>>. [inaudible conversation] ... thanks for joining us at the bookshop, east city bookshop.

he was here for the first time? welcome, thanks for stopping by. we're excited to have you for tonight's event and just so you know, we do have one or two author events every single week plus our book club, two-story times a week, social gatherings like coloring books and wine so if you enjoy your time here tonight, check us out on social media, that's the city bookshop on facebook and instagram and the city books on twitter and the sign up for our newsletter and you will hear about the other cool things we have coming up. tonight it's our pleasure to welcome doug wead. doug is a new york times best-selling author. he has been an advisor to two american presidents and is one of the few living historians to have written about all the american presidents . he is interviewed six us presidents, seven first ladies, co-authored a book with one, has entertained sue

in his own home and has served on the white house staff as a special assistant to the president. he cofounded the charity awards with first lady nancy reagan and he is here to talk about his new book "game of thorns" with kenneth walsh who he will introduce shortly. after our talk we will have a q&a from the audience and you are welcome to purchase copies of the book so thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you very much hannah, it's my privilege to introduce kenneth walsh. he was the president of the white house press corps association that they put on the big dinner that they refuse to attend this year, one of the most prestigious events of washington dc and he has covered how many presidents, ken? six presidents. in the white house as part of the white house press corps. he's worked at us news for how many years? >> for 33 years. >> 33 years and senior

writer, he said almost every title you can think of that us news. he is a remarkable journalist. they are almost extinct, i'd put it to you that way. he may be among four or five journalists that i know of who i don't know where he stands politically. all the others, i can tell you if there left or right. i can't tell you where ken is because he's absolutely objective and pursues the story whatever it may be so i guess we could call him a traditional journalist or old-fashioned journalist but it's a profession that's disappearing pretty quickly, it only had a brief time so i'm going to turn it over to him.

he is the author of many books in his own right, the one that i love is a history of all theplaces where the president lived . like nixon in san clemente and the kennedys in hyannisport, he's written a book on that which you can find in this bookstore and another book that i love is the celebrity president. he talks about how presidents have become celebrities and it's part of their power today. an extension of the bully pulpit, and he's got a new book out, i'll ask him to say what that is and will get started.>> thank you bob. i'm a traditional journalist so i hope that by the end of this discussion, you don't know my politics and whether i succeeded in that for 31 years in the white house because i don't think i could have covered presidents ranging from ronald reagan to clinton to barack obama to both bushes and now donald trump unless i could talk about things right down the

middle but the other thing i wanted to mention is doug and i have known each other for 25, 27 years now so i hope that we can conduct our talk here we talk over lunch, that it was going to be informal, we welcome you to ask questions afterwards and find it whenever we had lunch and i do this from many sources, the best informationcomes from more give and take . so with that, it's a very interesting time for dogs book to come out. i have a book called coming out called ultimate insiders about white house photographers, the staff photographers, personal presidents photographers who are the ultimate flies on the wall. they hear things no one else years, see things no one else these that's my next book coming out in september but it's an interesting time for this discussion and for dogs book, "game of thorns"

because the town is the biggest parlor game in washington now is what is donald trump all about? what is he going to do next? what is going to happen, what does the republican party mean anymore and i hope doug can explain a little bit about that. what's become of clinton is a man so on but really it's donald trump who dominated the day-to-day and with his tweets, the overnight because in every news organization you basically have to have somebody covered donald trump from 11 pm to 4 am because he tweets out then. so there's another layer of coverage that's been added but i wanted to ask dog, basically just a basic question which you talk about in the book at great length . what did donald trump do right and what did hillary clinton do wrong? what jumps to the top of your mind as to how this election turned out, so many people

were wrong, so many pundits were wrong, so many people in my profession were wrong, people of both parties were wrong. what happened? >> i rattled off numbers but she out staffed him 5 to 1, outspent him 8 to 1 and trump did have a super pack that got started and ed rollins and jesse penn's got something going but she raised 32 million. her super pack raised more money than any super pack in american history and they spent it all. she had a ground game with 960,000 volunteers on the ground and it exceeded barack obama's ground game. she had eric schmidt, she had the ceo of google in charge of social media she had hollywood, she had academia, she had wall street, she had the banks .

she had 240 newspaper endorsements, he had 19 but he had a message. and the message was burned like a brand. everybody in america new what his message was. everybody in america know, if you ask them right now what is hillary's message? but they knew donald trump's message, to make america great again and we're going to get jobs back.i would say to them, at trump tower, you are off message and they would say we are on message because part of the message is not a politician and the american people were tired of politicians. theyhad the last two presidents, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer . i would argue it felt like free enterprise was dead, you had to be an insider. they saw corruption both on the left and the right and here was somebody ironically a billionaire but a troublemaker and they wanted to see everything upset so in a funny way, his off message,

equates mistakes were reassurances to them that this guy ... >> you talk about the clinton advantage, what was that and it really was an advantage in the end, wasn't it? >> it wasn't an advantage. she had the advantage of experience, all these things going for her but there was hubris obviously and yes. >> as i was out covering the rallies for both sides and i remember people in washington saying yes, the values are intense, there are giant crowds and so on that far outnumber hillary clinton's rallies but really it doesn't tell you how the election is going to come out. trump said the rallies do matter. and it turned out they did.

