>> that's a look at some of this year's notable books according to national public radio. book tv has covered many of these authors, you can watch the full program on our website, booktv.org. >> c-span: where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >>

>> we still question the power of our democracy. tonight is your answer. [cheers and applause] >> it's the answer told by lines that stretch run schools and churches, in numbers this nation has never seen. people who waited three hours, four hours. many for the first time in their lives. because they believe that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. it's spoken by young and old, rich and poor, democrat and republican, black, white, hispanic, asian, native american, gay, straight, disabled, disabled and not disabled. [applause] america to set a message to the world that we have never been

just a collection of individual or a collection of red states and blue states. we are and always will be the united states of america. [cheers and applause] >> this scene ager features a to month ago, november fourth, 2008 at center barack obama declared his victory and makes history as america's first african-american president. an estimated 250,000 people gathering estimated 250,000 people gathering at chicago's grant park and an unusually mild night market will be the start of eight years in the white house. as the 44th president prepares to leave on january 20, historians are beginning to assess the obama legacy. for the next three hours on c-span2's tranfour, three leading authors adding their perspectives to his two terms in the white house. we're joined at the table with april ryan come her book "the presidency in black and white: my up-close view of three presidents and race in america." any cloud, the author of

"democracy in black: how race still enslaves the american soul." and to david maraniss, "barack obama: the story." thank you for being with us your booktv. david maraniss, if you were to write the first paragraph today of the obama presidency, what we did include? >> guest: first of all, what a sensation to listen to that election night by then president obama for the first time, and think about the promise and what's happened since. i think the only things you can say for certain of what that paragraph would include, that he was the first black president, that he took office at a time when the country was in a deep recession and into wars, and lasted for eight years. everything after that is up for grabs. i would've said until this election would have included his extending health care to

millions of americans, but that like many other parts of his program are now uncertain because of what's happened in this last election. it depends on who write the history, and it depends on when that history is written. if we look at it from 50 years from now it might be quite different. it might be that he was the first of many african-americans, women, who became president from then on. and so that takes on even more important than it does this point when we're looking at it from a political perspective. >> host: let's take a step further based on your book "barack obama" which came out at the start of his presidency. you wrote the following appeared you said he came out of an uncommon family, brilliantly scattered and broken although the parts could never be fitted neatly together. how did he figured it out? how did he create a life that made it possible for his own political rise? >> guest: he spent years trying to figure it out. it was there.

from when he left hawaii, coming from the first of place possible to rise to power, and started in college at occipital and in colombia and then getting to chicago, finally sort of finding home. during that entire period he was essentially introspective, trying to do with the contradictions that life through his way coming from a broken family, mixed-race background. so many things he had to try to resolve. and i think he spent those eight years from the time it they got, he left the harvard law school, pretty seriously introspectively trying to figure it out, which he did for better or for worse, unlike most of human beings i would call him a quote-unquote integrated personality and that gave him the self-confidence, and not a need for people that is so, it's common among

politicians. the lack need for other human affirmation is not. the self-confidence help to get into the presidency. the lack of the need for transactional politics at various times got him in trouble. but but i would give it, it wasn internal effort entirely for him figure out how to get to where he wanted to go. >> host: your book talks about his father. you travel to kenya and in 2010. what did you learn about him, his father and the relationship and how that may or may not have affected his own thinking and his own career? >> guest: well you know, the title of his memoir "dreams from my father" really sets it off in an asterisk direction because he did know his father at all passionate interesting direction. he was much more shaped by his mother. his father shaken only from a boyfriend figured that part of himself out. his father was brilliant.

his father innocent supervision but had a very deep resonant voice as to barack obama. i would never underestimate that sort of genetic inheritance in terms of obama his appeal. his father was an alcoholic. his father was a man who at aspects of success but then failed in the in and died a a young, at a very early age, and i think that barack obama spent that. i'm talking about and then later when he worked -- went to kenya to try to find out more about his father, dealing with what it meant who he was here to his father was part of that. any traditional sense barack obama cannot be called an african-american. he's african and american, so different. he never had, going up in hawaii he didn't have many black friends.

it was a very multicultural place, but without many african-americans except on the military base. so he really had to learn that from secondhand from studying about african-american history, and then trying that search to find his father. >> host: april ryan can let me turn to you and talk about the issue of race and what you wrote about in your book, how would you answer the first question. beyond the issue of race, his legacy these past eight years? >> guest: on the issue of race, i think you cannot take race away from the first black president of the united states of america. we talk about a society before barack obama became president, a postracial society. in these days, the days before transition of power we are now going to see post-obama. we don't have a postracial america. i believe that all became clear once this man became president

of the united states. his ascendancy to the highest office in the land put a spotlight on all the ills in this nation when it comes to african-americans for the better and for the worst. and i also believe that the visual of him being there, at first i didn't think that was a big deal bu but i do believe ita big deal because that visual just what african-american afrii thought about this more so at the democratic convention when we saw just before hillary clinton came out on the stage and we saw the picture of every president, every white male president, and then you stop number 44, barack obama. that visual was impacting and then you see the gems of hillary clinton breaking the glass ceiling. but to stop there, changes the dynamic in a lot of ways because the things people believe, the conjecture about african-americans, you are now seeing in the forefront, sin seg on videotape. it's not miss conjecture anymore. they have the highest numbers of

negatives in a most every categories. people talked about before but when you have a black man from a kenyan dad and a white mom from america, he still african-american without abstaining slaver. but when you have a black men which the highest level of the land and you still have the ills within the community that is still saying something. so i believe we're not a post-racial america. what we will see january 20, and post obama era. >> host: in your pocke book youk this question to president obama. what was your greatest disappointment on race during your administration? i'm going to ask you that same question. what was his greatest disappointment from your standpoint? >> guest: i believe one of the big disappointments for some of the critics, he had to really undergo a change in who he was. the first-term particularly. barack obama he is i believe and

the call and response. sometimes, the president, the preacher in chief. he knows how to rally the crowd and he can get people to listen. but the problem is, this is when he was an organizer. when he came in, he had to be this person who was totally different from who he was in the chicago streets. the person who he had grown to be, when he married michelle obama and had those kids. he became barack obama who happened to be black but second term, you say totally different metrimythic recement whose coune in his skin and who he is. we see the true barack obama. he's not ashamed to talk about e issues of race. i believe that he wanted to push the ball forward more so when he talked about what everyone. there was an undercurrent there that really was an effort to lift up the underserved. he didn't get a chance to do everything you wanted you on that piece.

issues of criminal justice, and i'm sure he is concerned about the matter and can control, a big issue. that is one of his big pieces he didn't have. i'm sure his very concerned about the issue of policing and how it looks after he is out of the oval office because there is a concern now, now that we see the visuals, whether you be suppressed quirks with biggest be suppressed with a new administration? how to handle in the justice department? those are concerned and also of course with issues of education come with issues of income inequality. you can only give us so much in eight years after hundreds of years of disparity. >> host: six months into the obama presidency he asked the president this. let's watch. >> i've got time for two more questions. april. where is april? >> right here. how are you doing? back on the economy. mr. president, people are criticizing this recovery plan,, specifically there are reports

in the "washington post" that say that the african-american unemployment rate will go to 20% by the end of this year. and then you've had your chairman of economic advisers say the target intervention may come next year if nothing changes. why not target intervention now to stop the bloodletting for the lack of him unemployment rate? >> first of all, we know that when the african-american unemployment rate, the latino unemployment rate are consistently higher than the national average, and so if the economy as a whole is doing poorly, then you know that the african-american community is going to be doing poorly and they will be hit even harder. and the best thing that i can do for the african-american community or the latino community or the asian community, is to get the economy as a whole moving. hold on one second. let me answer the question if i

don't do that, then i'm not going to be able to help anyone. >> host: how did he do a just later? >> guest: that's left for historians. typically it's tenuous after a president leaves you are supposed to gauging the but his numbers have gone down, but not far enough. mainstream america leasing unemployment rates between five and six percent, or even less. the african-american community is still well above that, double the national average. but again going back to this piece, historically from the time africans were brought to this country there has been a problem economically for african-americans. the descendents of those africans. in eight years do you believe that we can correct something that's been going on all the time? and i'm not saying that he gets a pass, but there needs to be something put in place to change the dynamics of what has been happening historically. >> host: professor glaude who

teaches at princeton university, "democracy in black: how race still enslaves the american soul." what are you hearing so far? >> guest: well i mean, we know that it's going to take time to assess the significance and substance of obama presidency. we know what's following. we know the country is deeply divided. and i think part of what we have to do is to kind of take a cold detached and objective look at the substance, as far as we know, of his time in the white house. what we do know is that unemployment i think right now is about four point 6% speared the national average among african-americans. it's about eight point 1%. a doubling. it's an indictment of his approach. because even if he gets the country going, even if you lift all boats, if you don't address eponymous structural realities

that you need to, that divided everyone has proved you will still have double-digit unemployment, the doubling at employment numbers. i think overall there's a sense in which from my vantage point we will have two assess the implications for the obamacare. we'll have to think about a race to the top in terms of his policy about education. we will have to think about criminal justice, what does it mean for him to at least begin the process of dismantling this state, or ask the question if he actually has done that. we have to ask questions around immigration reform. what does it mean for president obama to been labeled that reporter in chief. we're going to ask questions when his foreign-policy. he came in with two wars. we now have five front. iraq, afghanistan, libya, syria, yemen. we will have to ask series questions about his drug

policies which was a policy fascination. we have to ask serious questions even as we concede, right, the significance significance of his presidency. i would like to say this. i think perhaps we will be grappling with. i think this'll be interesting, but perhaps barack obama represents the end of platonism. that the rain of the democratic leadership committee, after defining the ideology of the democratic party. when we begin to unpack what we mean in a postal -- post-obama era. perhaps a meet this is aspirational, or whistle or whistle on my part, we will be marking the end of that particular generation what the democratic party is. >> host: let me call from your book which by the weights up for naacp award, so congratulations to that. you conclude by saying quote no more dancing, no one can be uncomfortable. together we must uproot racial habits by doing democracy. i want to ask you what you mean

by that. if we fail this time time, thisd experiment in democracy will be no more. explain those words. >> guest: so part of what happened, we are always kind of navigating at least this is the political calculus. there's an assumption that there's racial animus, evidence in the american politics pics of the extent to which we imagine politics to address persistent racial inequality, we are always thinking about activating, triggering that. so before we even imagine what actual racial equality will look like, we are worried about what is politically possible. whether we triggered this, that, or the other. and the question or that concern limits what we can imagine is possible in terms of actually addressing racial into colder. swing dance the dance. we want to talk about race but we can't talk about expo salute. we want to address black suffering but we can't talk but about explicitly because we are afraid were going to trigger

white fears. if obama even just trips up and says the conflict is stupid in arresting harridan -- henry louis gates, the chair of the hudson institute at opera company trips up and says that, then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. so we have to dance what if we say if obama says trayvon martin could have been me, so he is trading in the race card. and then even when obama held a town hall meetings with police officers after what happened in new orleans with alton sterling and what happened in minnesota with philando castile, he has to then become the interpreter in chief, the border in chief, the interpreter in chief. just explained to white america that what's happened in black america is actually real. most black americans know it's real because we experience it so he's not talking to us at the moment. there's this dance dance, this e so that we can't make white folks feel uncomfortable.

to the extent that's true, we can't really, we will never really fundamentally address racial divide. >> guest: despite that, what you'd call dance, the white resentment is offered anyway. >> anytime you talk about anything, people are afraid and when they money -- they feel like if someone is trying to step over into their territory, they are going to have a problem and that's what we're seeing. i want to go back to appoint you said. when you deconstruct the issues of black unemployment, and i believe barack obama really tried when went to aca. ac is not just that giving up and healthcare. it's about wellness to work in a job. also when you look at black unemployment, you have to look at education. many people live in urban america where their taxes, their property taxes are less than the rich are part of their community. and that education is based on the property tax. then you hav you of issues thati believe it's building blocks and

believe he is trying to attack this. but he can can you do that in eight years? nono, you cannot after hundredsf years of a problem. spirit we do know aca has 29 americans, 20,000,000 plus but but we know those were the working poor are having a difficult time, a hell of a time meeting premiums. deductibles are high and window -- would have been a better benefit for the majority of the most vulnerable. spirit by to ask that question, to print actually trying to do it. it's a problem. going back to the end of the clinton era, everything was based on pragmatism and defensiveness after losing to republicans for so long. >> than you think about education i think about race to the topic of race to the top and some was doubled up on bush economics, double down on george w. bush is education policy.

