very much. >> host: does she have a political future? >> guest: i think that she does to the extent she wants to have a political future. i'm not sure that, you know, she is looking for running for elective office, you know, anytime soon. i don't have a lot of communication with her at all now, so it's certainly -- i don't have any inside information. but there's no question that there is a passionate group of people that listen to what she says, they like the manner in which she says it, and they temper it when she says it, and she's a maverick. people like mavericks. they like people that aren't cookie cutter and predictable. when it comes to political physicians and philosophy, she is a limited government conservative, but she also a i think, has a maverick streak that people like. >> host: obviously, you observed what happened in 2008. was she the right choice at the right time for the republican party? >> guest: i think she was a person that injected something very positive within that

ticket. i do think that she was not well prepared, and i think that probably goes to people that were assigned to help her and assist her in that process. my interaction with her was always that she was very responsive and that she was very much engaged. so when i wrote that speech on crony capitalism and corruption, she embraced it, she was fully engaged, and she wanted to be involved in it. now, when you're thrown into a presidential election, of course, in the feeding frenzy of the media it's something entirely different than what i experienced. but i do think if you are the mccain campaign and you are picking a running mate you better have people around them that are going to be crystal clear in, you know, who's doing the interview ises. there was, of course, the katie couric interview that was widely criticized. i think that that was a big mistake, and that was a mistake made by the aides that mccain had assigned to help her not made by the candidate herself. >> host: let's turn to lucinda joining us from desert hot springs, california. good afternoon.

>> caller: good afternoon. there was a couple of questions i had as far as if you had a magic wand, how would you gain access to hillary clinton's private server -- [laughter] as well as lois lerner's mystery e-mails? [laughter] >> guest: well, that's a great question. i wish i had that magic wand, but i don't. to me, the e-mails are profoundly troubling, and i think they should be profoundly troubling to anybody that is concerned about transparency in government. because think about this for a second. we have rules and regulations about government officials, of the e-mail. in this particular case, those were not only ignored, they were subverted because a private server was set up detached from that entire process. then when she leaves public service, rather than turning over those records and allowing state department officials to determine what are the private e-mails, what are the public

e-mails which is, frankly, the common practice i mean, it's not like they're going to release, you know, private e-mails about yoga lessons from hillary clinton. state department employees go through and catalog which ones are relevant to public service. well, hillary clinton decides i'm going to completely jettison that process, and i am going to delete from the public record and ostensibly erased from the server 30,000 some e-mails that we now know based on the sid blumenthal example included e-mails that were very relevant to the job that she was doing. if you take the minutes that richard nixon erased from the tapes and compare that to this, there's absolutely no comparison in my mind. and i'm somebody who's been very critical of richard nixon and his administration and the extortive practices and the corruption that took place. there was no comparison between deleting 30,000 e-mails and erasing a few minutes on tapes that richard nixon did in the

white house. and yet people that support hillary clinton will continue to talk about how terrible richard nixon was and laud how wonderful she is. it's mind boggling to me. >> host: his most recent book is "clinton cash," and coming in september an e-book on jeb bush. peter is next from louisiana for our guest, peter schweizer. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon, gentlemen. how are you all today? >> guest: good, peter, how are you? >> caller: fine, sir. first of all i've enjoyed a few of your books but most people don't understand that progressivism comes from german philosophy. people don't know that the main ideas that they follow come from -- [inaudible] or hagel. so my question to you, don't you think it's a good idea, maybe it'd be a good book for you, to understand the basic differences between german philosophy hagel, and progressivism and the

ideas that founded this country? coming from aristotle and from locke? thank you. >> guest: well, i think it's a very astute observation, and i think a great point by the caller. there have been some wonderful books out there written on these very important fundamental philosophical differences that i would encourage people to read. you know, one of them goes by a title that, you know, will shock a lot of people but i think if they actually took the time to read it, would be very surprised at the deep philosophical nature of it. that's a book by jonah goldberg called "liberal fascism" where he argues and looks at the embrace that progressives had earlier in the 20th century with many of the ideas of mussolini and others who were fascists. and this is, i think what's troubling about a lot of what we get with progressivism, which is it's top-down. it's this notion that we need to have a governing elite that knows far more than we know because we can't really take care of ourselves and that this