i wonder if you saw that coming, if you felt that intensity around the country? people said if you went to these places in these rust belt states like pennsylvania and ohio and wisconsin they saw all the trump signs. no signs for hillary clinton and in washington it was dismissed, people put signs up but that doesn't ended indicate what's going to happen on election day. i wonder when you saw it coming that trump was going to win yourself? >> i had bought here who by the way is giving the next book party, he was telling me there were trump signs all over pennsylvania and i said i don't see them and the thing i kept thinking of can was i remember george mcgovern, he had very intense rallies and i can't forget george mcgovern saying i don't believe these polls, i see this enthusiasm in these crowds, you can't tell me this doesn't equate to something so i kept hearing that echo in my mind when i hear trump say these rallies, i can't remember george mcgovern who was misled by

those rallies and the impact of those rallies but i have to admit that it took me off guard. i'm portrayed on youtube as one of the few that said he might win. i couldn't see, it's been a specialty of mine the evangelical vote and i have to say my wife miriam, she was running everything but was working on this bookand my daughter chloe who is around here somewhere taking pictures, they were helping me . do the research on the book but one of the things we had on was the evangelical vote and they dismiss it, barack obama saw that and he called up toward the end and said you are losing the white evangelical vote and you don't have it and they lacked that and after the election was over, one of obama's assistance wrote an op-ed in the washington post that said

why did hillary lose the evangelical vote vote, part of the headline was she didn't ask for it. that turned out to matter because 81 percent of them voted for donald trump and i can tell you from our experience, they were very conflicted right up till the end. he was glued, he was not someone they wanted to support but on november 4 when a bunch of celebrities got together and started using the f word and all kinds of profanity and then get out the vote, after this, after that and using jesus and i thought wait a second, with a bunch of celebrities get together and use the name mohammed as a curse word in a campaign song? what reaction would you get? one percent of the population are muslim, 78 percent are

christian so is that going to work? nobody in the flyover state paid attention to this but it does matter in those flyover states but trump did not have the role model qualities, he didn't live his life as evangelicals and conservative christians or practicing catholics feel someone should live their life as far as, the studio 54, hedonistic lifestyle and how he talked about women and so on. how did people get past that? use some of the buzzwords, there's a moment in the book "game of thorns" where he's in trump tower and he's depressed and despond, he misses the soul preacher norman vincent po who is a presbyterian, positive guy on fifth avenue. he would go down his list, he's watching tv and he sees this sexy blonde televangelist, and she's talking about hope and he calls her up on the phone and says gosh, your terrific.

he says can i get you up here? he flies her up to new york city and she walked in through the neighborhood so to speak because when you study donald trump's life he would always move into a neighborhood and rent, he wouldn't buy and he'd rent and then he hit the pavement. he'd walk around and listen to people and talk to people. he wouldn't buy a thing sometimes for several years and then when you thought he knew the area, he would buy. this televangelist, she walked him around the evangelical neighborhood. heknew the different subcultures . when you talk about 26 percent of the american population and you compare that to african-americans, 12.9percent, there's a lot of subgroups. he understoodthose and when he gave a speech, he would say things that would belittle him that they would pick up on that would go to the heads of the washington post and new york times. at one point , he said to paula jones , that donald trump, you should know i've

been married three times and she says me too. so he wasn't judgmental to him. they were soul mates so that's the story that has hardly been told in "game of thorns" and then the catholic story was, there's a story in "game of thorns" where bill clinton takes his telephone and he throws it off the roof of his presidential pad in little rock arkansas because he so mad. hillary ended staff, you wanted her to go to notre dame and give a speech, she wouldn't do it and when the emails came out, you can blame it on russia but when it came out what was in it, the captive spring, that was damaging and bill clinton's answer was you need to get out in front of that, you need to speak up and basically the catholic spring idea was once we get into power, we are going to set up and use committees and co-op and it will influence their

doctrine to make it catholic spring. >> more of a liberal, more socially acceptable, a lot of bishops were taking away and something for you to separate church and straight and get mad of us for talking over social policy. bill clinton wanted her to get in front of that and say were not going to do that, this is wrong. i denounced that, i'd just like republican would denounce a donation from the wrong person but her fear was , there's no reason to call attention to that. a lot of people believe and know about it, the news media is not covering it so let's keep it under wraps and bill clinton was saying you can't do that, it's out there. it's gone from bishop to bishop to diocese to diocese, you've got to get in front and say absolutely not,we had nothing to do withthis . >> you mentioned some of this came out of that email, 22 percent of the population of catholics . but this is part of that email, the league of massive

amounts of email from the clinton campaign and from podesta who was the campaign chairman, john podesta and jennifer call erie was part of that. both of them were catholic as i remember. which was why they had the expertise to feel they could influence. so how much was that, whether the leaks, how much difference did that make? >> i think they were big because if you think back, you remember when george hw bush one, he won with a tremendous landslide and he split the catholic vote 5050 with dukakis and yet he won a landslide because of the evangelicals he had. trump, he took the catholic vote substantially over hillary clinton. she could have gotten a portion of that as barack obama said afterwards if she asked and bill clinton felt

if she gone after them so she could have had some of those votes but i think those leaked emails did have a big impact and i think the clintons had belatedly come to that conclusion, i think their first reaction was it's all jim comay's fault and they said. they release public statements and said it's all jim comey's fault. you don't hear them talking about jim comey anymore. then it became the russians fault. in fairness, the russians gave money to hillary clinton, they didn't give money to trump, they gave money to her foundation and got the silicon valley deal, there was actually potentially theoretically and exchange, there was no exchange with trump. they help trump, okay, he's empowered. first thing he does is increase military spending. so the other thing i wanted to talk about a little bit done is the white working class. i know in the book, you talk