so much so that he had to in some ways backtrack. excessive weight on assessment, overburdened teachers, interrupt the actual teaching experience. what you saw with race to the topic pullback but they only pulled back to the no child left behind. the only thing i'm saying is that this can not try to design that president obama hasn't been good over his eight years, but i think part of what we're going to have to do in the post obama era as my mom would say, as we look at the back of his head -- >> oh, my goodness. >> we have to take a hard look at his policies and would like to say what were the ideas, animating the way in which he governed, how might those policies have sent a pathway to benefit the most vulnerable in our society. and we will accept the pattern -- >> when education, the numbers of those graduating are higher and you are having less issues

with the drop out there and also on of criminal justice. i have been dashed but i remember we're on a show before he talked about issues with your son. i've been profile. my father, my brother. and now we have this piece with the knee-jerk reaction to present it at the first press conference in each room talk about henry louis gates. that was after the win for the ages, criminal justice. in the trayvon martin, and then when you had the issue of accountability, that was amazing. because now we're saying people are bold enough to take these videos. some things are not necessarily the way, going the way we would like them, but there's still the accountability piece. without that now, if that were to go away, where are we? if they start suppressing, if the justice department says i don't want to deal with that, let's go by what the police say, communities, the black community

is all for supporting great policing but weeding out the bad policing. that is one part i can say wholeheartedly for the barack obama administration, that reaction led to this accountability where you have white people buying in to criminal justice reform and buying into yes yes, it's not ms and conjecture anymore. >> like lies matters matters. there's a mass movement for criminal justice at the forefront that pushing it. the first administration, one thing, the organizing that happened around the death of mike brown in ferguson, the murder of eric garner, we can go down the line, jones, down the line and we can begin to talk him and the mass mobilization of everyday ordinary folks in the street pushed this administration spirit they need to learn to leverage spirit i think barack obama the organized

would agree completely that he needs to be pushed. he would agree needs be pushed by professor glaude on all these issues. but you have to acknowledge that it's counterfactual that you don't know what would've happened if you tried to get universal health care in the first term. what he had been defeated? did he get this to open the way so that even donald trump and republican congress cannot fully rescind the entire package and from now and more people would be covered? all of those are open to debate, but when people like you are necessary, i mean, from either side to push to do more and to be the best they can be a spec david maraniss, the author of current income associate editor at the "washington post." his work also includes first in his class, a biography of bill clinton. once in a great city, a detroit story and heading down to that of the where you will be teaching for the next couple of months. >> guest: i do it every other

year for one semester. i teach a course on political biography at this time of teaching on the mccarthy era, which that's my next book and i started it before that with the echoes that we now sort of here. >> host: and eddie glaude, author of tranthirteen, teaching african-american studies and religion at princeton university and april ryan for the last two decades, white escrow spun for american urban radio and author of your new book at mamas and knees. we will talk about that in a moment. our phone lines open. (202)748-8201 for those of you out west follow us on twitter at a booktv. on facebook at facebook .com/ a booktv and you can also e-mail us, booktv at c-span.org. david maraniss, a political question. when you look at the reagan legacy mini pointed party

election of george herbert walker bush in 1980 as part of that legacy. how did the defeat of hillary clinton affect the people will view the obama legacy? >> guest: i think it will have a large effect on it. i think that first of all that's what barack obama was so important hillary get elected because the policies, policies, particularly healthcare but in every possible way i think when you talk about education or policing or the clintons in the early era did not have a good record on some of those issues, hillary had changed enough that i think she would've extended his policies, and in some places perhaps including immigration push them even further. so in the short market depends of course on whether president trump is president for four years or eight years and what happens after that, but i think that solidifying what obama

accomplished is very important that hillary get elected. >> host: let's talk about guns. he said what of the darkest days of his tenure in the white house, the shooting that took place at sandy hook elementary school. then there was this moment at the mother e immanuel church in charleston, south carolina, following the shooting in 2015. here's president obama. >> amazing grace. amazing grace. theamazing grace ♪ [applause] ♪ how sweet the sound

♪ that saved a wretch like me ♪ i once was lost ♪ but now i am found ♪ was blind but now i see ♪ >> host: from june 2015, your thoughts? >> guest: that was an important moment, an important moment for the country. it was an important moment for his presidency i believe.

but for me as a scholar of african-american religion i stood in a critical relation to it. i thought the speech or the eulogy was a bit confused. what does grace had to do with what we're doing? race is extended irrespective of our choices and actions. and second, in that moment, that moment of going to amazing grace, a former slave who is repenting slaving, what does have have to do with those people in the conference? part of what i was thinking at the moment is it actually real the distance going to your word, david. the distance between him and his african-american tradition that goes back to slavery because in that moment most preachers would've reached for precious lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. i'm tired, i'm worn, i'm weary. so part of what i was seeing in that moment was an attempt to stand in a tradition, right, at

a tradition, it the way when he was genuinely trying to console. but what was revealed in the moment, at least for me as a scholar of african-american religion, was a distance. >> host: david maraniss, did this just happened? once this plant and advance? advanced? what's the back story? >> guest: he had thought about on the way down there, and talked to some of his staff and his wife about it. most said don't do it. some didn't say anything, so it wasn't just spontaneous, but it was the decision he made at the moment to do it. as someone who is not a religious scholar i was incredibly moved by it, and i think a lot of people were. i totally understand your intellectual and even racial context of choosing precious lord instead. but it had, i thought it had a very powerful effect, and was

one of them in my opinion, one of of the most moving moments of his presidency. >> i was in london on the book tour promoting my book. i made it a point to be in my room to watch that. and it was amazing to me. on going back to what david said, yes, he told his staff that it was impromptu. he would make the decision once there. i'm not a scholar, a biblical scholar, but i am -- but i am a member of the black church and have been. i know many people who are on that day is to include bishop, i can sitting right next to him. they welcomed it. that day was a moment of momentous praise and also a coming together, i'd unify for this country after seeing a racist go into that church out watch and pray. that's where grace comes in. gods grace is efficient.

after this we can still come together. so that's what grace comes in. he also worked with josh dubois, his former head of his -- faith-based initiatives. they worked on it by president obama really penned that. it was assumed except for text but it was about grace. that's the only thing, he could've opened the doors to the church really, but that moment was impactful because look at the lead up to that friday when it happened. you had reince priebus and head of governor south carolina talk about taking down confederate flag after years of people wanting that thing that was racist. after dyla dealing with them whe did. president obama that money talked about the n-word in the garage of this guy who is a great twitter following because

he wanted to show that this nation still is hypersensitive when it comes to -- that was a ability that day. i was very moving and spiritual base not just for president obama is something that really changed his legacy to a certain extent, but it was also a unification for us because we are a people who believe in a higher being and that was a moment for all of us to come together. for someone, a racist to go into a black church, a historic black church and watch the break about the love of god and then shoot them down and then let one stay so you can say what -- something is wrong. >> host: david maraniss, you wrote a great book about detroit and as you look back not only at barack obama stages in the white house but really the last 15-25 years america's inner cities and some the problems, detroit really epitomized, what is his legacy and what are the challenges facing the new president donald trump who really campaigned on making america great again, hoping cities like detroit?

>> guest: if he just took a narrow range of detroit, obama, one step he took was entrance of the auto industry and panicked out that industry, a key moment which had a larger ramification in terms of when detroit was facing bankruptcy, he did not come in and save the city. that was a political choice. he did do some things behind the scenes of most people don't know about. he sent an entire staff from the treasury department to work just in detroit. he located them there and you spent a lot of time dealing with detroit's light, the trouble with housing and other issues -- blight pick it was sort of underneath the radar but i think the larger thread is that ever since lyndon johnson's great society, america politically has turned away from its inner cities. and that's been something that's been going on now for more than 40 years. and so in this campaigned you

didn't have much at all about the problems of the cities of america, of urban issues. and i think that barack obama in some ways, in terms of, like his answer to april sort of explained it. he was saying we have to do with everything, the cities as well, or the struggling black population. but i don't think that he did the direct action that might have more effect. >> host: of course there is flipped michigan which is an economic issue issue, a race is, and infrastructure issue. >> a moral issue. and he drank the water. the symbolism of singing amazing grace, the symbolism of saying trayvon martin could've been me, all of that has to be measured against the actual consequence of the policies that follow from. barack obama grab a glass of water and drink it. and the water is still potent

today. it still painted today. and he bears responsibility for that symbolic act. he shouldn't have drank the water. it's not healthy to drink. >> no, no, no. >> for the children in flint today -- >> no, no, no. [talking over each other] it's a small piece of a bigger issue. it was a spontaneous act because those people are there and he said he stood by them. i'm not trying to justify what he did what he said i'm with you. they put a glass of water, if you would not of taken the water, what would it said two people watching that day? >> and what it said the water is not safe. it's not safe for me, it's not safe with his children. it's not safe for these children who now have elevated lead poison. >> he hugged to someone with ebola. >> if these children to drink it, i'll drink it too.

an interesting argument you raise. >> it is. >> look, i just want to be very, very clear. i'm not trying to just simply everything president obama has been and will do is bet. the part of what i wanted is move out of this kind of understanding of barack obama as this kind of symbolically significant figure who dump that in and of itself represents an achievement that blocks the way to a critical -- spirit but he was acting as president of united states spit if you talk to mike moore and folks on the ground in flint they found the act of drinking water, not just an act of solidarity but an act to limit undermining the effort. that's the first thing. i'm just saying, if you talk to folks on the ground in transeven, organizes, talk to organize on the great about from justice, even though you get some of the stuff, talk to

organizes on the ground. there's an much more critical orientation to barack obama spirit but it's not as complex as you're making it up it was not as design plan for him to but what is different to drink the water was to he did know the water was going to be there and he drank the water. that's all there was to it and he, that, i know you don't think it's true but ask a lot and you know, i will get to the bottom of it but the water wasn't there. what if he did that drink the water gauge is a drank it in solidarity as president of united states spirit what if he didn't drink it? >> guest:it's not safe for me, s not safe for this baby. i'm going to bring in the army corps of engineers and -- spirit those kids drinking the water, their brains are having -- you have lead going into a brain, this can be a lost generation. others -- [talking over each other] spirit let's --

>> host: (202) 748-8200 for those in east and central time zones and (202) 748-8201 for those of you in the mountain and specific time zones. three hours. three authors, cleveland, ohio. thank you for being patient. go ahead, please. call back a few comments if i may. >> host: certainly. >> caller: i like mr. obama was very thoughtful reflective approach to most things, and i consider that he had a very good demeanor, a very nice temper, and i admire that. two things i didn't admire was when that representative joe wilson called out to him, you

lie, at the congress meeting when the president was talking about the healthcare matter. the other thing i didn't like was when the gop leader, senator mcconnell, said that his top goal was to make mr. obama a one-term president. >> host: thank you for the question. >> guest: i agree with the caller that obama does have a good disposition and demeanor and he's an intelligent man, a rational thinker and is, often in an irrational world. i was a quite clear he was trying whether the caller was trying to say prez obama should have responded more harshly to those two actions, in terms of being called a liar and a state of the address. you don't want to get into a shouting match in there. i think president obama is, a

larger thing is he is a very cool individual and there are a lot of times when he appears either sort of behind -- never quite at it. he's either hea ahead of it or behind it. people are frustrated by that. he doesn't always react immediately to what's going on. from my perspective he's trying to look at where the traps are ahead of him mostly. that's the way his mind works. >> host: drink that state of union address when joe wilson wagged his finger and said you liked the topic of a moment was that for him as president? >> guest: i think it represented the entire effort of a major political party, the republican party to completely delegitimize a president of united states. i think from mitch mcconnell statement from that and onward it was an eight year effort to delegitimize this effort.