governing elite needs to make these decisions for us, and they need to basically engage in social engineering. they need to get us to do things we wouldn't ordinarily do because it's for our own good, and they need to create carrots and sticks to make sure that we do what they want us to do, and that's what their role is. i don't think that's what the role of government is. the role of government is to create an environment and an opportunity for us to flourish. not to create a regime of social engineering to steer us to a predetermined outcome that they want. and that's what i fear that we get with a lot of modern-day progressivism. and why i think it's so troubling. >> host: in your book on how politicians and their friends are getting rich off the american people, you say the following, quote: with dramatic events surrounding the 2008 financial crisis, beginning in 2009 the u.s. embarked on what you called the greatest reverse robin hood transfer of wealth in its history. tax money was taken from all

rich and poor and given to billionaires. >> guest: that's right. this was the bailouts of the banks in 2000. and one of the things i point out in the book that a lot of people don't realize is the 2008 bailout really when you look at goldman sachs and jpmorgan, there had really been four or five bailouts in the previous 20 years. and what had happened, it first happened in 1993 where the clinton administration, you had goldman sachs and other financial institutions had taken big bets on mexican government bonds. those bets went bad. the treasury department actually came in and bailed out goldman sachs. there was another one that occurred in 1998 with the east asian financial crisis, and there have been a series of others culminating in 2008 with the financial crisis. and here's my concern about all of this and about bailouts in general: goldman sachs and these financial entities never learned their lesson because they never paid the consequences for their

bad bets. so they're overleveraged in the 2008 financial crisis, they get bailed out, they get made whole they suffer no consequences. do we really want to believe that they will change their ways and not overleverage the next time? of course not. that's why we get these repeated patterns. so the bailouts of the banks in the 2008 was a massive transfer of wealth from americans across the board, and the chief beneficiaries were those that run the large wall street financial institutions. and by the way it's another reason as i said earlier in the interview, the notion that wall street and government are at loggerheads and are at each other's throats and are enemies is patently ridiculous. wall street wants a large active and intrusive federal government because that's the way they get the bailouts that they've gotten these so many times. >> host: let me just follow up on one other point from

"extortion." government bureaucrats can make things simple, but apart from dire emergencies they generally choose not to. complexity is a useful and lucrative method for the legal extortion of politicians. >> guest: yes, that's right. so many laws and regulations now it's impossible for us to decipher and the example i would give is go back and read glass-steagall, the big financial reform during the roosevelt administration in the '30s where they revamped the entire banking system. it was like 35, 36 pages long. then fast forward to dodd-frank in 2010. when you add all the rules and requirements, i mean, it's well north of 10,000 pages long. now, has the financial system become that much more complex since the 1930s? it's a little bit more complex but it's not that much more complex. i'm absolutely convinced that even when it comes to writing regulations, follow the money. and for -- if you are a bureaucrat or you're a

congressional staffer and you are writing rules and laws and regulations, there is no upside for you to write a simple and easy-to-understand law. but if you can write a law that has teeth that, in other words people will go to jail if they don't follow that it's complex and that it's really, really difficult to desigher and understand you've -- decipher and understand, you've now got a business model. and in the case of dodd-frank, you have that. one of the congressional staffers, and i think there are probably others, who was a principal author of that bill once dodd-frank became law, guess what they did? they left capitol hill and they got involve ised with a consulting firm to do what? to interpret this complex bill that nobody else could understand. that's, i think the problem that we have with rulemaking in the united states today. if you're at the epa and your job is to write regulations and you write them simple and straightforward, that's great for the country. but if you want to leave that