about how you pick this out and i was picking up from standpoint on how hillary clinton was completely missing the problem she was having in these rust belt states. they were confident they were going to win pennsylvania. the republicans always talk about winning pennsylvania which they almost never do. >> i didn't expect it this time. >> florida is a different area of the country but that happened with the working class. i know in the book i put a tag on it here because i propose and come from a working-class background myself and you said if they had been overlooked, despised, taken for granted, this is their moment to speak. they had been shamedinto telling the pollsters what they wanted to hear in the privacy of their polling booth . they had struck a blow. >> talk about that, he's not

a working-class guy, he's an american business aristocrat. how did he sends this? and michael moore was right on the money. when mike moore did this event in ohio, he teased the audience if you remember that, he looked out at the audience and said i know what you're going to do and they all laughed like they were little kids and he caught them in the act because he knew they were going to vote for donald trump. i think they resented being pushed and they resented the media, the condescension of the media. this is how we want you to vote. the common media mayhave overplayed it . and they just reacted to that. don't tell me what to do. for a little bit it might have worked but i think it might have been overdone and the media came off as

desperate. they did during the reagan years and they didn't like being called racists. they had voted twice for barack obama, the same group all through those rust belt states. they took great pride in the fact that they were white catholic union voters, twice they voted for barack obama, they were proud of themselves. they would love to see that stigma of racism ended and they took pleasure in voting for barack obama. now they were being called a racist because, didn't they vote for another democrat who was an african-american? i think they thought no, i'm not going to be pushed into that. >> the deep robles moment, talk about that. hillary clinton used that word to describe trump supporters and i think that was really offensive to a lot of people. >> it was worn like a badge by many people because i think the humor, it was overplayed. people said oh, we are quick to think the worst thing

about ourselves but if somebody else says something about us, it's critical. but here, the voters were just defiant. like i'm deplorable? give me a break.that's overreach and theypushed back and took pride and wrote the word deplorable . >> i want to go into what you make of what's going on extemporaneously with president trump but before i do that, what did you learn about the country from this campaign yourself? what did you learn about where the country is, what the country wants from its government, how much it changed the people want and what did you learn about donald trump? >> well, sarah third and i talked about that, about the way from passionate and

looking for hash yet, the publishing company who were terrific. they turned this book around on the dime, i don't know how they did it but it was very impressive. but what i took away is the american electorate, they were on to things that i couldn't believe they were on to and in some cases it was almost instinctive. they didn't know how to import export bank work for the average person, didn't know how the federal reserve worked, you know the stimulus plan which allowed was pushed by liberals and it allowed major companies to virtually ignore environmental regulations, if they had both ways they could say we are strong on the environment. they could let nature disregard the environmental laws but would keep them from small businesses so there was a lot of corruption and that's why towards the end, steve bannon and pushed trump

into this drain the swamp because the averagevoter out there , they couldn't explain what the details were. they had this in eight cents for a different group and they had it on the left, the bernie sanders people, they bunched that oligarchy. you had it on the right people who had come to the woodwork in 2012 and the lack of response to ronnie, ronnie came forward area and i was a bit shocked.he didn't say great, this is going to be easy, i'll step in here. >> i came away impressed by the fact that the average person out there, they got a good sense of smell and they sensed something was wrong and that's why they are picking fights. >> i just wrote a column about this for new us news but i think in washington we tend to make the mistake of thinking from the political prison what if you look at

polling, our institutions are in big trouble with people as far as credibility goes. >> like organized religion. >> church as people see it, congress. news media, the presidency has not 473 percent favorable rating in people's minds in 1973 to about 20 percent today. with 30 percent, congress is like nine percent. the only institutions that are above water in other words favorable ratings are the military and the police. >> it's just about everything else is as tremendous credibility problems and so i think that it's almost like people sense things have gone wrong here and for many famous polling questions of, is the country headed in the right direction or on the wrong track has been in the negative, that people feel it's headed in the wrong direction and people got there when they said, it's

this flawed candidate, a flawed messenger and i think that's to me one big lesson i drew from the whole campaign. but, i wanted to ask you about where we are today. >> donald trump is talking about doing things that republicans have traditionally light such as increasing the military budget as you said area and increasing the homeland security budget, just came out in his budget now and at the same time he's opposed to free trade, the republicans have liked for many years. he doesn't want to temper with social security and medicare which a lot of republicans want to find ways to overhaul. so what does the republican party stands for anymore and what is trump's, what does it mean. >> i think we're in a transition right now and the, it hasn't set. it hasn't been indeterminate

and i think we've been cut loose and we are adrift right now. but is like the old left and right no longer apply. >> there is a sense by some that the united states is like condo, it's like brazil, everything's up for sale. i think part of this is opinion, part of it is economic boom on wall street is what i described as jealous envy and by that i mean that yes, i get a loan from indirectly the bank or maybe directly from the federal reserve but i don't need it. i would do better in the free market and i don't have as big alone as you do so there's a sense that yes, there's corruption but i don't know that i'm getting the best deal in this corruption. i maybe beating the small businessman but i don't know that i'm beating this big company over here and almost a desire in for me, but what's in it for everybody

