.... .... >> jonathan morduch and at 11, mark pendergrast explores revitalization in atlanta. first up, near is newt gingrich with his latest book, "understanding trump."

[applause] >> good morning and welcome to the national press club. i am from the new jersey advance media and star ledger and past president of the club. columnist george will once said the late senator daniel patrick of new york wrote most -- more books than most senators have read. newt gingrich has written more books than senators have read and now there are four more house members. we will speak for 20 minutes and then questions from the audience before signing the book. if you have not purchased the book, please, do so now. proceeds benefit the journalism institute, the club's non-profit that does training and helps the club on freedom of press issues.

before beginning, please turn off or silence your cell phones. i would like to acknowledge the members of the head line team responsible for organizing the event. if you are in the audience stand to be recognized. mr. martin, mr. matthew, larry ruso, heather, bill pierce, bill lawsuit check, frank and staff liason, lindsey underwood. thank you all. [applause] >> i first met newt gingrich 40 years ago at a town hall meeting he was holding outside of atlanta and asked whether governor andrew cuomo would win in the south but he never ran. newt gingrich did run in 2012 and i got to spend a week with you in florida while running.

in the interim, he became a historical figure leading 40 year effort to end democratic control in the house and became the speaker in 1995. he resigned following the impeachment of clinton. while speaker gingrich reached the polls, he came close but trump wound up as the nation's 45th chief executive. from the top trump advisor and someone still close to the white house, speaker newt gingrich is in a unique position to talk about what makes this unformer business man to tweak.

he is the first person to never ran for office before and came out of the business world. this is quote the first book written about the world of president trump by someone who is actually a part of it end quote. speaker gingrich, thank you for coming. [applause] >> since you have both been in washington, it is usually the establishment candidate who wins the republican nomination. george w walker bush, george w. bush and mitt romney over you in 2012. but in 2016 donald trump got it. what changed between 2012 when you were the insurgeant and in 2016 when trump was and won?

>> in '64 gold water won and in '80 reagan won against the establishment. those were the precursors to trump as i think the contract with america was in '94. i felt a little bit fortunate in that i worked with reagan both his candidate and president while in congress. we had the contract with america and now you have trump so i think the three have a conti continuity. trump is a better candidate than i am. you have to start with that. he is a unique phenomenon. he called and asked me for advice on debating and i laughed at him. i said you have a unique style, are stunningly effective and if you try to do what i do you would be screwed up. i think he is a better debater than i am if you measure the audience rather than a princeton

debate system. this is about competing in florida -- there is enough resourc resources. one of the great acts of genius in american politics is this showcase. this is part of why i wrote trump in the city. donald trump has a prime time television show. there was a top show in the

country for four years. and nobody in the city was friday this. what trump learned was that any publicity with your name spelled correctly builds strength. he was happy, and this is part of it, and i think he should modify what he is doing in terms of the tweets and all that, i told him that i think 10% less trump would be 100% more effective. but he had figured out early on that if he could get face of the

24 hour news system and the power of facebook and twitter could allow him to take the system. trump got up in the morning, he would tweet and that would set-up the argument morning joe and he would call into the the morning joe and they would argue for 20 minutes and then call into fox and friends and they would have a love fest for 20 minutes and then he would have breakfast. all morning the media is covering the argument trump is in the middle of. about 10:00 he would do a press event and then an hour in the even on hannity for free. meanwhile, all the competitors are off the air trying to raise money to get on the air. what was happening is just the sheer name id. there is only one poll in the entire campaign where trump is

not ahead for the nomination. he was the front runner from the day he announced except one poll where dr. carson pulled ahead. nobody in the lead media could say to themselves if he is the frontrunner of every poll, could he be the frontrunner? since they don't we crazy, he had to be crazy. if he was crazy, he couldn't be the frontrunner. this went on and so they have learned nothing. the stuff you get on tv is as stupid and as wrong as the people who laugh when he announced, the people who laughed in the primary, the people who laughed at the general election. they haven't learned anything because it is reputation of

their own life. their choice is i can believe in a fantasy that validates me or a world that invalidates me and i pick the fantasy which is where we are. it will be interesting to see how the dance continues because i think trump will figure out on angle to broke out of this in a way that is historic. it is happening. people haven't learned you are saying. look at the whole russian fantasy. what happened election night the democrats said hillary can't have lost. and certainly donald trump can't have won. so somebody cheated. this is all putin's fault, you realize? and that means they must have culawsuc collud colluded. everyone is chanting watch for the russian connectioconnection.

