was awarded to the nine students who were still alive. by the time the lawyer got out of there, $350,000, the rest were $35,000 or $40,000. enough to put him in the ground and all that money was paid by the state of ohio. >> that is in the book detailing the levels of investigation with court cases and all the aftermath covered nicely. >> they were relatively quickly sent back to the army depot in pennsylvania. 12,000 of them were sent back, no identification whatsoever. >> howard means raised the word activism. in both cases, in both your stories young people are involved.

what will it take to get our young people active and the best form of protest? >> donald trump? [laughter] >> in the aftermath of president trump, there was a lot of anger on college campuses, and we don't do things that cause them to get in trouble with the authorities. the best thing for us to do is have an open forum to give students an opportunity to vent. we schedule this in a way that

holds 125, more than sufficient. if we tried to do something like this, we might have had 50 people come out. they were sitting in control, hanging out the door. we had not seen this enthusiasm for a long time. a lot of people mention the election of trump, seventh of november but i talked to a friend of mine who says this gives us something to keep fighting for because the worst thing we can ever encounter in our society is complacency and apathy and you don't want students, anybody, young or old to reach the point the we have won all the battles and have nothing left to fight for. so the silver lining i see in this cloud is something to fight for regardless of where you are the political spectrum or what your issue is, whether it is

healthcare, black lives matter, lgbt issues, whatever, there is something here for everybody and i have seen on my campus a level of student activism i haven't seen in quite some time and so i think it will continue. >> march for science april 22nd, march for climate change april 29th. >> this is somewhat oblique but i think we have lost a sense of ourselves as a civic body and my immediate response when you said that is we need a national service. we need compulsory national service which i don't see any other way to give a sense of common purpose and activism arises to some extent out of a sense of common purpose. >> we have time for one more quick question if anyone has one.

microphone is on its way. >> cautionary report of the day, 89,091, cell circuits enumerated the memorial and the congressman came and involved in some activity. >> we have time for a quick question. >> being on campus when you wipe out the troops near the pagoda they are looking down. when you get there and see a vantage point, jeffrey miller, the closest fatality, 75 yards away, 75 yards, you can read about it but it doesn't make sense to figure it all out doesn't make sense. >> couldn't agree with you more and i give penn state credit for

putting together a wonderful walking tour, they have a museum that reminds me of civil rights museum in birmingham, a smaller version of that very high quality and the narration as you walk around by julian bond is eloquent so i recommend if you happen to find yourself in cleveland or akron with a little time to kill head to kent state. >> i will stop things there with a couple final announcements to complete the evaluation form, the authors will be staying afterwards to chat & books. please support them and please join me in thanking the author for a really good presentation. [applause] >> you have been a great audience. >> you were not speaking to me? >> that is a good point. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> it is a wonderful tour.

>> i see you now. >> didn't have much redoing. >> still involved. >> give him my best. >> i will. i enjoyed it. [inaudible conversations] >> i asked somebody, it is easy. there it is, i walked over and it is right in front, so many hotels. i have to tell you this, having to get that to change. >> that is bizarre. >> atlanta.

we are talking about selma which is so critical. would people even get to the important sites going on? thank you for this book, all of it is like sitting in the back of the bus, give me a break. >> how are you. >> my name is joan. it is. we have a showing of that movie freedom riders. it is a great film. they were there. i felt like i was a coward full of incredibly brave people. and you do what you do, i guess.

and even when you were a kid. you guarantee something. and before she found out quickly. >> thank you so much. >> one for my child, he will read it. to john? >> born in selma in 1907. my wife had to go to an obstetrician downtown. >> some things haven't changed

much. >> wonderful presentation. doctor? and work hard for that. thanks. >> thank you so much. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> i enjoyed the talk. >> thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] thank

you. [inaudible conversations] >> do you remember a guy named dick breeder meyer? i talked to dick and in kensington he is out there. he said i thought it was all outside and we saw the photos of the fbi taken and every one of those students, we just didn't

know who our students were and you knew the good students. you didn't know the bad students. >> the most unlikely place, you picked a spot with students working in steel mills. >> you were probably working a job on the side. >> these were not radical types. they were easily renewal. >> the presence on campus is more than the war day. he left home on sunday and i am going to lay down my life if i have 2. when they really want to upset their parents, he did it. >> thank you so much. >> thanks a lot.