>> host: a tweet from edward who says 6 69 statehouses and 99 now headed by the gop am adding progressives are not progressive enough. >> guest: i've always said republicans go for the jugular, and we saw what happened this election. i mean you know, not progressive enough i guess. i don't know. you say not progressive enough, i'm looking at how they react and also get at the issue of politics. when it comes to politics i believe bernie sanders tried to help get hillary to be more progressive after they had the fight to forget who was going to be the head of the ticket. he actually brought her a litte bit more to the left, but it wasn't good enough. when it comes to fighting and fighting against the gop, hillary clinton wanted to take the high road, i guess. vice president obama did, along with the house situation and

they always look to others to fight their battles. i said this the other day, the president is the moon, and the moon doesn't bark at the dog. you let other people fight your battles and he has to be presidential in those moments and remain presidential spirit part of what we had to do and assessing president obama the legacy with regards to the democratic party is look at what is happened down ballot. look at what is happened in terms of states competence of gubernatorial houses, state legislators. your newspaper is reporting on this. an op-ed a couple years ago talking about what was happening downstream. why didn't president obama replace that it was mentioned earlier? what would happen when they wouldn't hand over the e-mail list? what would that mean downstream for the democratic party. what we've seen is over a thousand seats have been lost over this period of leadership vacuum where the leadership is

seven and above. and so the idea, for me i would say this if you have a choice between republican of people act like a republican, oftentimes you choose a republican. so the dlc, the strategy of the democratic party to trying to make itself into this court has resulted in i think the email el that suggested that more progressive agenda, that actually reflected what every organ in every americans and think and hold, then perhaps we could break through. >> host: let's go to norfork virginia. mark, you're next. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes,. >> caller: yes, good afternoon. enjoying this edit think professor glaude is 100% on point. especially about the michigan water. i can't believe that your other two panelists can't see what he is saying. is that if you go to michigan and he's got more into on the

situation and anyone else watching the tv or who was president at that press conference, it wasn't to go to try to capitulate to say look, i'm drinking the water, so you should drink it. the fact of the matter is that the water was insufficient for any human consumption. and so his visit really should've been about what i'm going to do specifically in a very emergency type fashion to make sure that the water is corrected, not only in transeven, but across the nation. and so i agree with professor glaude. edit think if we continue to try to play nice with racist that a being honest, will be just on a treadmill. >> host: mark, thank you. >> guest: there's a distinction between a symbolic act of drinking the water and what professor glaude said he should've said instead. i think i sort of agree with you he should have said that.

i think that, i've always tried to explain it politically that it think he thought if he didn't drink the water it would be viewed in the same symbolic way as president george h w bush not knowing what the price of milk was. that sort of thing, that's all. but the statement of what he should've said i think with all the great. >> you have to remember they are pouring millions of dollars to fix, millions of dollars, congressional members are upset. democrats are screening. they want more money to go into places like flint and working on the problem and remembering going back and thin thank you fe question, going back to the glass water. those glasses that were there that day, the water was filtered. it doesn't excuse the problem but again that was symbolism but the issue is fixing the problem. the gridlock in washington, the gridlock in the state of michigan, the gridlock is the problem and the needs to be help

right now for all those people speak symbols cannot obscure the actual -- >> i am with you on that but i i don't want to even belabor the point of the water. let's talk about the action. >> host: you already about race and this president. the book to marcus simplot, explain the premise behind this book and why you wrote it. >> guest: i wrote it trying to account for this moment when we're talking about as coming out of this economic recession of 2008 when i looked around my community. i saw devastation. what did me for people to say that we had turned an economic corner when lack folk around the country were still struggling with unemployment comes to struggle with the fact that losing jones and entered a brutal rental market? on a regular basis engaging this ritual of their and their children who had been killed at the hands of police. i wanted to think about this and so i offered an account, and account the weight beyond just simply kind of racial kumbaya moment but begin to think about

something a part of the country. we talked about the empathy gap, the wealth gap, each even get. what i argue in the book is there something much more fundamental in the training and that's the value gap. society is orders of leaf white people matter more. >> host: april ryan, "the presidency in black and white" and now your new book, the premise behind these two books? >> guest: women are now increasing the head of household, the sole provider. the typical issue in the blackcomb would be the talk from a father to son. now it is being transposed into the mother giving a talk to the children. it's a necessary issue right now from others and it's not just a book from black mothers. it's a book that i talk to many people to include the mother of eric gardner, sabrina fulton, also president barack obama talk to me about his mother and how his mother talked to him about

race. president carter, hillary clinton, so we people many people and aisles of valerie jarrett, talking about first lady michelle obama and just how black women are very important that we are lost in society almost invisible, and how they have gone for walks. you have the first late hates to be in the bubble and she will walk out on the bubble and just go for walks and no one recognizes is a beautiful, tall, statuesque women. she's invisible. and you cannot ignore someone who looks like that. no baseball cap, no makeup but she's invisible. this book goes into the heart of the matter what comes to women in the household and mothers. and what mothers influence and how they tell their children about race. >> host: david maraniss, congratulations on the pulitzer. the premise behind the biography, the early years and a childhood years and the genealogy of barack obama.

>> guest: there were two things i wanted to do in this book and first one was to explore the world that created barack obama. unlike any president in american history he is a creation of the world. so all of those forces, not just from kenya and kansas, but his years in indonesia, probably the most colorful moment in my reporting was when i stood in jakarta and the little neighborhood where barry obama lived when he was six years old, not knowing the language, going to the public school, fighting with the kids of their who thought he might of been from a distant island of indonesia. you know, listening to all the sounds and smells of that place and realizing that this little boy became president of united states. that was an overwhelming moment for me. so that's the first part of the book is this incredible that created him.

and the second part is how he created himself. how we found himself it of course his memoir is about that to some degree. there's a difference between memoir and biography. what is literature and won his attempt at real history. the real story is somewhat different from his story but he was riding it from one perspective of trying to understand himself through the lens of race, which is of course a central part of the story but not the entire story. so those are the two things. the world that created him and how he created himself. >> host: let's go to gym in king george, virginia. welcome to booktv and "in depth." >> caller: well, thanks. >> host: are you with us? try one more time for jim. we might've lost the call. let me go back to when you wrote entering transfer my father because he talked about being a community organizer. in chapter seven he said that change will not come from the top. change will come from a mobilize grassroots.

that really wasn't the premise oof his campaign to defeat hillary clinton, which many people now forget how significant that was because she was at the front runner leading and the 2008 campaign. >> guest: there's a certain contradiction certain contradiction in that statement involving barack obama. after those years as a kindred organizer he came to conclusion that he needed to get to the top to create the change. that is oh so much he could if pushing himself on the southside chicago. he's always us at that connotation as part of his political nature. whether it's defined negatively and ladin leading from you whici think a misnomer. i really came out of his organizing a yes as you said, you have to have the movement push you, but he went to harvard law school with the understanding that for him to really affect the change he had to get somewhere larger than being an organizer. >> host: is an exit from "dreams from my father" come in the audio release from november of 2004, barack obama began to

think about his own campaign in 2008 and released his best-selling book for years earlier. >> it's very clear to me that there's a direct line between the subject matter that's contained in "dreams from my father" and the type of politics that i aspire to. because essentially what this story is about is a boy born to a father from kenya and a mother from kansas in hawaii with an unusual name, who travel to indonesia, came back, found himself in chicago working in some of the lowest income neighborhoods in the country, and then traveled back to africa. africa. and somehow was able to weave together a workable meaning for his life as an african-american,

as an american, and as somebody who is part of the broader human family. and that was not an easy task. it wasn't an easy task, not because i did not not have some enormous love my family, i did. it wasn't because i didn't have people helping me every step of the way. i had that help. but it was because i found myself born astride a nation and the world that is so often divided, divided along lines of race, divided along lines of class, divided along the lines of religion. and so we have this enormous tragic history that all of us confront, from whatever our backgrounds are. whether we are white, black, hispanic, asian. , asian. whether we are muslim, mac or christian the notion that, in

fact, in the words of a great writer who happen to win a nobel prize, william faulkner, he said the past is never dead and buried. it isn't even passed. >> host: barack obama talking about his book. again comes in november of 2004. yet just. he had just been elected to the u.s. senate. four years later it would become our 44th president. >> guest: and he also delivered the speech at the democratic national convention that same year which really propelled into the national light. when i was researching the book i found some letters that barack obama wrote at a much earlier age which are taken at the same thing. in a somewhat more poignant way where he talked about about, hea columbia and is talking about looking at all of the different people that he knew in his life, whether there were white kids he knew at occidental or african-americans at columbia,

his friends from pakistan and singapore. he said they all knew, they all had a specific sort of channel for the life, and he knew exactly where they were going to go and what they thought. they were secure in that knowledge. for him to just accept himself, to try to embrace it all come at the notion of trying to embrace the doll is really what defined president obama, what defined barack obama as a candidate, but we define him forever, for better or whether they succeed or edit or failed at it. >> host: david frum denver, you are next. go ahead, please. >> caller: good morning. really enjoying this and so happy to have a chance to participate in this and david maraniss, i read your book on the summer olympics in 1960 at

rome. is also one of the first audiobooks i listened to. so i want to piggyback on the first caller who, one of the points he made was the republican resistance. and i don't know if commentators or historians are emphasizing the fact that for eight years the republicans refuse to help president obama govern. and the political skills president obama have to demonstrate in order to get elected again in 2012, despite the fact that the republicans had refused to cooperate on the legislative agenda. and i think we are seeing the results of that went a trump could come and say your government doesn't work for you, when the republicans were to

blame for that obstruction. and i just don't know if i'm hearing in your comments the effect that played on president obama is ability to govern, and yet the political skills and to demonstrate in order to last eight years. >> guest: that's a great point. you have to acknowledge the obstructionism of the republican party. i think it's important to think about what president obama could've done in the face of it. so 2010, the democratic party gets, the floor was wiped with n the. so they lose the house, the majority that in the house and in the senate, the congress flips and, of course, the context of this is the astroturf movement called the tea party, as well as a range of other factors. i think he should've gone big at that moment. ..

at this point he plays is a freeze on raises for public employees. he starts doing things in order to his some way at pease and a republican congress. this in the name of something he was committed to. this in a post-partisanship when in fact the gesture was extreme partisanship on the part of republican party. in that moment we talk about a

republican extraction is done which we must, but also his complacency. >> host: i don't believe he was necessarily a complicit. i asked the questions of why he didn't go biggest love with senior staffers. there's a lot of things he could've done by executive order and he chose not to. at the same time, they were talking about all the executive orders and they didn't have nearly the amount but also going back to the really basic -- go into the very basic peace. going back to the very basic piece of what we see now. i believe going back to the collar about the change in how people want something new. i believe barack obama was on the cusp of this nation saying we don't want washington. we want someone new.

yeah, he was a black man who had experience, but he was something totally new. he had not been in washington that london people gravitated to him. i believe that's what we are seeing. it is totally not washington, totally not governance at all. he's taking a business approach to social problems about these other problems. i believe we are now at a point it wasn't obama, but we'll see what happens and how the nation respond because there's a loud collie is not qualified to know -- as well. you probably will not hear him talking and someone screaming you like. that we've never heard any president been guessers acted like that ever. >> david marinus, the caller also talked about your book on the 1968 -- how many books have you written by the way? >> guest: 11. seven larger book spends more fall or one. well, the way president obama responded after 2010 is exactly the way president clinton

responded in a team 94 after the republicans took office. there is sort of the clintonian politics. after two years, president obama was not ready to give up on his own rhetoric of the nobel states pleased it. that had a lot to do with the way he reacted to the next two years. trying to see if there was still the possibility of some, even in the face of the republican hostility, if there is some way to deal with something larger and not grand bargain with john boehner, which is never going to happen. i think that's why he did it. >> host: this is from records as i've read several books on his background, the president's background. a dirty understand why you're such anti-american worldviews. he was more in common with europeans come into nations and elites living in a bubble than

ordinary americans. my guess this will not be central to this production. >> please ask them what books did he read. i would be very interested. anti-american views? have them please respond. >> host: go to jade and colorado. keep those coming. go ahead, please. >> hi, happy new year. i have two facts i would like to stay. i would like to ask what your opinion is. one man's bit eight u.s. code section 11 about payments for slave trade. and i would like to bring out the free expand act of 1996.

in that particular act, there is section four car allotment, housing, all of these things have been headed. i want to know, and to think it's incompetence from the president on down and i'm back where do you think it's just latent racism and just oppression from this government offices to hide this information from this recipient from the black sewers of suffering. let me just say this and then i'll take your opinion on it. i have four cases and the post office and i can't get the prosecutor to press charges on this person. several other cases. it is just blatant racism. what is a person to do when you have the government, the workers and all of them working against you. you can't get into courts.