even diane feinstein says there is zero evidence of collusion. but the newest is obstruction of justice over the collusion. so the fantasy that didn't occur is now being replaced by the president of the united states can't obstruct justice. if he wants to fire the fbi director all he has to do is fire him. and somebody said if john f. kennedy had fired jay edgar hoover over investigating and wire tapping martin luther king, jr people would have thought it was obstruction. it is not collusion. so what is the latest leak of the washington post whose record of running anonymous leaks has beaten "the new york times." i give the post credit in their energy they have been more consistently wrong than the times which is in the olympics of stupidity.

so muller who is not getting anything on russia is now looking at finance. this is why i opposed the independent council act. you bring in a bunch of high price lawyers who give up their regular career and they are going to look for a scout. the fitzgerald case where comey brought in the god father to his children fitzgerald, in order to appoint him as special council when they knew there was no crime because valerie was no longer a protected name at the cia and they knew who leaked it and they still appointed independent council who decided its mission was to get dick cheney. it is the most grotesque

mischaracterization and danger of the government. that is why i am worried about muller. he is a patriot and not a bad person. he served with great distinction in vietnam. he is surrounding himself with a collective group of people who are going to engage in a witch hunt and i encourage everybody to read author miller's the crucible and understand that is the mentality of the left. the left is engaged in the salem witchcraft process of we know somebody is evil, somebody is bad, i wonder who we should burn at the stake. maybe it is you. i had two young ladies, i gave a speech at cornell and two women from the college republicans said if you smiled people yelled

at you because it was inappropriate to smile after trump won. >> i know the crucible play. a friend got to play in that. >> i think that is the mood of the left right now. >> let me ask you a press question. you talked about the investigation about president trump when you became speaker you also faced a series of drifts and ethics investigation right after you took office. during all of that time, you never threatened gene coming to the atlanta journal constitution. you never called those of us would stake you out and call you enemies of the people. you never called to report the information and come committee. >> a couple differences. first of all, let me say for all

of you because this is ancient history, when i got elected, time and news week both covers the week before the election was angry white men. the left keeps all these things in a drawer and pull them back o out and say let's use that again. the week after being elected i was on the cover of "time "as scruge holding the broken clutch and the title was how mean will gingrich's america be to the poor? that was followed a week later with news week having me on the coverage with the title the grinch who stole christmas. in fact, those two covers didn't hurt me at all because they sent a signal to the middle class

about welfare reform and the middle class thought that was really cool. now we get to one of the mistakes of my career. democrats filled 83 charges against me and 82 were dismissed. by the third charge, i should have filled a charge against the people who were doing it because it was a deliberate political abuse of the ethics process and i should have moved to expel them. they knew they were phony and absurd and this is what trump faces. they knew it was a constant repetition. something must be wrong with 83 charges. we won in federal court against the federal election commission and won in court against the irs. when i talk about the deep state, i have lived this. okay? now, the one charge they got me on is a letter written by the law form which had a mistake. cleary a mistake. which i should not have signed

where i said go pack never did anything federal and clearly it had. that is the one thing they got me on. this is why i won the white house. we turned over a million pages to an independent council who had been hired by the ethics company and later became the assistant attorney general to barack obama. a million pages. then we sat down to be interviewed and you could pick anything out of the million pages and if i was wrong i could be guilty of perjury or obstructions of justice. you try to remember years later if you said x in a meeting with 400 people. this is very dangerous. this is not like new york real estate law. this is criminal law. these people are coming after you to put you in prison and you

need to be very careful and you need to listen to your lawyers. i say this as much to the president as anybody. this is not a game. >> they are recruiting and building a farm team to look at the republican majority. a lot of the folks started off as people who were elected with help of go pack. >> we are not a big enough party to compete nationally. after 1985, we decided we had to dramatically grow the system in order to be competitive. we were like a mid-sized college team in the super bowl. it took us 40 years of being in the minority and 16 years to create the majority. we tried every two years for 16.

people say '94 was a great year. yeah, should have seen the other ones. wasn't like we magically woke up one thursday. we were trying every single year since 1978. >> when the republicans had the majority in the '90s, bill clinton was working on welfare and tax cuts and you balanced the budget. president trump had an opportunity to do that talking about a one trillion infrastructure program and democrats offered to work with him on fixing that yet the president hasn't taking advantage of that and that forced the head of the senate democrats and nancy pelosi the head of the house democrats to sit down and negotiate. you think he missed the opportunity to reach out or it didn't matter? >> i think with the affordable care act it would not have

mattered. any democrat who voted to repeal it it would be defeated in the primary. so i don't think that was really plausibility. i think that on infrastructure they have a real opportunity to work with democrats. i suspect substantial number of democrats to vote. on veteran's administration reform they have been carrying very large majorities and on medical research. it is not inevitable they would be isolated. when schumer and pelosi say he would like to work with you what is the entrance fee? we don't want corporate tax rates at 20%? well you will not cooperate. we really don't want something bringing back $2 trillion in money tied up overseas.