>> at bowling green, beginning in 71. they are very similar. >> if bowling green has a post, are they happy we can remember, i don't remember all three. >> you were okay the year after. and people remembered it. we actually visited, but it was a sense of shock. i was in butler university. >> condolences. very conservative school.

small. there were some demonstrations. >> i didn't realize -- i left here in 67 and they tried to burn down -- i didn't know that. didn't even know it existed and all of a sudden -- >> much like that. a lot of support for the war. very quickly. >> traditional -- are you living down there now. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you so much, great

talking to you. >> we have a moneyman over there. [inaudible conversations] >> that wraps up the third panel of the day. you are watching live coverage of the 23rd annual virginia festival of the book. the final offer panel will begin in about an hour, it is a discussion on the media. >> here is a look at some books that are being published this week. bill o'reilly ways in on america's cultural divide in will. john farrell chronicles the political career of president richard nixon in richard nixon, a life. annie jacobson offers a secret

history of us intelligence agencies in phenomena and. miss jacobson will join us live on in depth on sunday, april 2nd to discuss her many books and take your questions. florida congressman trey randall account his experiences running for and resigning from office in democracy. also published this week, 14 exonerated inmates share their story of wrongful conviction edited by laura caldwell and leslie clinker in anatomy of innocence. catherine marydale recalls the lead up to the bolshevik revolution in lenin on the train. former policy advisor and speechwriter for bill clinton, eric lou, shares strategies on empowering citizens in you are more powerful than you think. look for these titles in bookstores this coming weekend watch for many of the others in the near future on booktv on

c-span2. >> i wrote this book in the haze of depression from occupy blues not that occupy was depressing. it was very invigorating. this was written after that. in 2011, me and some folks put together a show that was looking at socially engaged art or politically engaged art from around the world, blurring the space between art and life. working on that show i was very aware of a different show i wasn't doing and the show i was doing was people trying to make the world a better place. i knew there was another show, people trying to get their own in the world and a bigger show is the one i have grown up with. in the sense of this exhibition the exhibition was about artists

and activists using culture to get things done in the world but of course, some would say aren't you aware of the tea party is the same thing? aren't you aware that in fact marketers like red bull are doing this all the time? my answer to all of that is i am quite aware of that and it is very interesting and maybe that is something we should look into and that is my book in a sense. i was really interested in a few things. one was this wasn't just for art in this book but i want to put art in the conversation with larger cultural phenomena because certainly the art world in many respects likes to talk about itself and we are still in 1922. like modernism is just taking off and the language of the arts is still in a sense removed from the world but i would say most of the lessons of the avagard

have been radically incorporated into marketing, public relations, branding strategies, the way cities are shaped and just to say the production of how we feel is a very powerful force in the way power expresses itself which we know. but what was interesting as i started working on this book is the difference between art and these larger cultural forces is scale, profound shifts in scale. money that we don't talk about unless you are a rich artist of sort. but in general the one off idea of the one expression, a discrete act is not the way power expresses itself.

it is in multiple images, impressions, optics. one of the tasks is to put into language, how to talk author. >> this is being aired, nationwide on c-span at 4:00, did not have to tear me up but very sorry. >> host: live coverage of the virginia festival of the book in its 23rd year will continue in just a few minutes. as you can see, festival attendees are getting settled in their seats in the city council chamber. the next panel, a discussion on the media, will begin shortly.

[inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at the current best-selling nonfiction books according to powell's books in portland, oregon. christopher knight lived alone in the woods for 27 years. and the stranger in the woods, followed by theoretical physicist lisa randall's explanation how dark matter may have been directly led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, dark matter and the dinosaurs, next is shrill! a memoir from humorist and feminist and the west followed by hidden figures by margo lee shattering which tells the story of the black female mathematicians that nasa whose calculations helped propel the us in the space race. from best-selling author joan didion comes two extended excerpts from her never before

seen notebooks in southwest. a look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to powell's books continues with a biography on adolf hitler. hitler, a sent, 1889-1939. that is followed by collection of essays on life in harlem by james baldwin. notes of the native son. next, explain the definition of feminism for the 21st century in we should all be feminists. followed by a look at the future of humanity. a look at nonfiction books according to powell's books is the biography of donald trump, originally published in 1993, lost tycoon. that is look at the current best-selling nonfiction books according to powell's books in portland, oregon. some of these authors have will be appearing on booktv on