but getting back to who makes the best product and comes in on time. and serves the marketplace. i think there was excitement that maybe trump could find a way back to that so that is left or right. it's kind of a recapturing of free enterprise, we've lost a lot since 9/11, under two thirds republican or democrat. >> lost a lotof what? >> free enterprise.>> . >> of course donald trump's signature book was the art of the deal and in that he talks about his approaches to doing things and of course in the campaign he bills himself as the dealmaker who will get a lot of better deals for the country . how much can is business savvy translate into governing though because we haven't had a good experience with these presidents in the past.herbert hoover, he was a pariah. he was a big center but he did have government

experience so can trump convert his business prowess into an effective governing strategy? >> igive him some credit for some of the jobs that have come back. some people say that's just talk . but that's part of the process of being a leader is the talk and to say it and tried to get companies to please them by bringing jobs back. what i like is china, i think he was wise enough to see we've had can the largest transfer of wealth in world history, outside of the middle east. matching the wealth that is left for the united states on china. 2015, the trade deficit was $367 billion but that doesn't begin to account year after year, the money that we borrowed from china. we would think we wanted to and it paid off with the

manipulation of currency so they pay off their debts with cheap dollars and trump is the first guy to talk about it and the last three presidencies, clinton, bush and obama, the last three presidencies have briefed the skins for china. there's no way in the normal circumstances that would never have been allowed in the w's growth without the clintons paving the way. that was the defiance on china was given huge amounts of money for the dnc, the clintons. it was a scandal, the fbi started to arrest people, they fled to china and they had to give it back. most people forgot or ignore that in the book the eye show that neglect sing one of the men wired $1 million to the restaurant owner in little rock arkansas and he showed up again on the streets of manhattan, the fbi arrested him and don't know the outcome of that basically there was a suitcase of cash in his room so there was this one scene in the book where

donald trump is with mel anya and she is saying to him why did you have to do this, we were so hard and we finally have this great life and we have reached this moment where everything is perfect, why do you want to do this? and he senses that it's being taken away from him by mel anya and he says in the past tense he says but i could have been so good. i could have done such a good job, it's like he could be president and it was china, he's thinking i know what to do, i know what's going on and i know how to fix this and i could fix it, i have no strings attached . i'm willing to take this on, nobody else is and then it's at that point mel anya says well, if you want to do this

then you have to do this but she warns him you will win. she wanted to make certain he understood, you're not going to increase your market share area did you go for this, be prepared for the fact that you're going to win. >> there was always this chatter. that he really didn't want to win, he wanted to increase the brand and be more famous. >> that he would just sort of take, even the sense he would take his marbles and go home, he would give up the nomination or something but you found at the end of the campaign he was working harder than hillary clinton, he was at a lot more events and he really wanted this. >> and there's a part in the book game of thorns, there's a part where he's prepared if he loses. there was talk in the green room at fox, we will start our own television network and write a book called rigged and we will have a website and the landing page and we will have sean hannity come over and be on our television network. and he never agreed to that but that was the talk. so he was prepared for that

but rants previous and others said, i use it as a title of the alternative in the book, that it was you got the land the plane and they say that a pilot, that you're in trouble if you run out of fuel, if both engines are blown and you're going to die. you're up there. that the pilot is taught you do not stop flying the plane, you fly all the way down to the ground. you may die but you're definitely going to die if you panic. if youkeep flying the plane, you look for a field, a highway, somewhere the land. you watch for the telephone poles, high wires, the trees . you don't stop until you are on the ground or you are dead. like the fellow that landed at the river, that's kind of like a metaphor so according

to rants previous he went out there and started building ground game even though everybody said it was too late, he knew he could win without a ground game so he started about three months out, there was one you'll officer in florida, hillary had 57 and they completed most of their work. >> he had one but he kept building them and by the time on election day, he had 87 field offices in florida and barely squeaked out florida. if rants had done that they wouldn't have one so at a certain point in your life, they outspent hillaryand it came at the end and reince priebus said that, in one interview he said i'd rather in the campaign like this with the wind at my back . >> what he was in the white house, reince priebus. what do you make also of the willingness to take out after his opponents, to sort of the scorched-earth policy where if someone criticizes him, he has to respond to the slights and soon ? and particularly this

accusation that president obama spied on him at trump tower or ordered wiretapping. what do you make of that? >> i don't like it. and i wouldn't advise it if i were working in the white house on his team but as i said, it's seen as a quaint assurance to people who like the fact that he's got these rough edges and he's unpredictable and he's not a politician because they hate politicians but having said that, i have to tell you something. donald trump is not the first president to suspect that his predecessor spied on him. when the clintons came into power, hillary clinton you can read about it in "game of thorns" who was convinced that dear old george herbert walker bush was spying on them so he had the director of the cia which he had the secret service to the private apartments of the white house

and once satisfied had the fbi coming looking for bugs to see who was listening in to the previous president and eventually the clintons organized what they called the white house security personnel office and they put two of their own campaign staffers to run that, to access all the old files of their political enemies and my file because they had all of george w walker's files, the ones j edgar hoover used for blackmail purposes and he became a scandal called wild gate so trump is not the first president to think that. >> you can't forgive him for doing it, this is a case of one president calling his predecessor without evidence publicly and i don't think the clintons made that public. >> you're right, but they were very pestered by that that the white house staff