>> okay, we look at a response. >> i can't speak to the various sections and maxim articles are talking about, and that i do know when there is an effort to swing the ax, budgetary wise, food subsidy programs. all of those programs on the chopping table in the department of agriculture. i know you have people like the congressional black caucus and the congressional has been a caucus who are fighting to make sure those are funded and funded abundantly to support those who fall through the cracks. i would suggest that you reach out to your state or federal leaders as well. on the issue of reparations, i believe that is what you are going to. i may get in trouble for this, but this nation was built on the backs of slaves could wealth in this nation was built on the backs of slaves. people talk about preparation. constant bills introduced are conversations about it. we have yet to see that.

it goes down a slippery slope and i talked about in my first vote. many people joke with me. i asked president bill clinton at the time about i'm an apology for slavery. you may remember that. i was in my first book. president bill clinton when he was sitting president had a dinner with black journalists and i was one of those that helped organize that dinner. and i asked why he did not apologize for slavery. he sent them in poignant. he said because black people can't come together. if there was an apology for slavery, people say it's a slippery slope because how do you do about reparations? how would reparations be dispersed? these are issues still be entered about in washington. i asked the question. >> we know president obama has ideas about reparations and piece in the atlantic and a section in which president obama

talks about the fact that it's not politically feasible. what we do know beyond the question of reparations and how we might parse with that, we know that since 1980 there has been a systematic attack on the social safety net in this country and that systematic attacks and spread the shift in what public policy aimed at the most vulnerable becoming a policy becoming black. my colleague has written wonderful work about what happens in the face of poverty becomes black and certain kinds of entitlement programs are red. there's a way way in which we see in the context of the democratic administration. since 1980, an attempt come and attack on the social safety net. whether it's welfare reform with president clinton or whether in the midst of a deal with republicans, president obama signing off on undermining or reducing food and, we see the

politics of our particular moment suggest, to my mind is nice, but no concern for the most vulnerable. >> can i say one thing? i just thought of this. one of the paradox that this election and campaign was that maybe it started to shed that vision of poverty to the right people that a bit even though there's no indication in any way that the republicans who now control are going to deal with white or black. nonetheless, you saw this rise of poor white voting republican and why they felt neglected for so long. and that to some degree might've shifted position a little bit. but i don't know to what end. >> is a bit of irony was asked about appalachia. you know the story that people in the appellation love the affordable care act, that they

don't like obamacare. it is the same exact thing. they had to switch or router name is crazy. >> are you reading the treats in advance? dallas next is going to get your reaction to it. can the panel speak on the affordable care act? it is 2009 fight from a botched rollout in 2014. the rate hikes that led to the democratic 2016. different legacy for obama if it wasn't an affordable care act. >> different legacy. it was a large part for all of its faults. so when you look beyond not, probably the most important and cannot or he was elected as getting out of the recession. but that is the one that's hardest to explain to see what would've happened had he not done that.

but i think that coming in now, in terms of the rollout, it was a disaster but that's not the important part. when i finally took the fact, my view is that it can be improved. and so you shouldn't just look at what it is, but what it could be and whether it will be rescinded or be changed. but it was the first step that no other president has been able to take forever. so i got to that point. >> emeritus, author of barack obama -- transfixed. april ran his book includes "presidency in black and white" and now at my mistake, mothers and race in black and white. and the author of democracy in black, however he still is that the american soul. vicky is joining us from sandusky, ohio. go ahead, please. >> hi, first of all. thank you so much to c-span.

>> don't forget c-span 3. >> forgive me if. for me it has been a tool to be able to pay attention to our government action in the part of the problem is more people aren't doing that, watching our government in action and what is going on taking place from the white house down. i want to echo sentiments of the gentleman in colorado. the last eight years have been nothing but extraction is done. they talk recently about lame-duck session and this being a lame duck president. it's been a lame duck years and my personal opinion. i don't even know where to begin. we talk about discrimination in this country. some pretend like it doesn't exist. i will say that this country was built upon not only slavery, but also discrimination of the indigenous tribes on the backs

of many immigrants that came to this country, my family included, working tirelessly and still coming into this country illegally. the state has been doing a lot of gerrymandering coming around. tried as hard as they possibly can to take our right, access to birth control, whatever it may be. go into this year koch is, hopeful because of something we have to have. i want to say thank you very much for your time and what you do. i will read these books. >> thank you for joining the conversation. you're shaking your head. >> she's ready. you know, i grew up at a time where we talk about slavery, but it's real and we don't really talk about why we have the

device, a generational divide that stop from of this country. when you start talking about it, people say you can't get over it. you don't tell groups to get over it. she is absolutely right. native americans have an issue and they still need help. bill clinton talked about that as well. african-americans. until you deal with this issue, you will have a clashing of people and we are, i guess they came on in hamilton, we are the united divided states because of these rules have yet to heal. they keep trying to put band-aids over it and it's not going to happen. >> incurious in the classroom, has there been a question or comment with regard to the obama presidency that has given you pause to question? >> this past master i taught a seminar. so we read note published in 1955 to the evidence that this

became, extraordinarily powerful book. it was an interesting kind of journey to read aldrin during this election cycle. i think there was a sense in which my student were constantly asking of obama and and at the moment, and they kind of for the presence of witness in the presence of courage, trying to demand something more of the political process, more than what president obama suggested that you have to leverage and move into these domains coming change in the seat of power, trying to only figure out what does that mean for us to be crapping in 2017 today with the same issues that jimmy was grappling with in 1955. >> is that the subject of your next book? >> my next book will be 1963- 1972.

>> host: what are you preparing for in terms of talking about this president in the last eight years and what questions you might get from students. >> well, barack obama is just one small part of a larger course on political biography ranging from robert caro's works on and a job then to the branch on martin luther king. but i don't know what i'll get about barack obama. i honestly don't. i know that these students are very engaged and not sort of moral question in a way that i think that this generation is underestimated, underappreciated and not moral underpinning of the students i've undercovered. >> you quote in your new book, the art of the moral universe is long, but it does tend towards justice. it ran those words.

>> ultimately in the end it does. that would have been. think of this. think about the history of this country. think about the civil rights movement, the most successful movement in this nation that everyone is taking for women's rights groups to the lgbt community, to the immigration community. but think about this. when he was marching, only 4% of the black church supported him. it took white people to see the injustice and die in places like bloody sunday to say something is wrong. it's a civil rights act to happen and then the voting rights effort. they had to go make lbj. so the bottom line is -- the fact that he told him to do this. so that's the thing.

i thought this and is so important. the day after the election, christopher, the o.j. simpson prosecutor said on face but, this is in a time of activism. i thought that quite frankly. and i heard bob johnson. bob johnson who is a democrat said it's time for us to find common ground as well. but then the farmer had at the naacp and a former member of congress that we are at a crossroad. so the art is long, but justice will ultimately prevail. but there has to be activism with that. >> host: toledo, ohio. go ahead, please. >> of wondering if they've read the warrant for having the donald. the high rate of out of wedlock birth, but she does have the

first place. i'm wondering what you think of this. >> answer the call. >> i'm familiar with it and i don't think much about it. >> i find the arguments suspicious of mental positions. often times we try to get these sorts of claims kind of legitimacy by addressing them. what we do know with out of wedlock is declining and to make the kind of argument between family constitution and criminal behavior is silly. again, much of these sorts of claims. i want to say this clearly come to begin with the assumption that the black people who've been killed at the hands of police deserve to die. i reject the premise that it can. so the idea is to find some kind of reason whether it's coming from her or rudy giuliani or

whether it's coming from certain bluebloods matter, the idea to suggest that if this is something to warrant their deaths, whether it is they are lazy, come from broken homes, a nature prone to criminality, something about them is the reason why they are in the grave. i disagree with that claim from the beginning. >> i agree with you there. >> café, welcome to the program. thank you for watching the tv. >> hello. professor, and a big fan. senior several times been interviewed by amy goodman on democracy now this past year. they were so many of your views than i am in agreement with i'm voting and i just thank you for your intelligence and your gift of sharing how things should run, what questions should be asked, iraq did this them. thank you for many, many points

of view that you've given me personally. this statement as president obama gave me hope and change and that that would have been any really instilled that in me and i was so excited to vote for him the first time. once he got in, i felt that he almost immediately fit in with the status quo for the establishment, whatever you want to call it. i was so discouraged not the most significant changes i expected, such as the bank failures and i didn't see any of these gangsters as they call them go to jail. that was a big, big letdown for me. he continues to drone warfare and bombings seven plus countries and i don't understand why we are still so heavily involved with to meet the murder of innocent people. >> ascender comments, who did you vote for last november?

>> guest: i voted for dr. joel stein in 2012 and again since bernie sanders didn't get the nomination. i voted for dr. jill stein in 2012 because he let me down. >> host: is how you phrase the obama legacy from your standpoint? you that you don? >> guest: >> caller: he let me down the change would occur. >> host: before barack obama came on the scene there was a lot of activism on the ground that had everything to do with resisting the iraq war. before that there is the activism of seattle. so then barack obama jumped in front of this extraordinary solid activist energy and because the object of it. in some ways the green screen it. he says this in "the audacity of hope." we made an antiwar president. they made him the progressive savior. when he gets in office come in some ways the energy gets to be mobilized and has to find

itself. what a weekend when it finally arrives in the white house? >> guest: the rules have changed. when we went into iraq, george w. bush took us into iraq. we're fighting in afghanistan. but that was about al qaeda. that was about wmd, all that stuff. but now we are in a different phase. we have a new type of terrorism and terrorists out there. first it was al qaeda. now it is isis. these are two different groups. so what do you do? you allow them to go into countries and takedown to democracy, it causes a problem. there is a nation that will breed terrorism. >> that's not the rationale for syria. if much of our complicated than

that. >> you have to have a foreign policy that reflects a series of democratic commitments that go all the way down. >> no boots on the ground. it is a policy of assassination. whether he is the first but resident or not, we need to describe -- we are d.o. china money. then we don't want to put our people in harms way. we don't buy boots on the ground. with the other recourse to stop rogue activity. the caller's point is really interesting to me because i called rob obama -- in this hope and change. it's a harsh judgment.

but there is a sense that he got into office, it's like intellivision where you can put behind anything you want. and it turned out to just be an extension of clinton and some. and a lot of ways, folks were deeply and profoundly disappointed and betrayed. the energy to manifest itself by talking to grassroots organizers across the country. >> everything you say is don't look at the words, look at the action. so they will look at obama's words before he's running for president, but who he was before that. it would not have been a surprise. >> is that it explicitly. the antiwar speech, he was very clear that he wasn't against the war. >> remember, this is the same guy given the nobel peace prize. irony of all ironies.