c-span2. you can watch them on our website, booktv.org. >> people on the left, progressive democrats march in lockstep. it is amazing. the tape has surfaced in the washington post, donald trump tracking what they thought was in private doing their man boasts. remember trump famously or infamously said, when you are a star in hollywood, grab their genitals. a stupid remark. completely translated by the left into that is what i do rather is that is what i would

like to do but i'm too civilized to do it perhaps. i don't know trump personally but this was a private conversation from 11 years previously and when republican after another was horrified. i can't support this candidate. this is a bridge too far. jeb bush embarrassingly said i have two granddaughters, nothing donald trump can say whatever apologize, remarking in private to billy bush where they realize they would be and that is republicans. hillary clinton, she sold off her position as secretary of state, national assets, made $100 million for herself and her husband, she lied to the fbi, she lied to the american people.

she put our highest level secrets on a private server, violated her oath, violated the espionage act, opened our secrets to our enemies china and north korea, iran, the russians, horrific, she lied about benghazi, she lied to the mother of a fallen hero of benghazi, not one, not one democrat elected official said this is a bridge too far. i can't support this candidate. not one. brought this up in discussing the communist party because that is where the communist party was effective in political warfare.

everybody in lockstep. that is the way the left behaves today. political correctness is like a zipper with a lock over everybody's lips, you just don't say things, you don't say to a woman, you are a liar and a crook. a former first lady, former secretaries of state, you do it to a male but women are protected species. this baloney about being strong. strong women. elizabeth warren assassinating a decent human being, 40 years in public life, dedicated public

servant, champion of civil rights, calling him a racist, a letter that was repudiated by caretta scott king, violating senate rules and when mitch mcconnell says you can't say that, they are silencing another woman. that cripples conservatives, cripples anybody opposing that nonsense. intellectual you look at it, it is ridiculous and laughable. of the political practice is something. trump is a liberated force. i have waited 30 years for somebody on the right to appeal

like donald trump. coming out of the left and being used to understanding the left sees politics as war conducted by other means, that is the way they see it, that is the way they fight it, the kratz is what? character assassination, name-calling, hate, a party of hate, you see it every season and there is no limit to what they will throw at republicans to defame them, to destroy them. godzilla versus bambi. i waited. then comes the first primary to date, there is donald trump with the highest percentage of the

question, in a political debate, up against 12 of them, 12 of the most qualified, most experienced republican politicians, the first question out of the box in front of whatever it was, 30 million, 20 million, whatever it was, people, megyn kelly this is the first question. you referred to women as fat slobs and pigs. he doesn't hesitate a second, that was just rosie o'donnell. [laughter] ..

live from the los angeles times festival of books on the campus of the university of southern california. and on may 20th, we'll be live from the gaithersburg book festival in maryland. [inaudible conversations]

>> and starting now live on booktv on c-span2, it's the final author panel from this year's virginia festival of the book. and it's a discussion on the media, white house correspondent april ryan is the moderator. >> good afternoon, everyone good afternoon. charlottesville. how are you this afternoon? all right. yes, you can clap. [applause] >> welcome to the virginia festival of the book. and the panel discussion, hot discussion this afternoon. questions, expertise, and the president. not just for news junkies and we would like to think the city for providing the venue for today's event, and we want to welcome all of you viewers on c-span and tv 10. during the question and answer

pouring we ask that you please wait for a meek crow -- microphone to be brought for you. the q & a is coming up. i want to introduce our wonderful panel of authors. we're not washington. we're in charlottesville but these are top reporters and thinkers that delve into politics and we have a penal for you -- panel for you. frank sesno, the author of "ask more, be power of questions to open doors, uncover solutions and part change." a former cnn anchor, white house correspondent. he has interviewed dozens of world leaders including five u.s. presidents. now, i believe it might we six with this one, right? >> hope springs eternal. >> and he's also the creator of planet ford. let's give frank a big round of applause. applause maas.