and the secret service were not loyal. >> you didn't remember all that and there's truth to that, they were right. >> they were right but the trump offenders would say, he's bearing it out, it's good to air it out and it may be that it's good to talk about it because after the news media said to us, this guy is nutty, he saying his predecessor was wiretapping, a few days later the big story is by the way, the cia and look at you through your hands on television set so which story is true? >> it may be the thing to talk about. >> i don't think we're on the same wavelength on this particular one. >>. >> but there's an expectation that they might have an elevated evidence and public disclosure but the other thing is in looking at trump today is how much can unify

the country? he seems to be focused on this idea of this sort of state that's buried in the government to work against him. the bureaucracy is against him, obama hopefuls are against him. >> you take that very seriously and can he bring the country together? >> i think he can, we saw an example with his speech, if he have kept, if that had kept going i think he could have. but i think he will, i don't know. i do believe, i know everybody has said this all through the nomination process, then through the general election that there's a point where is missteps could reach critical mass and he could lose his base but i thought it happened with richard nixon, i remember with richard nixon people

would say well, there's one more thing, then, there was one more thing. >> well, i'm still, but if there's one more thing and they kept doing that and finally they reached the point where they said okay, that's it but there's a lot of one more thing. >> there was with nixon but it did eventually reach critical mass. >> we had a sense that would be like this snap judgment type of thing or a change of policies or broken promises or do we really have much sense? >> i don't have a sense of it because everything is so scrambled because of the sense of the people and i think rightly so that there's a lot of corruption. and the cause of that, they don't know that they are willing to trust somebody else. and they do i think they do is being pushed. like your stories on tv, about how much money it costs to, to protect the trump

children. what do they want? do they want the trump children to be murdered? i traveled with the children of presidents around the world and they have to have secret service protection so are they are on tv and you say look at this money they're spending to protect the trump children. do they want leah and sasha to be protected, do they want chelsea to be protected, why would they not want, they want them kidnapped or mirror or something, of course not. do they want be active at camp david so they are given money so they kind of resent that and then there was a story, you correct me i'd like to know because i keep seeing online different accounts, there was a story that trump was giving back his salary or trying to find a way to give back his salary. if that's true, then the news agency to run a story and look at all his money he's wasted, he just down tomorrow lotto and not what he's taken in salary, i think that

omission is irritating to people in the audience. >> there's a lot of reports that tried to get the white house to explain where that stands if you started to get the salaries back. >> so we don't know. >> and also during the campaign, trump made a big thing about obama playing all the time, around the country. and he's doing it more than obama did.>> on a prorated basis so there's a lot of. >> by the way, would you tell the story, if you would tell the story about george w. bush electing as the new president, he tries to take back washington and the only people on the plane that explaining is karl rove and you. and i don't know who else but then you sit down with the new president elect. for president, i think it was president-elect and he asked you about well, i've got this

number of ways that story could come. >> people are conflating a number of stories but i know there was one in the story,80 is the one you're thinking about . >> i had the time of the ranch, well there was a lot of stories about the ranch too. one i think that is relevant here is how once he was in many ways because i remember i first was getting to know him before he ran for president, he was as the governor rejects us and i had known him as the fathers from computer as you remember, she worked with and then two and i went down to austin in the office where karen hughes was his spokeswomen, left the room and it was me and him and he was showing me his baseball collection. i gave him this mickey mantle. >> i said that's a great faculty. >> but he never said thank you. he was sitting there by

ourselves and he said you know, i hope now that, he had been elected, i'm president that you and your colleagues will give me a fresh start. i know it's different, i used to be a fierce warrior for my father and i know there are different roles area that might be a little residence with trump in the campaign and so i took a risk and i said, he knows i tell the story. i said mister president, in those days, you were pretty much an. [bleep] hole. and he said you're right, i was. that's the way the story went. and he was very much saying just give me a chance, i'll show you i can do things better. and a lot of people didn't give him a chance, particularly after 9/11 in person he was a much different guy than he came across in public.

he was much more engaging, interesting guy buthe , also he did go to his ranch a lot. i remember traveling around there with him and he, driving his pickup truck, there was this lingering cedar which he felt was an invasive vegetation and i said what are all these flames all over the property and he said well, i'm burying the cedar and i said isn't that against the environmental regulations? he said i'm going to do whatever i want. >> maybe i'm spacing this out or something to the effect when you are down on the plane, he asked you how many days did reagan spend on the ranch? >> i don't remember where that story goes. i know how many days it was because you gave some idea that it was 60 days and maybe he was relieved. >> going back to washington

and you already can't wait to get out. >> he conceded that, he was at his ranch 400 and some days but reagan was at his ranch for almost a year out of his eight-year presidency that he did pay attention so people are already measuring trump in tomorrow lotto too much but i thought that was great and i've got a george w. bush story that relates to issues today and that is donald trump said that he thought his predecessor obama was wiretapping. obama's statement, released statement was the president never directed that donald trump be wiretapped. as soon as i heard that i thought oh, because presidents don't direct. that's 1000 years old, that's henry ii. will no one really from this medicine priest because it raises a legend in the story that it was just astonished