>> wind or a obama for president, we were seeing gas prices up $4 a gallon. we were going into recession. i remember asking george w. bush in the rose garden about recession when james clyburn did and managed heap. we were going into recession. they were other things going on. barack obama came in and said we want to change it. you do not change things in washington. things do not change. people looked at him as a savior. >> tim geithner. a whole host of refinance to come in and they were response well for the financial crisis in so many ways that lead to the collapse. >> the last 20 years to have the same kind of people. >> again, you don't change so much in washington. >> to come in and appoint

treasury is to say to folks at that moment does business as usual. >> clinic. >> the make of your prime example for today we will see january 20th, donald trump jump in on hillary but about wall street. who do see a point? there's not much change. over the last 20 years with same wall street. >> whether it's obama -- >> impartially, yes. >> thank you to david marinus joining us as well. let's go to the next caller. >> caller: hello, thank you. currently c-span's coverage of the united kingdom this week. it has given me a lot of insight into how different their governments are.

the children were they used, ages 11 to 18 were elected by constituents to represent them annually in the parliament were they debated different issues and decided on an issue to cover for the year, something they would like to manage. would that be a possibility in our country u.s.a.? >> stay on the line because i want to have the father but. i want to segue into something barack obama told "rolling stone" and get your reaction. david maraniss, because he was asked about the donald trump of his. sitting behind the desk is sobering. the most important constraint on any president of the american people themselves of an informed citizenry active and participating in addition that will be something i will in my own modest rates continue to encourage to do the rest of my

life. mobilizing, getting people involved with what she saw. stay on the line. look at your reaction. >> james thought about trying to do at the u.k. is doing in the u.s. >> first of all, in terms of u.k., whatever hours you showed the prime minister debating the parliament, that is so fascinating because there is a rhetoric and a sense, but it is so real. they talk about real issues in the various civic way they can never here, sorry to say, during the debate c-span covers in the house of representatives, which is all. roderick and nothing real. and really enjoyed the way british give more to the point letters to congress or the prime minister. in terms of president obama's action, i hope he does revert to its organizer a days and keep pushing. my fear based on what i've seen in the last year is a trend

towards authoritarianism in the united states senate very important for people to push against that. >> host: jane, do it to follow up? >> guest: yes, i do. when i president was elected, and is they are -- there's been so many challenges for the country. is there some name that is possibly realized in his children, would this be some pain that he could stand to watch his kids go through this politics such a dirty business that we don't want our kids involved? >> thank you. he has made the statement that michelle obama will never run public office. >> i think she will never run for public office that i believe she doesn't have time. she has seen what is happening

to her husband and how they've run through the mud with his attempt good or bad. one thing about her is that she is someone who is raw. she is real and you can tell it is from the heart. that is what people are looking forward. someone who really sees the problems and speaks truth to power. unfortunately she's got some special shoes there. i don't know about the kids. >> host: normally a -- malia and sasha? >> my son was 12 years old and now he's a junior at brown. so he's come of age politically with the black family in the white house in this, page. so his political signs has been shaped by this uniquely

complicated moment and it has shaped the way he engages the political process. what we do now when we look at the exit data around the general election, millennial broken particular sorts of ways, which suggests when they first started noting that will suggest the pattern of their voting behavior for decades to come. so i'd rank pair of, act did come in changing things on the ground in local areas. they are fighting and thinking about the black youth project, thinking about the organizing going on in north carolina and i am an alum of the ymca youth legislature program are they used to bring us in the state of mississippi to the capital for three days and we would legislate. i was the first vikings governor in the state of mississippi. we let in the blue mountain with other kids who participated in youth legislature in which

common talk about governance and politics. i don't know if that is still going on, but we do know in the hinterlands of the united states folks are thinking about politics. post code david maraniss in an interview with david axelrod in a podcast released last month that he was confident had he run for a third term, he would have won. it is the constitution the biggest obstacles like michelle obama with permit him from seeking a third term. t. think he would've won a third term if the constitution allowed it? >> for all the ways you can critique president obama for his failure to bring the democratic trading into the larger realm in states and in congress, yeah, i think he would've won. the obama coalition was there at hilary confounded. >> host: howard in bend, oregon. go ahead, please. >> yes, i'm enjoying your show about the ticket back to david

maraniss spoke. it was just a terrific book. i read it i think about five or six years ago, so a lot of it is a lot of it isn't fresh in my mind anymore. the impression i got was that iraq was really not thinking of himself very much as a black man. his days at columbia and it wasn't until he went to chicago became a community organizer that he really got involved in the black culture and of course that is where he met michelle and married michelle. one of the questions i had was that they read in the book somewhere that barack's mother, i'm not sure when she died exactly, that she had some of her actions. she had hoped that barack would not marry a black woman. am i correct? >> guest: she died right when

he was about to get into the political life. now, that is not in my book. i don't think she had any objections to him marrying a black woman at all. i think she was encouraging him to find that part of himself. i think a somewhat misinterpreted. it's not that he wasn't thinking about being a black man. that's all he was thinking about, but he was still trying to find a tunnel. my book is really a search for home and he finally found it on the south side of chicago with the show later. the first in terms of organizing with these wonderful older african-american women who embraced him and make them feel at home for the first time. >> when you say you come home in chicago, not only did he find home, but i believe michelle obama is one of the reasons he's president of the united date because of the connection she was able to afford the then

aspiring barack hussein obama. >> statement is one that it's purely political. >> guest: he loves her. you can see that there appeared what's to come together you know which other strands. spinnaker at washington in condemning of chicago, house significant was he? >> guest: that is one of the reasons barack obama decided to go to chicago because chicago at that point seemed like the place to be because the african-american mayor who had them of the same vision as barack obama. he was elected with a lot of white folks as well in chicago. it was a place of hope. interestingly, barack obama arrived in chicago the same time basically oprah winfrey and michael jordan arrived in chicago. it was really kind of the place for african-americans might at that point. and so harold washington was a very important part of that. once obama got to chicago, he

saw this incredible racial division between the city council and mayor washington and that is why he decided to go to springfield and run for city council which is a much more powerful position to would've gotten trapped in the racial politics of the moment. >> this is a sidebar question, but an interesting photograph in your book. where was this taken and why did you include it? >> that was scratched into the cement in honolulu when barack obama was a junior in high school. it was sort of -- it is sort of poetic license here. that could've been the only brandon of this guy. but it isn't because of what happened later. >> host: is still there today? >> guest: still there today. >> host: david mayor ness, we are midway through our three

hour conversation. we're going to take a short break and come back with more of your calls and questions as we continue here at c-span's twos twos -- c-span 2's "in depth." >> the pain that run throughout culture of corruption is there's a massive gap between the obama administration's rhetoric and the reality. i am not arguing that influence peddlers and power broker should be outlawed somehow. everybody's got to make a living. the point is team obama came here as high horse at the divers being to washington to change the way they do business. and yet they have people like leon panetta who parlay an entire career as a government or event into massive private wealth. you've got people who came from the hedge fund industry stuart and blurs. these are all the prototypes

that barack obama condemned and michelle obama for that matter. and yet, they fully embrace them in their administration and don't seem to acknowledge hypocrisy there. >> the effects of president obama's ruinous policies are now coming to light. what we've done i think i may think your presence here is a testament to that is that we've begun a national reappraisal of what's happened. again, sure. a time in 19 months. for many of us, seeing it unfold is not really surprising, right? it's happening exactly as they expect to do but. despite the fact that the elites on the left and the right and many of them misjudges ideally pedigree and a catchy speech in a less catchy for executive leadership ability. the fact of the matter is we elected a man as president who

was woefully ill-prepared, unqualified and inexperienced. [applause] >> why are we applauding that? i want to remind all of you that the president's professional resume consisted a sickly of a little more than handing out leaflets on chicago street corners and organizing the occasional anti-capitalist merge. and no, i do not count the short stint as a constitutional law lecturer or his unremarkable drive died in the illinois state senate and the u.s. senate. no, no, no. you've got to do more than that to be president of the united states. >> you just really doesn't stand for the same things that grassroots americans stand our, which is why they have raised up spontaneously throughout the country of them protested in a

peaceful fashion. this is not just about the economy. it's not just about the fact that there's a lot of unemployment. it's about what he is doing, what is threatening to do, nationalizing health care, cap-and-trade, immigration reform. all of these are radical measures unlike we've ever seen in the history of our country. it's not just a pendulum swing back republicans throw out and go back and a democrat. we've seen en masse, unbridled, unchecked liberalism for the first time in a long time. both chambers of commerce, the way cows and they are doing things that are horrifying people. that's my position and they make you see that in the country. >> kind of ironic that barack obama munich's public appearances come to cross as the

likable outgoing of the guy. we can see again and again that his likability quotient far outrun his polling numbers in job approval. so he still liked person in public. but that is his performance we are talking about is a public figure. in terms of his actual working in the government -- toward the governance of this country, and again and again i learned from republicans and democrats that he doesn't have the skill set that lyndon johnson not for instance who understood how to manipulate power in washington or ronald reagan who would get together at the end of the day with tip o'neill, democratic speaker of the house, have a drink with him, reminisce, tell jokes and then start working out how to get a bill passed. barack obama doesn't seem to know how to do that.

he in fact in private is a very introverted person who doesn't reach out via on a group of chicago operatives whom he's brought with him to the white house. >> when i got the idea for the brief against obama, and said hey, what's the worst thing president obama has done? for what up of course. i just made a list. people call up and say he's no friend of israel. he left that yahoo! in the base at. or it didn't help the iranian revolution. that came up a lot. unemployment is at such and such a rate as such and such a time. i just made up on this and i had a list of more than 50 suggestions. i whittled it down to 24 the 25th cap your is a summary chapter. let me repeat the table of contents. i'm not going to go through each of these because after all you need to buy the book. the nightmare of obamacare.

a failed stimulus. stimulus to point out. the biggest spendthrift in history. that is true by the way. the committee organizer who collapsed housing. selling the roles of the unemployed, soaring gas prices and read energy scams. the dodd-frank had fake. the fast and furious debacle and cover it. the president's attack on cap, congress and the constitution. standing by is iranian side abandoning israel, howling out of the american military, reset and the button, it during border security, bowing to china, ignoring north koreans ignoring north koreans, naïveté in the arab spring, gitmo and the trials and terrors. hyper partisanship of a chicago ward healer. unilateralism of an anti-constitutional president, the founder and finis teleprompter dependent and finally, in a number of rounds of golf he has played followed by the decline in despair rhetoric. it's a pretty good list.

>> when you look on the international scene, you see some extremely troubling developments that are read as serious. obama says we have to prevent genocide and to use this force against libya. the number of people killed by gadhafi at that point was about 250. meanwhile, over a period of many months, tens of thousands of people have been killed in the area and upon absolutely refuses to use force. what explains why he intervenes with force over here but not over there? obama has been very active in egypt and pushing mubarak out of power. not only that, but now that there is a power struggle going on between the military and the muslim brotherhood, the obama administration is intervening on the side of the muslim brotherhood. obama has won the egyptian military, you better turn over power to the muslim brotherhood or we are going to cut off military aid.

obama can say i'm a champion of democracy. these people were freely elected. and yet, a year earlier in 2009 when there are massive demonstration in iran calling for a comment the end of the mullahs, free elections, obama but they refused to support the democrats. is said we've got to say i did this. we will let them settle it. they are basically been at the protesters than not that bad. >> in gaza and? leaving a security in an area where we're running guns to syria through turkey in an area where "the new york times" reported the year before the entire time was grand by all sharia. surprise surprise is behind the terrorist attack with three other americans. who's responsible for that? other clinton is responsible for

that. she shouldn't be worried about whether she goes to the white house pitches should be worried about whether she goes to the big house. unfortunately, we have an attorney general who would never prosecute anyone for these violations because he too is a criminal guilty of involuntary manslaughter. he led the program. turns out that you might think that running guns to mexican drug cartels with no tags in them, by the way. there were no optronics monitor sunday's guns. it is widely known inside atf when you run guns to mexican drug cartels, the only place they will show up to figure out where they where is the crime scenes as it is explicitly not. you might think that's reckless. you might think that may result in homicide that the killing of a border patrol agent perhaps. you might be the head of the doj and if you're involved in this, you're probably promoted because nobody was optimal for fast and furious has gone to jail. and nobody's really even been

fired. how about violation of internal revenue laws? if you write to leverage, we would be put in jail. that's a violation of the internal revenue code itself for people who are following. it's also a violation for politicians and politically motivated bureaucrats to get involved in a violation of the hatch act. the hatch act or this bureaucrats from getting involved in political situations like this in targeting political opponents. it's a violation of law. but it's a phony scandal according to the president of the united states. >> and depth on booktv continues in here at our table in washington d.c., april ryan, author of "presidency in black and white," white house correspondent. eddie glaude, his latest book, democracy and black. and david maraniss, has written 11 books. one of them, transfixed.

the tone and tenor of the critics barack obama has faced we heard him a moment ago. >> they don't function that the loyal opposition. it seems what we've witnessed over the last eight years of folks who are committed to their ideological position of the prophecy of democracy. >> more so than george w. bush or ronald reagan or richard nixon? >> he was able to assemblies implement his policy. we could actually push this back to the contract with america. they can actually push it back a little further than that. i think what we are witnessing now is in some ways a kind of apex of a general tenor of our politics for its broke into its core. donald trump is an exaggerated indication that the rock at the heart of the beltway. >> host: david maraniss, you corrupt with what richard nixon faced during watergate.

any difference is last eight years? >> well, i think it has intensified. actually, the contract for america seems kind of tame now. policy is the least important thing now it seems like. it's opposing whatever someone opposes. richard nixon was impeached and resigned from office because of his unconstitutional actions. president clinton was impeached and saved from being removed from office or for largely political community since he was impeached that would argue. so that is where he would start this modern trend. but i think president obama, you add in the extra added issue of

race and the way he and his family have been just unbelievably characterized by some opponents is beyond anything that's happened before. >> host: michelle malkin or hugh hewitt yearbook was going through your mind? >> guest: what is at the crux of really why you despise this man. >> host: that's the word, despise? >> guest: i believe so. i'll tell you why. it is so embedded. we have never seen any president and i've never seen him there were state anyone do or say anything about them the way they've done against barack obama for the time barack obama became president, we heard on the radio, rush limbaugh say i want to see them fail. >> host: but he said he wanted a spouse is failed. >> guest: afterwards. he went back at all. i've got the tape of that.

on this wonderful platform of c-span, and we have heard people taken off the air for using the. i am not saying everyone who does not like president obama's polished these were about the affordable care act where policing, not necessarily about that. there is a strong undercurrent in this country and we've seen it before or hate against someone because he is different is very pervasive. i believe race and politics and i believe it's the fact black man is president of the united states. >> host: at eight years ago, barack obama sworn in as the 44th president. here's a portion of his inaugural address. the focus on her website, c-span.org. >> today a cd of the challenges we face are real. they are serious and they are many. they will not be met easily find a short span of time. but know this, america, they will be met.