job and become a consultant to corporations, write those environmental laws very complex, very hard to understand. you can leave the epa, and as the author of those regulations you can write a ticket to make massive amounts of money from large corporations who are desperate to follow that bill and can't understand it. >> host: we'll go to mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. trish, thank you for waiting. what's your question? >> caller: well, it's really a couple of comments. i must say i admire your work. you do a great service to us because, unfortunately, we have become a country of dummies. not all of us, but a lot of us. and until we, the people, wake up and start reading unbiased books like this, this will continue. and to echo what you said about people that are rich don't really take away from us -- i was running sorry -- >> guest: that's all right. >> caller: you know, walmart getting richer doesn't take away from me. i only make minimum wage. that's my fault. i didn't get an education.

so walmart donald trump, the government, nobody owes me anything. i did or didn't do, so that is my fault. that is my problem. but we have become very jealous and very petty. a lot of it's what has been fed to to us through the media. so they've created this that we hate the rich and the nonsense like that. until people start valuing what they have not what they don't or what this one has, you -- bill gates being rich isn't going to hurt me. i don't care if he's rich. and he does wonderful things with his money. but the fact that he came up with such great ideas it benefits me and the rest of the world tremendously. so i don't understand why people don't realize this and keep harping on pettiness and jealousy, you know? so keep doing what you're doing because there are people you're getting to, and until we can wake people up, it's going to be more of the same. and by the way as long as the

immigration problem exists for the people who don't realize it the day all those illegal immigrants start voting republican, that wall will be built. it will spin your head. the democrats won't touch those people with a 20-foot pole. so thank you again for all you do for us. >> guest: thank you very much. i appreciate the call. >> host: quick question about the cover of "clinton cash." the photograph of bill and hillary clinton. where was that from? >> guest: you know i'm not sure. it's interesting the title of the book was a colleague of mine came up with "clinton cash," which is fabulous. and then the design the publisher, of course, does the jacket design. i am not an artistic person. anybody who knows me knows i'm not artistic. so when i saw the coffer, i really liked it -- the cover i really liked it. i thought they captures the essence of the book very well, and i was very pleased with it. >> host: barbara is next california. good afternoon. >> caller: well, good morning -- [laughter] >> host: well, almost afternoon in california.

[laughter] >> caller: that's all right. thank you so very much for taking my call. i have a policy question, two policy questions. focusing on makers and takers. >> guest: okay. >> caller: if you'll recall, there was a dispute between governor christie and senator rand paul. new jersey is a donor state, kentucky is a receiver state. right now there are more states electing to eliminate the state taxes. i have no problem with that. however, regarding policy should a receiver state -- let's go back to new jersey and kentucky -- taxpayers in new jersey, a donor state are funding residents of kentucky, a receiver state. that's based on policy. >> guest: uh-huh. >> caller: so if a state chooses

to eliminate their state tax -- once again, i don't have a problem with that -- should they continue to be a receiver state? and the ten poorest states in the united states are all receiver states. taxpayers from other states are funding them. and they have been the poorest states for decades. >> guest: yes. well, i think that the caller is looking at decisions that are made by certain states to eliminate or reduce state taxes and the fact that, i guess in the case of kentucky, she was saying that they are a net receiver of federal tax dollars. reducing the state tax rate is not going to really influence the amount of federal dollars that are flowing to the state. the two are not connected. what i would say though in principle is i agree with the

caller, this notion that certain states are winners or losers in the lottery in washington d.c. based on seniority of political officials, for example, is very, very troubling. and it's one of the reasons that i think one of the most overlooked solutions that we could have in the united states to a lot of the turmoil we have politically is to embrace federalism. the notion of allowing a lot more to be done at the state level than at the federal level. and i think if you look at a lot of the issues, you know, for example, obamacare very very divisive in our country. essentially, what we have in national politics today is people trying to get to 50% plus one, and then they want to implement this agenda and impose it on the entire country. and that leads to sort of the divisive winner-take-all mentality. and i think the better solution for example on an issue like health care is if the state of vermont, for example wants a single-payer health care system or if california wants something