that his entourage couldn't figure out he wanted that man murdered area and finally he said, will no one rid me of this medicine priest and they raised up and said, richard thomas beckett, i remember being on an airplane with george w. bush. >> where i said to him i'm going to do this, this, this what i was going to do. it wasn't illegal and he kind of grunted and moaned. and i took that to mean okay, that's what he wants me to do and i did and it turned out afterwards he was happy, that's what he wanted me to do but i thought back many times he never said yes, that's what i want you to do so heads of network, heads of magazines, of mafia leaders on the street, presidents of the united states, they don't directly want you to bog donald trump apartment but you quickly figure out what they want. >> and their tell you what

they want. >> there's also this notion of plausible deniability, i remember that phrase from nixon. you don't want the president to know certain things but the president wants to have a way of denying that he ever knew about it but. >> you don't open your mouth in front of me. >> your example is a good one but there is also this whole foreign intelligence court system which operates independent of the presidency's orders. so there's a way that happens in surveillance to but i suspect will be hearing more about that. >> but i think you know, the common you see signs that trump is thinking that he has to cover himself or do you think he just doesn't feel that's necessary? >> i see him quiet now, it's been on the network news saying five days, he hasn't

entered this and when i see that i think of hillary clinton who took 300 days before she had her second press opportunity but live and counting, that he hasn't responded so they're trying to build a little suspense and come on, that's great. he's gone five days or seven days so good for him. >> you haven't been in the white house yourself, you think this idea of the disarray that's being reported and talked about is overdone? do you think there is disarray or is that normal? >> i remember with george herbert walker bush it was john tower who was supposed to be this secretary of defense and this is so comical, the u.s. senate was outraged and they got to wideness up, there were outraged and they said he can't be secretary of defense, he's an alcoholic. >> the u.s. senate, to criticize somebody for being alcoholic is just as bad and hypocritical. >> he didn't make it.

>> exactly but as you say were getting a sign that we have to move along so if anybody has questions or however you want. >> also our live streaming dedication for anybody on the streamthat has questions . >> or comments, you may have a comment. >>. >> which us president would you like to donald trump to know and you see similarities #ácustomá the one i compared the most to is andrew jackson . the first six american presidents were of his companion and your campaigning against these for president and here's andrew jackson who was like donald trump and they were all six presidents from the east coast, he was left. all six presidents were part of the political aristocracy, former secretary of state, two came from the same

family, john quincy adams. they all stayed at the national bank which answer jackson said is making the rich richer and the rich poor and they wanted a second national bank. he said absolutely not. he was profane, he was crude, he had bullets in his body from duels and from battles that he had fought as a general. when he came back after he won the election, they made the white house turned into a wreck, it was like a drunken party. he had to speak out, go to hotels his first night in the white house so i compare him and then he took revenge after he won, he appointed all his positions to his buddies and to businesspeople instead of the political elite who wanted those positions, the spoils system as it became known as the spoils system and it became a scandal to eventually but that was andrew jackson so i compare to him, some comparing maybe to teddy roosevelt, only to the extent that it seems to be willing

to bust up some of the corporations, that they feel have an unfair monopoly. >> i was going to say andrew jackson as well, but the previous set for another couple reasons, one is that it is the temperament comparison, the anger that he felt, he would show anger. on behalf of what he then use this phrase but he felt there were forgotten americans then . that trump feels are around now. he was expanding them and they really, a lot of americans felt that before that they were not being represented. during the campaign, one of the reasons he was such a tough guy when he was president is because his wife rachel married her and she was not divorced from her first husband because he was very abusive and she didn't realize the divorce and not one through. so there were opponents in the campaign that ate her out to be an adulterous. she didn't realize this was

going on and they kept the tempers and she found out about it and she died before he took office of a nervous breakdown and he always blamed his adversaries for killing his wife read . >> that's a pretty harsh way to start your presidency and when he took over, he was so angry that he was very aggressive against his adversaries. and the other interesting comparison is that he set up his own pro-jackson media. which is what trump is doing with his going to the all rights media and breitbart and these other organizations. jackson was the forerunner of that, he would actually have is favorite newspaper editors to the white house and he would dictate to them. i'm sure trump would like to do that himself but he goes on twitter anyway, but the technology has changed and there are a lot of comparisons there. >> you mention in your book

about the high-tech technology that hillary had and the republicans had none of that. is that, what does that say for the technology and what does that say for the republicans did get organized with technology. >>, sullivan. >> we've got all the attorneys in the world. >> you want to. >> the republicans, when reince priebus was head of the national committee he said that sean spicer who is now white house press secretary, his chief strategist said they were going to have technology that was comparable to the democrats, they had gotten them. >> it turned out they had not but it turned out also that they were fighting and looking at fighting the last election. they had other ways of dealing with the country,

they didn't use the old micro-targeting and so on with the democrats rely on and did very well but they missed the boat in these seven key states where micro-targeting didn't get to the efforts that we've been talking about. in the restaurant rust belt states, but i think that one thing i think we might have learned from this election is we can overdo this idea of technology, political technology is the be-all and end-all. i think we've had to reevaluate that. in addition to pulling, we have toreevaluate how much the polls . i must say that the pollsters did pretty much get the national vote right. hillary did win 3 million more votes than he did, california and new york but she did come close to what the pollsters said the national margin would be but electorally, that's where the pollsters were off in those seven states and if you do your own, if you doyour own search , go home and put into google and start searching