>> tom nicholls, the author of the death of expertise, professor of national security affairs the u.s. naval war college and an adjunct professor to harvard extension school and a former aide in the u.s. senate. he has also a five-time undefeated jeopardy champion. five-time up defeated jeopardy champion. my gosh. [applause] >> i'm not sure i want to be on a panel with him. >> i wonder if he won the spelling bee, too. next, michael kranish -- >> my copy editor. >> michael kranish is the co-author of trump revealed, an american journey of ambition, ego, money and power, political investigative reporter the "washington post" and he previously coauthored biographs of mitt romney and john kerry

and the author of flight from monticello. thomas jefferson at war. a big round of applause. and marc fisher, a senior editor at the "washington post" and author of something in the air, history of radio and germany after theberline wall and received put litter prices in 2016, 2014, for reporting on police shootings and government surveillance and let's give the whole entire panel a round of applause. [applause] >> and of course, these gentlemen are authors and authors of these major books you see before you and they're for sale and you can purchase them after this q & a session. want to start off with each author talking -- i forget to

introduce the moderator. april ryan. white house correspondent and washington bureau chief for the urban radio narrative. the author of the latest book, black and white. i've been the white house for 20 years covering now four presidents. and with that, let go to frank sis dis -- frank sis noh. >> my park is born of be viewer and asking questions of all ranges of people. artists, scientists and business leaders and, yes, politicians. and the recognition and the realization that we ask entirely differently depending on who we're asking. and what we're asking about. what our outcome is and i wrote this book because i felt that all of accuse incorporate into our lives better, sharper, more purposeful questions to become better, more successful, more

purposeful partners and spouses and parents, and workers workerd inventors and learners and citizens. i feel, going into this, that i felt going into this that observing the world round us we are indone dated with information. no before in human history head so pa many people had so much access to so much information to rapidly but we have drive-by questioning etch going al question and get a quick answer and off we go what we need to do, believe, and what i try lay out in the book, in all of these cases, is pause, and question deeply, purposefully, sometimes tough, really tough, intense, and then listen and that's the other part i write about and that is missing so much of in america today and i know we'll get into that. how do we hissen? who do we listen to? what is the intent of our listening? what is the outcome and n and so the book what have done is i

have created 11 categories of questions. decisionic question doing diagnostic questions. what is going on here what's gone wrong? and whether it is your elbow or health care in america, we cannot reasonably suggest responses, answers, and prescriptions if we don't have the diagnosis to the problem. strategic questions. thinking down the line. looking over the horizon. each chapter revolves ron the character and the character for that chapter is colin powell. collin powell had to think strategically for war. and he asked president bush, only if we can say yes to these questions should we go to war ask the included do we have the support of the american people in do we know what our and it strategy is?

we went to war to push saddam hussein out of khweis and the ground campaign lasted 100 hours. the questions were not asked in the second gulf war and we're thrill and he said, powell said, you know, i'm left holding the bag because he knows his performance the united nations and elsewhere was insufficient and he was not allowed enough voice in asking the questions -- a loud enough voice. creative questions. what we ask ourselves and others to transport ourselves with the use of he a series of questions into the future. i want to finish and wrap because i know everybody wants to talk and we'll come back to this. i'll tie my other categories involved all these different -- and i won't give them because you have to buy the book. but as a culture, as a society, in journalism in media, and beyond, we need to do a better job of asking. asking the right questions of the right people in the right construct, over time, in the

fabled followup question. a to my students questions are like grapes, they come in bunches. you don't ask one and then move on. ask any reporter, especially investigative reporter, it's the fourth, fifth, tenth question down where you start to connect. as a culture, as a society, as a body politic we need start asking more and asserting less and understand what goes into the listening involved in crossing the divide. i'll close with this. one of i favorite chapters is bridging questions. this character is barry spodak, the group therapist for john hinckley after he shot ronald reagan. he advised the fbi, secret

service and u.s. marshals how to interview, waterboard -- interview people who issue threats to determine whether they might actually carry out those threats. dangerous threat assessment it's called. his whole methodology of questioning is about bridge-building, rapport-building. microaffirmations. really? i hadn't thought of that before. to draw people out who are angry, alien yesterday or distressed. there's a lesson in each chapter for all of us but i think that one in the context of today's question will be key, how do we use our questions to build bridges to one another so that we can, a piece at a time, understand those who are very different from us. >> wow. thank you so much. let's go to tom about death of expertise. >> well, i'll try to be brief so we can get to questions. i have to start by saying don't represent the navy or the government or hard lot or charlottesville or anybody but myself.