i say it depends on -- i believe they can gradually pick off vij democrats and i think the infrastructure bill -- individual -- is the best place to start that process. >> you talk in your book and talk about how the left is so out to get trump. for some, it can't. there is nobody's idea of a liberal. lindsay graham criticized the administration and other republicans. it is not just the left against trump. >> i don't know if you fit mccain and graham into this but they are clearly among the people who write precious columns and write articles and think deep thoughts. they are -- george will is one of my favorite examples. he likes an elegant world and things to be done in an appropriate way.

trump's very existence offends him. he thinks trump is a buffoon who talks at a fourth grade level. he can't be a serious man. i am a historian and i start from a totally different angle. a guy who wins a successful hostile takeover the republican party and then the national government beating the media and hillary he ain't a buffoon. he may have a style that is different than george will but he ain't a buffoon. he is a very serious man. i try to understand trump in part to say to people it is always worth trying to understand a president on their own terms. you have to say ways they do right and what is it they

understand that we didn't. i think the literati, the people who write "national review" and stuff like that, their nose is out of joint. they are offended. he probably doesn't drink nice enough for them. he doesn't actually drink alcohol. there is so many ways trump is so wrong. a reporter looked at him and said when do you think he will start becoming presidential and i said he did on january 20th because by definition what the president does is presidential. and that was such a shocking idea to this person because they had a model of presidential that didn't relate to how donald trump acts. >> let me ask one last question before we open it up to the audience. that is the opinion polls. he is at record lows. since you do advise him, what do you suggest? what should he do to bring up the numbers?

>> communeate directly with the american people. not waste his time and energy fighting over junk like the russian stuff. focus on communicating about jobs, focus on communicating about infrastructure, focus on communicating about a better health future, focus on communicating about tax cuts to create more jobs. there are positive things they are doing. they have to spend a full week on the veteran's administration. they are already this year done so many things both with the congress, in all fairness, when the republican house and senate passed more reform legislation for veterans this year than every in history. but none of it is going to be covered by the elite media. they need to figure out a strategy as reagan would to focus on if they did a veteran's rally for five days talking about the great achievements in reform by the end of the week people will say tay must be doing something right. what we are learning is his

base. his base is between 39-41. everything the post and times says this base is 39-41. the question is can he add ten points? mayor bloomberg said they fully expect him to get reelected. i love saying to liberal crowds during his second term. their mind can't adjust to that. >> host: let's throw it open to questions. i think we have a microphone coming over. let's start in the front row right there. >> mr. speaker, retired navy captain, we met in the first gulf war. my question is about the paris climate agreement. can you comment on that? mayor bloomberg and mayor of d.c. are saying they will adhere

to it regardless of the white house. how do you think that plays out? >> i think being mayor is a symbolic behavior of the left. you have to be for a sanctuary city. just as a side note, how can the mayor of chicago with 4,000 people shot last year want to be a sanctuary city so they don't turn criminal aliens over to the federal government? how can he believe putting a criminal alien back on the street is a good idea in a city with 4,000 people shot? we will enforce the paris accord they say. what does that mean? san francisco is only going to by electric cars and only buying electricity from solar and wind power? if the electricity comes from coal they are not doing much to help with carbon. it is all public relations non-sense. i urge everybody concerned about

this to read trump's speech. i was doing an event yesterday with a liberal government and he said what trump has done is created his own where china can now take the lead on the environment. and i said to him that is great. china promises to start doing something in 2031. this means we will move the chinese up by 30 years. that is fabulous. do you think they will start next week? the truth is the country on the planet with the largest reduction of carbon as a percentage is the united states. we are moving to the point where we have the same level of carbon loading than we had in the 1970s. i would love for the chinese to try to do that. there was no chinese industry in the 1970s. this is the whole problem with the modern left which is an emotional, symbolic system that

uses ranting as a substitute for thought. if you look at the speech, it is a very detailed very specific speech about economics and it says, for example, the indians said give us a couple trillion dollars and we will be glad to do something about the government. explain to me the theoretical model by which i will tax somebody in atlanta, georgia, to ship it to new delhi. i am not an anti-indian. i am just pro-america. >> you mentioned health care. three trillion industry. the so-called affordable care act is costing people $10-$20,000 per person and business and other families for years which i suggest is highly