some of these issues, you will see how google plants pretty dramatically comparing to situations like yahoo or being or internet explorer. any other search engine and compare it and you will see the power of taking control of the search engine, the clintons were able to take control of the group of search engines and you could type in for example as you do right now, type in hillary clinton cri, if you do it in bank or internet explorer it will automatically finish hillary clinton crimes, hillary clinton crime family. if you do it in google it will say hillary clinton crimes and the second one will be hillary clinton criminal justice reform speech will be the second

choice. if you go to the google search and you print out what is searching on google, you won't find hardly anybody searching hillary clinton criminal reform, criminal reform speech. you find very tiny percentage of people but it's up there at the very second search so in the area of wikipedia, she did a great job and they dominated wikipedia in an area of google searches with the count of the former ceo of google, they did a tremendous job so the republicans have a lot of work to do technologically. >> during the research for the book did you come across stories you wanted to put in

the book but you couldn't validate? >> now it's your turn. ifyou don't tell the stories, you have stories that if you wanted them in there but you couldn't validate the story where you tried to get it in there but maybe heading, you couldn't get out . the editors are better than me but the editors at high ship were very thorough. the attorney spent almost a week going over where did you getthis , what their attorneys would say so there were occasionally some not good enough. but most of them we have multiple stories like for example the story of hillary when she learned that she lost the election. and when it dawned on her that if she let slip away, i didn't want to put that in when it first came out because it seemed like voyeurism. i wasn't sure it was true, then the second source said karen gap glass, screams, profanity, and so there were all of this going on and the

second source wouldn't give it up but after the resources i said you know, this is the part of history and somebody else was going to write it. i said you know, i can't control what happened and didn't happen so i wrote it and then one ed rendell the governor of pennsylvania came on national tv and says i got the peninsula hotel, i saw that and i said she's very angry and yada., i thought yes, there were stories. but i was troubled by the source who worked for her for almost 20 years who said that this is troubling to me. >> and her secret service agents. but the woman assigned to protect the life referred to her as first as barbara bush would say, it rhymes with which. that was what she called her and when i heard that i said

as a person, you're kidding me but no i said what did you think when you heard that? i said it was very disrespectful, i was astounded that this person's going to die, take a bullet for her and why, but he said after i worked for her a while, i said it was a very material personality and i was surprised she would act that way so there were some stories that didn't get in but not too many. we went with what was there and there's a story of johnny , who had been, we don't know where he is. so we made this videotape that if anything happens to him or he disappears, he made this videotape and made it for his lawyer and for 15 people, one of our researchers got it, we had. and he's in the people's republic of china and he disappeared. he was the only of 140 witnesses in china, he was the only one that actually testified before congress and told what he had done and what happened and that the

money did indeed come from the people's republic of china. and i'll say this, after the book was published, i got a phone call from a crystal voter who said that i've read some of the stories about your book, i voted your book and i have a story that i think when would now be told and so he told me the story and i looked him up with the fbi. >> i said the fbi may not be interested in this, it may be old history but they may have something they want to finish up. >>

if you would fill the order for this company. so that's an interesting comment that the potential news story, like the kennedys and fdr we are just a little with some of the things that went on. there are things we are still going to learn for years to come about some of these presidencies. i put everything i can in the book i did. anybody online that -- >> one question. do you believe without brazing he is that the trump-pence potential to push back on the political correct culture which is making it increasingly difficult for conservatives to stand up for their conservatives, even difficult convictions? >> i think he has. i don't know what your answer

would be to that, but i think he is very politically incorrect. spirit i think he has pushed back a lot. the other part of it is our conservatives are emboldened to speak more freely, and they have their own fragmented media culture, there's many more outlets for conservatives to be heard now than there has been in my lifetime. same for liberals really, just broken into compartments and we talk to each other in our own little political worlds and don't talk to people beyond them. i think that's a big problem for the country. i think conservatives are very much emboldened to speak their minds as are liberals. it's just that they are talking over everybody else, both sides, and i think that's unfortunate. >> the anger is really disappointing to see that. when you live in other

countries, travel and other countries and look back on america, they are so close. when you get do they seem so far apart, so angry. we might make families, some of the worst acrimony can happen in families among cousins or siblings are the closer they are the more intense the rivalry can be, and that's how i kind of see it. i wish marco were here tonight because he helped with the book "game of thorns" eddie did a marvelous study on the media. and he tracked every moderator of every presidential debate, and there were 126 of them i think, and because of the internet that was no mystery now. he could clearly identified liberal or conservative 121 of them. starting with howard k smith. they would say something i in te speech and you can find online and identified himself very clearly. you remained a mystery. they were overwhelmingly like

121 out of 125 were liberal democrats speak with the other thing about these debates that are interested in your view about this is, if you look at that you debate, the kennedy-nixon debate in 1960 where the people watched it thought kennedy one. the people who heard it thought nixon one. if you look at the role of the moderator, you sitting in the back. they had a panel of reporters who were not even facing the camera. the candidates were absolutely at the center of this. when introduced the reporters they had to crane their necks to turn around. very awkward. but now the moderators are equal to the candidates. they probably have as much time as the candidate to do, and i think that's a troubling thing. but that's another way it's a change. the political part is one part but the other is the celebrity culture that the moderators think that they are as important as the candidates are.