one questions gets, why write a book with such an obnoxious title and this very challenging, almost inure face approach, and it was because of was frustrated. i did not start this book actually was not born in anything about the election. i started writing something related to it years ago, and i found that i was trying to figure out how have we got ton this point where ignorance is common but prized. it's a virtue, something people brag about. i don't know how big in the u.s. budget is, and that makes me a better person somehow. and i -- the first hint i had this was happening was i noticed that people went from talking to experts skeptically. no one ever -- i certainly don't ever advise people is your doctor walk inside if a big needle say go ahead, wherever you think. i hit me up. of course not. i want people to be informed. i want them to ask questions, good questions.

i want them to be participants in their own health, society, whatever it is. this is born out of more than skepticism about expertise. this is peek starting to lecture back to experts as though they were peers and i found remarkable and the wordeye throughout the book that caused some controversy, this part of an epidemic of narcissism in our see site that is really out of control. i my background is in russia studies. know i am useful looking but i got my career started during the cold war and i was a russian speaking kremlin guy. that's what i kid. for a good part of my professional and academic career. and people would -- i was used to people saying, you guys are going screw up the world, blow thin planet. it understood that. then later people would say to me, you're a russia expert in

let me explain russia to you. everybody here has said you're a journalist? i have a few things totle you about journalism. well, please, let me 30 years of experience go -- if you have ha thought, i certainly want want to interrupt it. and i started to a question, why is this happening. why do people think they're their peers of professionals and operates ignorance? why did they respond to facts with nonsense -- i'm -- facts with fantasies and i think in the end -- i think disdove tails back -- americanes have become a people that don't want to be told anything they don't want to hear. they want to -- don't want to be educated. the want to be affirmed and have have somebody to blame, nothing is thunder fault and everything has a magical solution and experts walk in and tell you've

that number of that is possible, which makes this least popular person the party. but i decided to delve into and it we can talk about it more later. do identify some culprits. think that -- i think the modern university bears its share of the blame. the media bears some of the blame. certainly the presence of the internet, the galactic answer machine that is usually wrong bares some plame. but -- bears some blame. tried to identify the problem in this book. >> thank you. tom. michael, trump revealed. >> thank you. it's great to be back in share lostville way. here working on a book about thomas jefferson, contradictory character and fascinating. throughout my career, i spent a lot of time covering white house and congress and always striking that lot of people think what

you do in washington is good to press conferences, write down what they say and write a story, and spent four years covering the white house should you have my sympathies. >> i'm 20 in. >> april is a very good exam of someone would tries to dig beyond what the spokesperson is saying. my interest is for a long time has been what a candidate's live say about and predict perhaps what the person would do if they're elected to higher office, the presidency. i was the co-author of "the boston globe" of biographs 0 john kerr ask and mitt romney and in those case what we had been printing were not the case and i had an editor there the globe, and marty bareron, and his assignment to me is just start over with john kerry. with hey written stories for years and years. read those and then start over and leave nothing on the table. which sounds daunting but was a great assignment because, number one, it meant i had a lot of

time to work into shim and long story short, john kerry, i have been trust evidence to writing biographs of presidential candidate. we hat wherein that hays ancestry was irish and he was irish catholic. none of that was true. the family was jewish, the family name was koehn and never lived in ireland and whatnotted to change their him in to something that didn't sound so viewish, they dropped a pencil on the map, ended one county kerry in ireland and said, okay, kerry is the family name. and kerry himself did not know this story, and i have ever reason to think, having spent a lot of time researching this, he had some suspicions that one side of the family but knew nothing about this side of the family. including the fact that his grandfather committed suicide in the bathroom the plaza hotel where kerry has spoken for many years, so there's a lot in there that tells us, okay, this is little bit more complex history. what is the family history and what does that tell us about this curiosity.