[cheers and applause] on this day, week out there because we have chosen hope over fear. unity of purpose over conflict and discord. on this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises of recriminations and worn-out dogma is that for far too long have strangled our politics. we remain a young nation. but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. the time has come to reaffirm our injuries. had to choose a better history, to carry forward that precious gift, the noble idea passed on from generation to generation. the god-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

[cheers and applause] >> host: david maraniss comments you hear the words, you cannot muster the echo of what he spoke in boston in 2004 at them later this month the president will deliver an address in chicago basically looking back at his eight years and i wonder if we will hear more of what we heard during his immaculate dress. >> i will always be a threat as any speech he gives. even as the world to shift it around him. i was there that day of the first inaugural address and i remember the contrast between the incredible dealings of the crowd. people have never gone to another duration before. thousands and thousands of african-americans finally feeling franchise didn't come way and this incredible joy of the crowd. yes, there was the aspect of this speech that echoes the larger sensibility, but it was

also a fairly bleak beach because he was facing a really tough position of the nation's economy and he was trained to warn people this to be difficult. i was struck at the difference between that rhetoric and the feelings of the crowd. >> host: lancer rope and at 202-748-8200 for those of you in the eastern half of the country. those of you not in pacific. 202-748-8201. three hours the first sunday of every month on c-span2 and death. this month we look at president barack obama, his legacy as he prepares to leave office. gene from sandy, illinois. go ahead, please. >> hi, i would like to take the conversation in a different direction and talk about why the american people are so frustrated by the election of barack obama and their disappointment in what he has managed to accomplish. i think that after giving this considerable lot has to do with the way we elect our local

officials, that we actually need a constitutional amendment to our united states constitution to make sure that we are 50 individual countries instead of 50 united stated, so that we have a uniform way of a lack in our local officials, who by the way of control over what happens in our country. not the president. everybody calling in as critical of obama, blames everything on him. but i watch c-span everyday and i watch the congressmen cut job bills and say that we can't have infrastructure bills just to defeat him. >> host: that would do away with what they were talking about earlier with alexander hamilton on the issue of state right. that would give federalism and state level. >> caller: if we continue in the direction we are going, we are going to become a

dictatorship because basically the power isn't the president. the house of representatives and the senate. it is unconstitutional. i've written about this today because i'm so frustrated. i am one of these people and 73 years old and i'm ready to stop voting. i voted since i was old enough to vote. i've seen the local republican representative in my district prevent another man from running against him by changing the local election laws to increase the number of people that have to sign the petition. he had to finally give up. this is wrong. this is not democratic. >> host: thank you for the call. >> guest: our constitution, our wonderful founding fathers when they crafted the constitution i don't think they have my social media and we would expand the way we had. that is one thing.

the question is how do you do it and will people be ready to change history? i believe we are now at a point and i understand what she's saying about it could or should. we are now at a point where it's people we are now looking at personality instead of the issues and it's not right. we had a charismatic president with one of the greatest barack obama. even william jefferson clinton and that's unfair. donald jay trump who is a billionaire and who knows how -- this is the reality tv show, real-life reality tv show. i think we need to start focusing in on issues. but going back to the people, that people can make a difference and i still believe that. i believe that the victim is the key. i don't believe that we should have 50 countries.

i don't believe bush that the united states coming together. it all starts at the local level. you have to ignite a fire to make a change that you want to see happen. this event happened in history and the gallant an offensive could see where i will let them deal with it, but we have to be active and engaged to make change for herself. >> guest: this is a really important point on the part of the caller that sent some of our colleagues there with your view we are no longer a democracy, we are an oligarchy. we have known in response barack obama's election particularly in 20 tells them are really historic in that he won the presidency with 30% of white people voting. this is so much reflective of the demographic shift, the deep demographic shift that has begun to have an impact into the extent that it's true, some people when in full panic mode that you can actually win without the majority of white people voting. what did we see in response and even before that?

a voter i.d. law, voter suppression. there's a reason why it books away books in terms of voter i.d. laws. there's a reason north carolina books the way it looks at voter suppression at texas although it was struck down. .. in north carolina and around the country, seeking to, shall we say, pursue they're own interests -- >> youing for got a.m. and how the government there took many

of the motor vehicle administration offices -- particularly in urban areas, closed them, and now the department of transportation is working with them so they will re-open them and it's almost like what happened with voter rights back in the 1960s. >> even deeper than just the voter suppression and the getting rid of the voting acts act, which is redistricting and re-alignment. you have states in wisconsin, the legislature is completely republican dominated. and yet more people vote for democratic candidates than for republican candidates because of the redistricting. jerrily map at thing sort do jerri gerrymandering. >> you quit barack obama, he said the following immigrant. if we're on with ourselves we'll admit there are times when some of us claiming to push for

change, lost our way, including, he pointed out the self-defeating riots of the 1960s. how does that apply? >> the context of the quit, i was actually in d.c. and i his already listened to that peach and i threw my shoe at the television. he narrating that fit with the neocon position. and rosa parked sitting down in 65, and then i have a dream and then the wheels fall off with the black power moment and there's a moment when you describe the period as people invoking victimization, people trying to reward laziness in the smooth, it's insidous and it's

fact. think the broader opinion the way we tell the story of american politics opens up space or closed down space for everyday ordinary people. so if you tell a story in which politics is backroom deals, then you get republican operatives and democratic operatives trying to figure out to secure power. if you inform and empower everyday, ordinary people, tell the story of the radicals you get a different picture. >> david, i wanted to take that and put it to a concrete level in detroit. people -- conservatives after that -- the fell aapart after

the riot and then the corruption of certain majors. but if youside detroit the seeds of decline were structural and they had to do with housing, with urban renewal, with the news that the suburbs war -- the noose that the suburbs were.ing around detroit and being a one-company up town. there's a tendency to blame riots and black power and there are structural problems be teeth that. >> at quote from your book. you quiet tavis miley, in the book, presidency of black and wide, and he said: just balls he, barack obama, is our color does not moon he is our kind. >> that was at tavvs smiley's

state of the union -- and it was a split screen. it wasn't tavis smally that said it but he was interviewing reverend al sharptop and that's the same day barack obama announced he was going to run for president of the united states, and it was interesting of that reverend sharp continue said that because the relationship of them flourishinged is close. there's a loyalty there between the two that wasn't there prior. to reverend al sharpton wanted to make sure when he made that statement, that the black current was covered, and not all -- not only that but you have to remember, barack obama was an outsider, he ran against bobby rush, and theylike, particularry members of the black caucus. they said it's not your time yet. so people didn't know him, and they needed to find out who he

was, and now looking back, reverend al sharpton stayed away from making an endorsement in iowa of hillary clinton or barack obama and that really played into the relationship that they now both share. and that would have been very -- he have gone out and said something for hillary would it have been over for a lot of black people. >> estster in southfield, michigan negotiating ahead, play. >> caller: happy new year, and. the goodness for april here on your show. >> thank you. >> caller: she is right on. on so many things, and david mariness i was born and bread in detroit and i was here at the time of the riots and you're right in some ways but you're also wrong.

what it is -- and let go back before those riots and go back even to world world war ii becas a i'm 79-year-old old and i'm a child of that war. people let barack obama down, people let our democracy down because of lack of civic engagement. the lack of voting. the lack of keeping themselves informed. and maybe because i'm a child of that second world war, my family always understood about what happened in voting, and i have voted every year -- every time and i was eligible to vote when i was eligible to vote when was 21 years old, and that was for eisenhower. my father was for him, and my

father was from that war. but let's go to this business about what has happened now, and our time about black folk and about black folk not being engaged. they haven't been engaged because they haven't had the civic education and they need to -- they don't need the book. it doesn't need to come from school. they need to have to understand who they're voting for. >> host: estes, if you can stop there, thank you for the call from michigan. >> i appreciate her comments. i went clear to me what she said that i said was wrong. >> the about theorieses. >> she didn't -- the riots. >> she didn't say why because it don't know how to respond. so i'll just appreciate ore

comments and leave it at that. >> can you give me the quote about the riots? the last statement -- i wanted to say something about that and go back to what she said. it was basically something about how we do the riots -- remember when dr. king -- when dr. king died there wererights around the country and in our own community. it was self-defeating and i believe that's what he said. self-defeating. we were upset. we go into the rich communities and i'm not saying we should riot but we hurt ourselves. i am from baltimore maryland, freddie gray when there were riots in place is frequent and still drive by, i remember that cs was on fir. people in that community, very low income. they have to go a very long distance to find medication now. i know congressman elijah cummings lives that that community and someone saw him at

the rite aid a couple miles down but that was the impact. self-defeating because we're upset and because of that, we do have activism. we had "black lives matter" run for mayor, didn't win, but we need to understand that everyone has a right to express -- not that way but express and try to change and make a difference, and the up fortunate thing many of us don't feel we have 0 voice. >> it one to to talk about impact of urban rebellion on the community. it harmeds the community. >> it does. >> it's wrong to make the claim that nothing politically follows from that. wrong to say nothing followed from watt -- policy-f-nothing from furyk and at the rebellions across the country after the

aassassination dr. king, we saul the ways in which government tried to move in response to that. understanding that rebellions are the cries of the voiceless, which other kind of political pathways or processesert not available and this is what happened. but i think to render them as simply apolitical or irrational acts, kind of is in some ways to evade what history has taught us. i think part of what i was saying was barack obama was narrowing the range of what constitutes legitimate forms of political dissent. what has happened over the last decade or so even longer than that, is that the nature of american politics has become such -- so narrow. walter mondale is a radical today.

can you imagine hearing the tale of two cities from mario como and whether your march organize some ways behind -- some some closed room. the black radical tradition is much more robust than that. >> the problem is we don't have a seat at the table. the next administration there is a concern within the black republican community, the seats at the table or in. >> reverend blackerrer didn't have a a seat at the table i-going to quote shirley which chisolm. she said if there's no at zito table, bring a folding chair. and that's what that's people are trying too do whip riot. i'm justifying at awe because it self-dieting in your own community. but the bottom line is we're not at the table. >> host: send us a tike at

booktv, you're making me cry covering our gracious, intelligent president. what will we do now? the caller from colorado. >> caller: thank you for having me. i want to be real quick and maybe change the topic a little built. i just want to say i'm -- my mother is mexican, my father is black. and my grandfather came from mexico. one thing that is really important to me and we need to address is the lottery system that the united states that. my grandfather -- >> guest: immigration, correct? >> caller: yes, ma'am. my grandfather was not illegal mexican. we was brought from the ghetto project and he won the lottery at 13 years old to be in texas. my family was then a migrant

worker. i married a cause indication man. i'm in -- caucasian man. i'm in the medical felled medical field and i'm -- i want to address cultural sensitivity and it's important to remember that we as americans were able to come here through the lo lottery system on my grandfather's side, and i just wonder -- i have to allow people in the medical field and re -- respect for cultures but mind is not respected. if i show my assertiveness, it's posturing and confrontational. so i'd like to have the panel help me understand how to address these issues, especially in the medical field.