and the first debates like lincoln-douglas, those debates, there were no moderators. do with the clock. they just spoke for an hour, an hour and half and in the next week got to speak. now it so much different. i think there's going to be some changes next time around. i think the country also gets to the point where they feel this, there's probably too many of these debates. it was quite a show. >> absolutely. >> but like i say the celebrity culture, it's part of what we are as a nation. >> in "game of thorns" deal a lot with the debates in the poison of megyn kelly, do you know that story? she's on her way -- >> in the coffee. tell that story spirit the limo driver offers megyn kelly some coffee. no, no, no i don't need anything. you will feel better. no, no, no, i don't want anything.

they go a bit further and he says please, this will relax you, okay, so she takes the coffee and she made only gets violently sick. she gets into a bathroom and she starts throwing up, and so she covers up with a blanket. that was the debate where she says to donald trump, you call women fat pigs. that was the question that came up it she had a blanket underneath the desk to cover her up and felt like she already caught the flu, or why she poisoned? very interesting and having worked in political campaigns, anything is possible. >> exactly. well, you remember when bush was running against dukakis in the debate and roger ailes later had a fox, he realized bush was nervous so just before the debate started he made a big moment of walking out on the

stage just as red light was supposed to go on on the camera. caucuses looking, what's going on? he hence bush a piece of paper and bush looks at it, smiles. on the paper was the word kill. but it just relaxed bush. it was sort of a jokey moment. dukakis was thinking, is a some kind of a secret ambush going on? is sometimes the advisors have to use those techniques to get the best out of the candidate spirit one of the stores in "game of thorns" was the collusion between the clintons and the bushes early on. they both have the same donors or if you look through list of donors, major donors were identical. early on the clintons sent the signal to the bushes, don't worry about donald trump, your boy is going to be okay, meaning jeb bush because there's a silver bullet and it's going to take donald trump out of the campaign. i don't determine in the book whether the silver bullet was the british secret service file

or if it was the access hollywood file. because there's a whole nother part in the work in bc is trouble over how to release the access hollywood file and when. but because when billy bush was involved, most people assume it wasn't that. so right away the jeb bush campaign is related in the begin looking for the silver bullet. this is obviously going to be something that will be easy to find because the clintons are telling us about it. they started looking for it, and i was a part of a presidential campaign with george h. w. bush, and his opposition research with something to behold. he punched the buttons in, you went into this labyrinth and there were dozens and dozens of people in local cubbyholes and it was pre-internet, and stacks of national geographic and life magazines and camcorders following every candidate everywhere they went. it's hard to imagine how much money they spent on opposition research.

such jeb bush opposition research in the state intelligence officers and bugs, couldn't find it. so finally as they got closer to the nomination, jeb bush and his people, person in particular, approaches the clinton people and says, now, what was that you were trying to tell us? their asking, are we getting warmer? they needed a little hit, and by that time the clinton campaign is saying no way. if you can't find it you are on your own, because they thought this guys going to win, trump is going to win the nomination, we will face them in the general and we will say that silver bullet for them. >> the other as you well know, the bush family, they believe in sort of a certain nobility in public life, but they need a tough person around them, the master of negativity.

lee atwater was, he pioneered a lot of the negative campaign techniques. if any of your interested, lee atwater is a fibrous story on how he reentered the politics in many ways -- fabulous -- by focusing on the negative. he was the guy behind the hole, they could find some apple, whenever needed to, he knew how to do that sort of thing. and then bush the sun, the father also at roger aisles who was no pushover either. and then george w had karl rove. he was another tough -- >> and the father had jennifer fitzgerald for a while and dick, no, who was the other got? >> sonu no, but then before he went in he had, i can remember his name now. that's what happens when you get greater. you're right, he always at somebody tough who could be the stalking horse so he could be the diplomat, which he was.

>> it's so negative. we that negative campaigns. >> think you very much, and thank you for joining us tonight. it's been a pleasure to host your talk. please feel free treatment for a little bit, get a book, have assigned, mingle with the authors and thank you for visiting east city bookshop. [applause] >> you see why we like to have lunch and talk. [inaudible conversations] >> this is a booktv on c-span2,

television for serious readers. here's our primetime lineup. >> that'll happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> this is a crazy idea, lazy idea. and to buy those who don't like

judaism and doesn't understand anything. on the other side you have some secular might who i would call orthodox, they say could use micro repeat the same models, the same sacred models as a sort of -- [inaudible] so a real dividing line is not this one. the real dividing line is between those who believe that judaism is a test, is an adventure of the spirit, is a metaphysical -- [inaudible] and those who believe in the comfort of being a. to to be a jew is not comfortable.

at the foot of the sinai when moses came to all the little use mac at this time, moses knew that the role had been proposed to all the nations of the earth. he knew the secret. he knew that the deal at some say today in america, that deal had been proposed to all the nations, that all of them refused, and he -- [inaudible] to the poor little jewish people who accepted the burden, who accepted to do and to hear, and then to hear the new modest, the mecca new, moses knew. believe it was easy, they knew that to be a jew is not an easy task.

that to be a jew is not comfortable state. they knew that it is not even a state. to be a jew, i'm not a jew, rabbi, but you are not a jew, 65 days of the year and those moments of your day. there is a moment where you're more jew than other. to be a jew is not a brace that is fall on your head and what you just have to entertain, sort of spiritual capital. it's much more than that. there is to name for the last time, his most famous book which is the best introduction to his work is called difficult -- [inaudible] he could have called it difficult judaism.