in the case of mitt romney, i told him we want to do the same thing for romney and write about his background and career himself spokesperson said to me, why would you want to write a book about mitt. he's already written two books at himself. in the back of the book there was a 59-point about what he wanted to do for the country but they tell you almost nothing about who mitt romney is and what happened in his career. for instance, at bane capitol, he was great -- everything was wonderful. the more complex story is the only company he was ran was bane capital him and which is profitable but he ran other companies and there's a complex history what happened with each company he invested no. not ran, actually. now, when it came to donald trump, we had a much, much shorter time frame. but reality was the same thing. the narrative that donald trump tells about himself is pretty simplistic. he has been an incredible dealmaker, very successful, no

one has been as successful as donald trump has been, and therefore he would be a great president. but we wanted to find out what actually happened. the only way to do that is go step by step and we used a team of reporters to try to understand what happened. want to tell you one example and then move on to take question talk about the genesis of writing the book and that is one of the really surprising thing wiz found in the book, we all knew he had troubles in his career financially. the reality is that in the campaign he didn't talk about his failures but the failures were more illuminating. corporate bankruptcies, six. he created one public company and that was with a stock ticker of djt. that company had a share price of $35, and went down to 17-cents ahead. teaches millions, shareholders. no so much. so there were shareholder lawsuits. look at what happened yesterday on health care. people who supported while say, hough could this happened?

the great dealmaker. if you read the book, he wasn't so great sometimes. he was successful, able to come back but the reality is that far more complicated. we wanted to make sure the end of the day if one who was really interested who donald trump was. and were there all kinds of stores but here in one reading narrative you get the full story. whatever you think about donald trump, love him or hate him, you'll have a better understanding what he did in his career, what was successful, was was not success philadelphia -- successful. it's surprising how he performed as president. i always say no, i hasn't surprised me in the sleight els because he is acting as he did as a business person, probable problem has been that's not applicable to being president. even if you have a republican controlled congress. that party is at odds which is why he got elects because the

party was torn apart, and were able to defeat other nominees who might be the party powerful favorite but there's more too it than that. we were able to tell a fuller story that gives you a sense about what he was like in the business person and how he is performing now as president. >> and let's go to mark. mark, the co-author of trump revealed. >> michael gave you a sense of our mission, which was to find the complexities in donald trump's life. that was not really a concept donald trump was into. the entomology of the book, we had done a n number of books on the presidential candidates the "washington post" and in most cycles we had a good sense of year, year and a half in advance who the candidates would likely be and we could set people off to begin delving into the lives of a the candidate. as you recall from last spring, this was not entirely clear and

so mid-march rolled around and we said, well want to do a book but know who the candidate will be. so at that it point the republican choice seemed to be down to trump and ted cruz and we thought let's go with trump and see what happens. so i wi made deal with the pressurer -- publisher on a this and acalled donald trump's press secretary on friday to let her know the following monday would we would aoccupies nouns the book. so as a curtsy i called her and insays we're doing this biography on mr. trump and wanted to spend as much time as we can to talk about his life. before i could get explanation of the book out she said, you are profiteers off mr. trump. we will not be cooperating with this book. and i said, excuse me in this is a guy who spends all -- virtually all of his waking hours involved with media in one

way or another, whether it's watching cable news or talking to reporters, calling reporters out of the blue. >> or on twitter. >> right. and she said, we're not taking part in this. so we thought that might well happen and we had a plan for reporting the book around him, and researching his life and so on. -lo and behold monday morning the first call i got was from hope hicks i and told mr. trump about your fabulous idea, and he would love to see you come up to trump towers a often as you thought. and so one revelation from that is that hope hicks didn't know the man she was working are for and the other one this tells us something about donald trump and that is that if you're willing to write about him, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. he will be there, and that proved to be the case. he was incredibly gracious with his time.

gave us more than 25 hours of interviews of the course of the three months we were reporting the book, because we had such short time to do the back we -- there was no way that two people could do justice to a person's life in that amount of time so we put 25 reporters on the book and three or four reporters on each chapter so we had report who witness to atlantic city for six weeks and spend six weeks diving into the casino records and we sent reporters to his ancestral home towns in germany and scotland. we sent reporters to the foreign capitals where he had business projects and kazakhstan and panama and so on. but the core of she book in some ways is the conversations with trump where we learned as michael said, the main themes of the book which are really a good guide no to what we're now seeing unfolded.