akin to obamacare let them vote to have it. if texas wants to have its form of health care system allow them to have it. that way you don't get the sort of winner-takes-all, prison politics where we're fighting at a national level hand and tooth on every single issue. >> host: in one of your earliest books, "friendly spies," in light of all we know now spy on german chancellor merkel and more recent cases by the obama administration, chapter one of the book is called "a matter between friends," and you begin by quoting the deputy director of the u.s. national security agency who's since passed away. he basically says this quote: if you don't think you're being exploited by friends and enemies, buster, you're crazy. [laughter] >> guest: right. yeah, i think a little bit in germany when the political figures were saying that they are shocked and horrified that the cia or the nsa is spying on them, this is what goes on.

i mean, this is state craft. and you hope it doesn't get out of hand between countries, but it takes place regularly. and if the german -- [speaking german] the intelligence agency there were not spying on u.s. government official, they would not be doing their job. this is the nature of the way that the world works. and i think it's naive for us to assume that it doesn't take place. now, it can get out of happened, and you can create a -- out of hand, and you can create a circumstance where you create a lot of tension between allies. that certainly seems to have occurred between the german government and the obama administration in light of these recent revelations. but espionage is something that's going to take place it will continue to take place and i think we all want at least as it pertains to foreign espionage, i think we all want our spies to do a very good job because, frankly, wars have been prevented because of good intelligence, and certain wars have taken place because of bad

intelligence. >> host: when you write your books, is there a good time of the day for you? >> guest: it's a good question. i'm a procrastinator. if i can push off writing the book for weeks and weeks and weeks, i would. so i benefit, first of all from having contracts with publishers so i'm required to have a book done. and i have to start writing in the morning. if i do not get a good start in the morning i basically have to write the whole day off. so it's important for me to get a good start in the morning. that being said, i'm very envious of writers who are able to sit down and say it's 9:00, i need to bang out a couple of thousand words. i'm a little bit more of a slow start sort of guy. so i have to commit myself. if i start at 9:00 in the morning, i have to say i have to get 2,000 words done, and i'm not going anywhere until i get 2,000 words done and that could mean 5:30 in the afternoon some days. >> host: chapter by chapter. >> guest: chapter by chapter, exactly. >> host: let's go to lee rockville, maryland.

good afternoon to you. >> guest: yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. enjoying the show. >> guest: thank you. >> host: thank you. >> caller: i live in maryland, and right next to where i live is the commonwealth of virginia which is a gun-friendly state. and in the commonwealth of virginia, they are constantly advertising in the washington area about their gun shows. and i have a question for mr. schweizer. if someone who's wearing an arab head dress and viva bin laden bumper sticker viva bin laden t-shirt would go up to one of these gun shows this the commonwealth of virginia or anywhere else for that matter and ask to buy a dozen ak-47s do you think there should be some kind of a background check? >> guest: well, where i live in florida, and i am a gun owner when i buy at a gun show or i buy from an arms dealer i do undergo a criminal background

check, and i think that that's good, and it makes sense. there's also a restriction in florida as to if i'm buying a handgun, there is a two-day waiting period. i don't get immediate possession of the handgun. and, of course, there's a limit on how many firearms i can buy at the same time. so the scenario you're talking about where somebody would want to come and buy a dozen certainly would not be an experience that i would have in my gun purchasing. >> host: eddie is next from lehigh acres, florida. good afternoon. >> caller: yes. hello? >> host: go ahead, eddie. >> guest: hello. >> caller: yes. what i was wondering about, we were talking about hillary clinton and such, and what i'm looking at is that you can look at look at who's running their campaign john to podesta. he has a lobbying firm in washington, d.c., he and his