and i have two men, two boys of my own, who their culture is not respects and i'm trying to bring is in full circle in that as an african-american boys, they can't wear braids without being stereotyped ump. >> host: angelina, thank you for the call. i'm going to turn to you, april ryan, because you write that is in. >> guest: assimilation in my new book i talk about that. a lot of voices on assimilation. we talk about assimilate. i'm a black woman in a white male dominated town, been here 20 years and it's not easy, but one of the pieces that helps me do my job, unapologyic and we hear a lot of -- in the journalism field we hear in the newsroom and prepredominantly

white newsroom they put us on a story about african-american and we have had to find about issues in mainstreamers but they're not forced to do things when it comes to my issue. aim correct in that assumption. >> guest: to a certain extent. >> guest: but it's valley we have to without in who we are and walk your truth, but at the same time understand the dynamic of where you and who you are -- who i am, what i. a nit the panels, the 20 years i've been here, and asking presidents questions. when i look at the president of united states and ask him a question, i've talked to the black caucus but i focus on urban america. >> host: let me ask you about syria and whether that's a stain on the own on presidency. >> guest: astain on the world, and it's a paradoxical stain on

the obama presidency because you have not just obama but the u.s. ambassador to the united nations, samantha power who built her career on trying to prevent genocide and writing that issue, and yet the united states has not been able to prevent genocide in syria. the murder of thousands and thousands of people. it's much easier to criticize syria than to say what anyone should do -- >> host: he did say the red line, and syria crossed the red line. >> guest: absolutely. i'm not defending president obama on that statement or whether he should have said it in the first place. because it just led to -- he's much more of a flexible person that ever setting up a red line on things. that's just not his nature.

i don't have any profound to say and i don't think anybody does. it's a very sad aspect of the modern world and everything that could go wrong went wrong in syria, you have the situation among the many mistakes that president obama made is is acing where the dominant player is russia. >> host: month his biggest nemesis on the world stage has been putin put, the russian president. his closest alliances including canadaon prime minister trudeau, angela merkel, so what about the world of barack obama and how world leaders have viewed this his presidencies spa and i think the is generally respected around the world but not necessarily by the leaders. think his strongest alliance is

with angela merkel, and they come out of different political perspectives but found the same place, basically. which is attempting to be rational and in a traditional sense liberal on immigration, particularly with merkel, and in dealing with the rest of the world, but i think that people yearn for strength in foreign policy. that's a narl natural, huge -- that's not president obama's strong point. the fact he doesn't always try to exert strength is not necessarily a weakings in but it appears to be. >> you're nodding your head. >> guest: really important to think about how president obama has seen on the international scene post the bush year. the overreach of george w. bush and the caution both president

obama with regard to these questions to the extent to which he has tried to recoup america's reputation on the interstan stage after the disasters of the bush years, might become an interest way of measuring the relative success or failure of bone -- obama's foreign policy. we look at the particulars, whether it's syria, libya, the drone policy, and we know that the exercise of soft power and hard power, driven by some consistent ideological commitments that cut across his administration and bush administration, open him up for criticism. husband last state of the -- his last state of the union was a profound, i think, voicing of his understanding of the use of hard power and soft power. at the moment -- at the beginning of the last state of the union he described america's military as the most powerful in the world.

at the end he is talking not use of soft pair and example is cuba. how american soft power can work and in the -- in between he makes the commend e comment about a civility and language around immigration and the like at the moment and he is chastising donald trump with an eye side there but making the isis raiding houses croat across the border. that speech gives us a an indication of the ideological frame of obama. >> guest: which is pretty complicated. >> host: joe from venice, california. you're next good afternoon, sir. >> caller: hi. well, in the many discussions i have heard on programs such as this, i've almost never heard my following point: i think that the white part of our nation has gone about as far as it can go in our racial feelings toward

blacks. look at our society. the number of black respected police chiefs we have, judges, news anchors, commentators. the number of black politics, now asked for their opinions in the number of interracial couples on the street. one of your call-ins was such. the issue -- i've been writing this her hurriedly and i'm losing some -- we see a host of science now of how black people are being accepted as equals. imagine 50 years ago, none of this would be happening. we've come awfully long way. still have a long way. >> guest: we still if a long way to go. we have reached the highest level -- the white house, you can't get any higher but we still have the lowest of lows

and a problem in the middle. say this. i hear you, but weapon we talk -- when you say that -- i think white america has gone as far as we can could be accepting blacks, no you haven't. i say this without politics as an african-american. when you look at the facts and still see african-americans disproportionately in almost every category, that's a problem >> host: one of the moseyingant speeches in doug in which he addressed the issue of race relations in america, here is then-senator barack obama. >> i'm a son of a black man from kenya, and a white william white woman from kansas. i was raised with the help of a white grandfather who see e

served in world war ii and grandmother who work an bomber assembly line while he is overseesaws. i'm lived in one of the world's poor's nexts and gone to the best schools. inup married to black american mo carry monday her the bloods of slaves and slave owners, an inheritance we give to our daughters. her ons, nieces, uncles, of every race in three constant continents and as long as i live i will never forget in 0 country on earth is the story is possible. a story that has not made me the most conventional of candidates. but it is a story that has seered into my general nettic makeup the idea that this make is more than the sum of its parts. that out of many we are truly

one. >> host: march 2008 teche national constitution center during the highlight of the campaign, opposed by hillary clinton. conclude respond? and what you heard from the caller. >> guest: that speech was really important and a number of ways. its salvaged his candidacy. i don't think he could have won if he hadn't made that -- given that speech. >> guest: really? >> guest: i think the reverend jeremiah wright issue has.the campaign on the. edge. if had no come couple and struck the balance. >> guest: his advisers said he wanted wanted to give that speech even earlier and was dissuadessed. it was jeremiah right that propelled him to give the speech >> guest: at the heart of the

speech is the way the approached the issue of race and a kind of degree of equivalent in the sense that the equates places on the same level, white resentment and blackeninger, white resentment at the changing nature of society, society is becoming are more equal. folks ang because because they're losing jobs to folks who were once locked out. that anger is equateed to people black whose highway chafe been kill by a white police officer or a dad who couldn't goal to a drive-in 0 cornel west who jumped in pal and everybody got out and they drained the poolful and there's always this lang of

eequivalency, whatever you draw that line, becomes very, very difficult to address the deep structure inequality that defines the country. >> guest: here's one -- you just said that speech saved his campaign. the politics of it makes sense. and that i'm not sure it was completely equivalent but i understand the cargo. he was trying to make but he -- understand the argument but saving the campaign meant he was talking to whites completely. so you have to put into that context. >> guest: this is why called him in the interpreter in chief. whenever there's a moment where has talked about race, he rarely talks to black america about question. all in some ways trying to convince white mrs. to no convince are so talk to white america. >> guest: one quote from james baldwin here.

>> >> host: your next to book. >> guest: one of the most ex-another tech things about being blah is in thin can you we constantly have to try to? are you preaching to the choir or preaching to people not in your choir? that's a more possesssive look at what he was doing but another perspective. i'm going to challenge you, don't think he convinced them because jeremiah wright what his kess friend and con confidante and people still talk about it. >> guest: i think part of what insist on in democracy in black is that until we kind of confront forcibly without all the sweet talk that in this country, there's an animating value, that white people matter more than other and that belief

animates or, arrangements and it's evidenced in habit. but until we address that we'll find ourselves in what jim baldwin,mer is like a monstrous minstrel song, same songs and same jokes. we can do the show in our sleep. >> guest: do you believe any candidate for president could address that optly and be elected? >> guest: yes. >> guest: you do. >> guest: i have to believe it. outside otherwise i've allowedded the con transplants to effect my opinion. >> host: is this write, in question. from the genesis of doing a buck on baldwin to its completion -- which will be when? how long does it take you to complete a book cincinnati takes a wall. all depends on how the lord moves. >> host: your book. from idea to publics. >> guest: first one was 17

years. it took 17 years but i think it came at the right time. we had the first black president, and then this one, the second one, less than a year. >> host: david, the book on president obama, from idea to publication. >> guest: my books take my senior larger books take between three and four years. >> host: why the book on detroit? >> guest: i was born in detroit. it was signed by a commercial on division that super bowl in 2011 when m~& m m emememwazi driving through the streets and saul sauce during. >> host: the chrysler commercial. >> guest: i teared up and i wondered why it was that way. i didn't want to buy a chris her but a wanted to write about the city. >> host: once in a great city,

and ben is next. we have 25 minutes left focusing on the obama legacy three-quarters authors, three hours this sunday. thank youor waiting . >> want to point out something voice and that is that a half of awe tech are paid for by medicaid and i thought obama was disengines reduce in thises fors for affordable care act and to but all these only the medical plains its would require other people to give up medical care or pay higher premiums. think he did that because he doesn't have a faith in human beings but if he had been honest with the american public and sat that in thebes miss mary not been able to get care for cancer, he could gotten plan passed and americans would have accepted it.

>> host: dan, you're teeing up a debate in washington in the year ahead. >> guest: they -- enwhats to affordable care act, there's no question it neats to be tweaked -- needed to be tweaked. meeting in go say he did this knowingly but there are pieces that had to go through they didn't like and they're saying they have to tweak it. but at the same time, in moving forward, how will it be tweaked? it's not about repealing it and it's about defunding it. who wants to kick people off. the vast majority of people say there are problems but i'm glad i have self insurance, is covers pre-existing conditions. you can foe be discriminated against if you have a condition and do to another insurance company. there are.com opinion meants that -- componentses that happen people but it had to be tweaked and we'll see.

>> guest: the difficulty is that parts the least popular are the parts funding the part that popular. the only way to do that is universal health care which will not happen in the united states but anything below that is go going to complicated and different problems -- you can't just tweak them. bet clear our disingenuous other the critique is, some wasn't to single payer, some want the public office. this is a plan of the republicans, romney of massachusetts so the idea of republicans being so offended like this, it opinions towels hip potcracy and the manufacture outrange. >> host: some people said he

never used the white house to way he should have. i didn't do it the way clinton or lbj would use the white house, bring his critics down 01600 pennsylvania of now wine and debris them. did he use his vice president? >> guest: well, vice-president biden was very effective. much better at hat part oft transaction politics than president obama. it's a valid argument except in terms of result. bill clinton was a great schmoozer. he didn't get any health care bails passed he lost, obama won. you can critique president obama's personality for not wanting to have drinks with congressmen and nothing strong-arming them. never going to be like that. you can't make somebody be something they're not going to be. but he -- so the extent to which he was able to accomplish things, despite that, is rather

extraordinary. >> host: idaho, teresa. >> caller: yes. i'm -- my son and i are lone democrats in cord coeur d'alene idaho, i vote vet for barack obama twice and would have voted a their time and so would my son. in the conversation when talked about the frank dodd act and the bailouts, one thing i'm never heard point it out and it affect meds -- 2008, i was diagnosed with breast cancer, and emphysema, copd, within a week of each other, i had idaho medicaid and my cancer treatment stopped. that was the year that whenever you want to kell call it. obamacare, came in and pretty

much has been saving my life ever sin. last night i went to the er and asked them to get me out before midnight but a my deductible starts tomorrow. i worked for a credit card can i and saw what they used to do to people before the frank dodd act. so there's a lot of good things to protect consumers. now to high interest rates. in the midst of all this thighed declare bankruptcy to save my childhood home. because of the bank bailouts i don't know if obama did it or the dems. don't think it was republicans. i got a home loan modification so that i can keep my house. so he did those things for me he didn't do everything the said he wanted to, sometimes i was disappointed but he had to play politics. to get us what he could get us. >> host: teresa, thank you for sharing your story in a final

point. >> april, david, ed by i pieing reed your- --ed -- our president will be the most beloved and said to say the most hated president ever. >> host: interesting die cot me. most loved and hated. >> guest: that's true. i don't know about -- up to now, of the 44 -- maybe the 45th 45th might be would give him a run for his money. >> host: what you hearing from the dahler caller. >> guest: the heart. the and mammogram. women have issue width breast cancer and prevention and that's another piece of aca, preventive. i heard someone going through real life issues and she is