his nothing but consistent. provocative, will do whatever it takes to get on the front pages and the top of broadcasts, but his -- the patterns of his life are incredibly predictable, particularly the way he deals with the press. you see him every day bashing the press. we're the enemy of the people, the opposition party and all of that. and yesterday, at 3:30 congress was supposed to take the vote on the health care bill, at 3:31, donald trump called bob kosto on his cell phone. book picked up the phone and it said blocked number and he thinks it's an angry reader. i don't know. and he picks it up and answer it and, no, it's the profit the united states. who had nothing better to do at 3:31 than call the reporter to spin the story his way and say, this is all the democrats' fault, and so he is -- the master marketer. thinking marketing first. thinking about the trump show.

how do get people to come back for the next insold of the show. -- episode of the show. that's top of mind always. >> wow. wow. [applause] questions, expertise, and the president, not just in the news junkize. that was newsy. i'm serious. i want to focus on history from yesterday. you talked about yesterday. it was historic, 64 days in, i believe, his first major loss. who is donald trump today after what happened yesterday? the fact that the republic republics, all ryan, had to pull back and not vote on trump cair to repeal and preplace obamacare, ore the official title the affordable health care act. who is donald trump?

who is he today? >> he was for the previous 50 years, guy who when thing goes well, all credit goes to donald trump. when things go poorly, he will find out who that person to blame and is destroy them. and so his immediate instinct was let's blame the democrats publicly. privately he is sending out another message, at people in the white house were discussing how to deal with this loss they were talking about we're going to blame paul ryan. so both stories went out simultaneously. so you had anonymously sources stores about this is all paul's fault and the straight dope from the president himself saying this is the democrats fat fault. it's fine with him because it's deflecting attention from trump himself. he was not involved in the actual policymaking here. he probably didn't know the bill any better than any one of us knew it. but he knew the messaging he wanted and he knew that he want -- was never terribly

interested in the healthcare bill to begin with and wanted to do tax reform first and is now able to say to the people around him, told you so. >> but michael, for a man who does not like to admit failure, this is not a winning picture for him. >> well, obvious he hates the picture and he lost office health care but his ick imagine has been shattered. he built his ol' reputation he is a great dealmaker and can bring the parties together and get things done and here he issued an ultimate. there would be a vote and there was no plan b. and then the last second he pulled the bill. in other words he wrenched and when you blink in washington, peach look at you the next time a little differently. they know you'll back down. don't have the same power so the start he had his travel ban overturned by the court and attacked the judges. and on health care, he lost and he blinked and i think the latter in the end could be the more damaging.

we could have said, okay, heard the voices, i'm reasonable person, wayn't could tom up with something else. instead he cast blame in classic trump style and backed him in corner and said the democrats have to come to me when it explodes and this was an issue for the party and simples. so sitting waiting is not the kind of thing an techtive president does. you want to be pro-active. >> frank, today president trump is on the golf course here in virginia, having meetings. and right now. and seriously. he complained about then president obama always on the golf course and now he is on the golf course and they're making it clear he is having meetings. so what are the questions for us? what should journalists be

asking todays a he is now moving the ball to tax reform and infrastructure efforts that still have yet to have a price tag on them. >> well, let me get to the future in a second. i'd like to comment on the present and disagree with marc just a tiny bit. don't think donald trump today is the man he was yesterday. he is the damaged president today in ways he wasn't. this is a very substantial defeat. and in politics, in certainly from my many years covering white house and washington, perception matters. momentum matters. your ability to pull people in room and crack the deal by cajoling, trading, doing the business of politics, matters. ronald reagan used to the the story that went before -- before he launched health care, he brought danny rostenkowski into the oval has and they had a meeting and rostenkowski was the

chairman of the house ways and means committee and said to reagan we both want tax reform so we'll work on this together but i have to say some things publicly that will distance me from you because i have to play to my base. i'm asking you keep quiet. if you can do that we can do this together and reagan said, well, sure. >> you do that very well. >> he has hangen around with the kremlin -- they shook hands and dade deal. who will shake hand with donald trump and will they be confident the can -- cliff. great leaders ask great questions and solicit questions from people who don't agree with him to break group think. did he ask who is the republican isn't that right did he ask what dough the freedom caucus want? did he ask what dough moderates