brother are lobbyists for walmart, air companies boeing one of them. at the same time he's running hillary clinton's campaign. now, if you look back a ways, hillary clinton used to be on the board of walmart. now, you were talking about ties between corporations and politicians. if you looked at who's surrounding these people and running the show, you talk about this person running or that perp running, there's -- that person running, there's other people making these calls. >> guest: well, i think there's no question that, you know people who are advising campaigns or policy advisers in campaigns or even large donors are going to go to canada. they're going to say this is something they favor, this is something they don't favor and those conversations take place all the time. i think the question becomes

you know, what decisions are they making and why are they making those decisions. and that's why we're big supporters of transparency. >> host: any difference between that example and dennis hastert who left the speakership and made a lot of money here in washington, d.c.? >> guest: yeah. i actually have information on dennis hastert in "throw them all out" involving when he was in congress. it's interesting, when you look at his net worth when he became speaker of the house in 1998 and when he left in 2006, it went up rather dramatically even though he was just the speaker of the house. and he engaged in something that i call the land deal. in this particular case, he bought rural land in illinois the state where he's from, and then nine, eight or nine months later he put an earmark into the federal transportation bill to build something called the prairie parkway. well any guesses to where that prairie parkway was going to run? it was going to run right by the property that he had purchased

before. he then a year later was able to sell it for substantially more than he had paid for it because of course now everybody knew that this federal highway was going to be running by it. so, yeah, this is a persistent problem. dennis hastert did this when he was speaker of the house became a lobbyist afterwards. obviously, there's this, you know, very bad situation we don't know all the details about involving this extortion and apparently something that he did when he was younger. and i think it goes to the heart of the theme of so much of my work which is the corruptive influence that power can have on the human soul and the abilities and decisions that people make when they're in those situations. >> host: we only have a minute or two left. ron from pittsburgh, pennsylvania, you get the final question. good afternoon ron. >> caller: yes. i wanted to ask peter schweizer about daryl darrell issa. he convened numerous investigative committees on wrongdoing and i wanted to --

haven't heard from him for like a year. and you think with hillary clinton and what they're all doing that he would be doing something about that, but nothing, i've heard nothing. >> host: well, he no longer chairs the committee that oversaw the investigation, but you might want to follow up. >> guest: no, i think that's exactly right. he was a very aggressive head of the oversight committee which is i think is what you want if you believe in the balance of powers in our government. you want congressional committees that are actively looking at corruption. darrell issa's no longer chairman of that committee. the new chairman of the committee from utah seems to be off to a pretty good start and i think he's fulfilling that role well. so i anticipate that you will see, you know, responsible and reasonable investigation, and i think nobody should be opposed to it particularly if it's, you know, trying to root out these kinds of issues. >> host: two final points. do you consider yourself an equal opportunity critic democrats and republicans? >> guest: yes. i'm politically conservative,

but i don't confuse conservative with republican. i, basically am distrustful of government power and of established government power. and so yes i'd go after both parties, but i am a limited government conservative. >> host: when you're not writing books, what else do you do? >> guest: i enjoy shooting at the gun range, i enjoy spending time with my family, i enjoy travel, and i enjoy, you know the great friendships that i have. and we also do other journalistic as well other journalism as well in addition to books. i write articles and i do television as well. >> host: beyond the jeb bush book which is coming out in september, we'd love to have you back to talk about it -- >> guest: sure. >> host: -- what are your next projects? >> guest: we are looking at the flow of american money into american politics, this would be a system-wide analysis as it looks to congress, presidential races, etc. the laws are very, very clear we're not to have foreign nationals or foreign governments giving to political campaigns. there are various ways in which some entities have found man

evens around that -- means around that, and we want to explore that and expose that. and again as other investigations have this the past, it will probably lead to blowback with both political parties. >> host: it has been a very fast three hours with peter schweizer. thank you for joining us here on tv. >> guest: it's wonderful to be