jumping him as someone who helped her but she said city course. >> guest: i heard real life consequences of policy, which always important to remember, and when people argue that there's no difference between the two parties, you have to remember that for millions of people, policy does make a difference and the two parties have differ policy. >> host: and giving full attribution to dr. king will barack obama be judged by the color of his citizen or his american president si. >> guest: it's not either/or, it's both. and i don't think that in this case the color of his skin is just something incidental. i think -- in terms of american politics and american history. it's much deeper than that. even though policy is what defines a president, the color

of his skin defines this country in a very huge way, i think. >> guest: i agree with david. race and politics will always follow him. and he is the first black president out of all of those white faces. he will now go down down in history at one of the nation's fathers and a lot of people don't like that and they knew that coming in and they were very insular as to what the allowed in and what kinds of critics they allowed in. they're very concerned with how her is perceived and how his legacy will carry on. >> guest: i hope we reach a point in our history where we can judge his presidency, aproperty from whether he is a the first black president, but they're linked. he has made history. think for black america we have to ask ourselves the question, whether or not the fact of we

have had a black person in the white house has changed the circumstances of our life? >> host: well we've other under lifetime. >> guest: i'm sure we will but the question is, will that fact change the fundamental king of the most vulnerable in the community is care most about. >> guest: i say no. >> guest: that question makes my feel too old. i think the lifetime -- >> host: afternoon in nashville, tennessee, back to booktv. >> caller: morning good morning. i'd like to say to april that i am a baltimorean, born and raised. >> guest: you understand. >> caller: yes. mostly below north avenue and she understands that demarcation. but. >> host: for those who have not been to baltimore, or balmer. >> guest: that's around around

the area where the cvss was caught on fire and where the police, the meeting of the police for that night, every night, during that time of riots. >> host: continue, joan. >> caller: yes. and just so many things i want to say, but going back to the recent riots, i was there for the earlier riots, but the one thing they did not -- i watched the news all the time wash that line of -- was the line of love of those older black men of the community who placed their bodies physically between the protesters and the police. i don't know if you all remember that but in the news media did not cover that, and that was something positive. and that's something that black people seldom get. they're seldom any differentiation between-0 or

among black people. they can say, people from countries that america is at war with, they can bring them into this country and disrep -- differentiate between the times. all mexicans norred rapists. all people from arab countries are not terrorists but pow don't dethe differentiation between the black people. 99% of black people can be described the same way as whites. god-fearing, hard-working, law-abiding, red-blooded americans but you don't hear. that what i would like to see is us black people -- first all, stop referring to ourselves as blacks. what's a black? what are the blacks? whites always -- it's white people. white people. they emphasize that.

so, you know, i understand being in the position that black people are in, you kind of acquiesce to the dominant situation. part of that is for survival. >> host: joan, thank you. formerly from baltimore, now nashville. >> guest: she is absolutely right. we're all one people with just a different mel -- color. and this is going back to what he said again. we were brought this country -- we're ancestors of those who are brought to country but not afforded the same first-class status, first-class living situations at others or and we are still in a situation, even though we are all the same and all focused on our pocketbooks and what affects or communes, we

still have issues were many people in the african-american community are living in substandard homes. the freddie gray situation put a spotlight on blight and the issue of trade and the fact that beth he -- bethlehem steel was taken out therefore country. put people were able to go into manufacturing and work. so we're like anyone else but we are put in this -- we when it's a black issue it is looked ore. >> host: david you talk about barack obama -- i think it was a datsun that had a floorboard -- explain the story. >> guest: that was his car in chicago. he took michelle out on their first date in that car, and that's the car that he drove up to harvard as well. >> host: do you think the presidency changed in how he

changed hit open upbrayinging. >> guest: the presidency has to change anyone eenorm lousily -- enormously. it's like the athlete have the greatest years. what is the rest of their life it? has to change enormously and i think he will continue to have the same larger construct of who he is, whether people embrace it all. i don't think that will change. i think on more superficial level his life will be forever changed. >> guest: he's a millionaire now. >> guest: yeah. the richest contract in publishing history for his memoir. >> host: what do think he'll earn? i think like 15 to 20 million. >> host: did he change the presidency? >> guest: no. not at all. >> guest: why?

he operated within it. we can take it back to nixon, way in which he tried to -- given the re caltrans of coming has ha. her it. don't thing d he had to leverage it. because of who he is, and because of the vitriol direct towards him. i think the office has been tarnished. not because of barack obama but because of the vitriol districted towards him. and -- and we probably saw this with nixon and then e then clinton and -- those at the moments use them as points so i don't the changed it for the better. think because of all the nonsense and ugliness that has been associated with his presence in the white house, think the office itself of the presidency has been diminished. >> guest: the culture of his -- the mod concern american

political culture is so much bigger than president barack ba. he is just reacting to it. >> host: did he enjoy the presidency. >> guest: many aspected he did. the found what he wanted. i keep thinking in my heart that this is what he was debt destined to do and i think the felt that destiny, and i believe he enjoyed it. die believe he video the even video the press? i think -- he ahead hated the body watch but the governing to help people. believe he enjoyed that and the pull from what from he knew, going back to aca and talking about mother and remembering how she had to del withmer medical billsle her cancer issues. also, when we as a community organizers enthough he could not call it by name, saying issues of race and they knew is, he

still thought he was helping, and i definitely believe that even though it was a situation where he did not like seeing it on a daily bay basis or came up he knew that he felt peace in his heart he added to the conversation and the discourse about issues that are happening in the black community particularly, when it comes to issue of policing that we have been dealing with for men years. >> host: elizabeth in jover next. >> caller: i'd like to area your panel's opinion on two subjects and both of these have to do with my opinion that the democrats have been unable to capitalize on two issues, that might have helped to shave support from both obama and me black population. i'm an elderly white woman but i'm old fluff to remember that denzel was robbed of an academy award when he became malcolm x. your topic, in my own world view

and like everybody on your panel. i wonder if county the democrats lost control of the election narrative on these two topics: number one nicer no dispute that most blacks and democrats expressed infrastructure about the injustice of recent police shooting. and the obvious discrimination that at the core of much of the most differently use of unjustified force. so where was the topic of judicial reform? if we can't rest assured blight october black that overuse of force will be prosecuted. i prom anious that i as am wary of the police as most blacks must feel. this a threat that has to be corrected. the second issue, the media and the democrats have, in my opinion, failed miserably at responding to the frustration

and criticism of obama by not reminding and teaching that without congress, this president has been unjustly thwarted his his entire term in office and our people need to know where to place the blame for the lack of action on any of obama's initiatives. the people themselves are at fault for elects others that are against their own interests. >> host: linda, thank you for to call. to issues, race and congress. >> guest: well, when it comes to congress, from the time he came in he -- he would go golfing, trying to -- with john boehner, trying to work things out and just never happened. and i believe to say something long enough, people will believe it. and this man had has been hitting his head against the wall trying to find a way to come to common ground and you hear this that he doesn't reach out. like every other president in

the nation he tried to unify both site sides of the aisle and didn't work and the blame needs to placed where we heard, the leadership. we heard mitch mcconnell same he wanted a one term. it never changed. and in just look at what happened at the end of his presidency. he could not get merritt garland a dade for any kind of hearing for at the sprem court. there was an obstruction built the republican party. they did not want to allow him anymore victories. it's plain and simple. you can same what you want to say but i cover it every day and calling it like i see it. >> guest: i think -- i want to challenge that. i don't think a general consensus that policing in relation to black people is unjust. i think the data points are very clear about this, particularly

in terms of responses to mike brown, brakeown break-ins of responses to freddie gray, eric garland. we sear much more 0 racial divide in terms of how people view policing, and then secondly -- we can see the way in which the clinton campaign and the dnc mobilized around to the i issues just by look democratic convention they had the mothers come in and then have police chiefs on and si tried to split the divide win the base and appealing to republicans and that takes -- the second question, quickly, the second point is that it's seemed to me that the clinton campaign and the democratic -- the dnc particularly -- intent a lot of energy trying to convince moderate republicans that they should vote for the democrat. and by doing so, she made a move early on in the campaign where

she distanced republicans from donald trump. and gave them the space to exist and run while he was doing what he was doing and basically they went home. >> host: the call-under talked about media. you work to legacy publication, the "washington post." >> guest: i refuse to do -- >> guest: it is -- >> host: my question is: how did barack obama embrace social media and more traditional media like the "washington post". >> guest: he prefer anything other than the social media, particularly the printed press. "the new york times" and the "washington post," we were the last ones to get interviews. he would much rather give interviews to other places than that. and i started in his campaign with a very practical, pragmatic realization that how you reach voter. so he didn't change the presidency but he was the first

president to really use social media in effective ways compliedly. >> host: am any trouble now i used the word legacy and tradition. i with ha few minutes left. want to ask you to complete the sense: in the obama legacy is what? give you a moment think about it. one more call from oakville, washington. terry, please be brief. >> caller: i'd like to thank president obama's wife for the obamacare and the first lady for the working with healthy food for children in school. am land owner washington state. i hope president trump opens up the super rail for the -- upcoming president to create job us because jobs, people bet well-paid jobs in the railroad and the regard is the most respect railroad on the planet. >> host: infrastructure is something that president obama talked about. and now donald trump is talking about. >> guest: we are nation with

crumbling bridges and crumbling roads and that -- he dealt with that early on home had a stimulus please for that and you look at the racial break down of construction worker, more hispanic than african-american and if you're talking about boosting the economy for those groups, but we are nation that is crumbling, and the transportation secretary talks built quite a bit and they were trying to push the highway bill and it just -- it was blocked. and there's a problem. >> guest: well whether trump is president follows through on the infrastructure plan he has and how it e effective it is it one thing but in larger sense it's a nixon on to china deal. obama would not have been able to get any transportation bill through through congress and chris -- >> host: finish the seasons.

the obama legacy the white house -- >> guest: the best example of tragedy of american history. >> host: because no dish race continues to haunt every speak. >> host: rain april. >> guest: the face and substance of america that we don't always want to see. >> host: because. >> guest: because when it comes to issues of race we tend to push it away and say, home not going to deal with that, it hi and who he is and to the position he climbed, he put a spotlight just by being there, put a spotlight on the ills in the community. >> guest: i'm going to stay from any arguments about policy. which i -- you sidewalk a lot of different things and just say i think he left a legacy of dignity and intelligence.

>> host: your next book is what. >> guest: a become about he house on american activities committee and various people who encountered one another there. minimum is on james bald win. >> now next book is out. >> guest: ways. >> race and black and white. >> guest: they want me to write another one and i have a feeling it might be trump. i'm covering it. >> host: have how thought of a tile. >> guest: black night, black and white,. >> host: april, edry, david, thank you for being with us on c-span chops' booktv in department. we hope you'll come back again. let us no when you publish your next book. love have to you book. all our programming is once chops.org and booktv.org.

>> in 1979 creation wheres threated at a service by cable companies and is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> welcome, a. aim fellow at the american enterprise issue institute. so thank you for for here and this is grand opening week here another ae aye so we thrilled you got to be part of this. we want to be the hub of active interested hope you get to come back more in the future. i work primarily on k-1212 education and the foundational

issues undergirding domestic policy, civil society andit decentralization, that's why this confidence is so important to me and i hope important you as well, because on one level this conversation about campus politics is about institutions s of high highered education and calm pugses and hundreds of bills of dollars flowing through them and students and faculty and at the temperment created by that ceremony. but also reflects and influences something much deeper which is do we actually still believe in the pluribus. >> do book arthritis great that he will people have different cultures and histories and views and they live them out and can come into spaces like universities that are about to the free exchange of idea and

mix things up and never have to worry about being viewed as a heretic. i'm not assigning yourself to a certain orthodoxy. because it couldn't be the case that our universities aren't just inculcating young people it a certain world view. they could be reflecting something that is going on and that can be unhealthy if we have got ton this point we don't i believe in differences of opinion and we think thatso forh parochialism is bad. professor john zimmerman the author of campus politics and is going to present to us on there is -- his new book and the conture of's what is happening right now, what is gone on actually on university campuses. a lot of of talk, some signals,, some noise and give us a sense why that matters. after that he'll probably talk for 15-20 minutes, give hem leeway. it's good book.