un unaffordable. what is the path to better health care? >> this comes from a lot of experience dealing with health issues including reforming medicare in 1996 which doing it in a presidential year was the most elegant thing i did as speaker. health is the most complex thing in america society i think. i am fairly knowledgeable about health and national security and i would say health is ten times more complicated. it is a mistake to write a big bill. any big bill is always situated in secret. i think the fact is sooner or later you have to publish the bill. when you publish the bill people are going to study it. the earlier they study it, the earlier they tell you it doesn't work and then you have to make a series of choices. this is a good example for trumpism is not penetrated. they are trying to write a bill

that leads senate reconcilation rules and congressional budget office scoring. both is stupid. the reckonciliation rules are irerational. the congressional budget office is a disaster. new york times in '93 wrote a great editorial because the cbo came in with a bad score on hillary care and the times said the idea you can project a 20-30 year pattern for that large of a section of society is absurd. in a truly trump world, you would abolish the cbo and change the senate reconciliation rules and say where do we want to get? maximum personal choice,

everybody having access to care and most people having access to insurance and the two are different. you have 8,000 federal community health centers that are never figured into our health bill. if we are paying for 8,000 health centers why are they not an intergral opponent? instead we let the left define it as 100 insurance and contort ourselves to get to them. in maine, you can create a high risk pool and guarantee everybody coverage no matter what the preexisting condition is. there are ways to do that. tay are not complicated but cost some money but given the total waste in obamacare it is not that hard to do. >> second thing, what i would really do to reform medicaid is simple and this is what maine did and mary may hew is the commissioner who did this is is running for governor.

great reformer. maine passed a rule if you are an able body adult with no children you have to work in order to get medicaid. the 12,000 males on medicaid who fit that category, 11,000 went and got jobs and are no longer on medicaid. this is a radical idea for liberals. you actually reduce the number of people on medicaid by reducing the number of people who need to be on med kaicaimed. the average person had a 116% increase income. if you applied that to new york and california you would be startled how much money you would save and how many people you would move back into pursuing happiness and working rather than becoming dependent on the government. >> let me ask one question over there and move to the other side. >> steven creighton here.

i wanted to ask if you could talk about the concept of the intellectual idiot you reference sometimes and how that fits into understanding trump in the context of the elite media but also the bureaucrats he deals and and you talked about civil service reform. is it possible for him to get around the burr ocries? >> the guy who wrote the black swan wrote an article entitled intellectual yet idiot. if you google that it will come up. it is about 800 words. it was the most satisfying explanation about modern government.

he said at least 40% of modern government is people who are really good at taking tests and writing essays because they are really good at taking tests and writing essays they get into elite universities where they study under professors who are really good at taking tests and writing essays. and then they graduate and get a job as a supreme court clerk or new york times writer or whatever and the problem is they don't know anything. they can write a brilliant essay on how to change a tire. but if you have a flat tire they have to call triple a because they have no idea how to change a tire. this is what the best and brightest recommends. a great study on the leadership in vietnam.

early in the book, lyndon johnson comes back from his first cabinet meeting under john f kennedy and goes to see sam rayburn and says the quality of the cabinet going down the list of brilliant people and at the end of it he said, you know, lyndon, i would be a lot more comfortable if there was one texas sheriff in the cabinet. what he meant was a texas sheriff knew his brand new deputy at 4:00 in the morning was probably asleep and they needed to be checked on because he wasn't doing his job. in the real world, people behave in real ways. in the kennedy cabinet, you had a theoretical group with bunch of theoretical mindsets.

they talked about orchestrating and up and down the letter and the north vietnamese were clear. they were going to win or die. we could have beaten them or accepted defeat which we ultimately did. they were not confused. they had been fighting for years. and this is exactly where we are today. you have all these people and this was and i was part of this. i thought there was an opportunity to profoundly rethink the middle east. i use to tell people i think we could guarantee democracy in iraq and we wouldn't stay a day longer than we have been in korea. my dad started korea in 53. we have been there for 67 years. there is no great get out of korea movement. but you could not run in,

shatter everything, and run out and think you will have a functioning governing democracy. you start in somalia, yemen, syria, iraq, afghanistan, just as starters the better part of wisdom is people who understand being cautious is a good idea as opposed to we know how to do it. that would be an example. >> over there in the middle. right here. guy with the glasses. you, yeah. >> hold on. wait. he is working his way to you. >> how much do you think the media is responsible for the left wing attacks against republicans? >> well, i don't think -- first of all, individual attacks are a function of individual responsibility and i don't think

you want to get into some collective group guilt if you have an individual who is insane they are insane. so the guy this week who went out with a rifle deranged in my judgment. i think you could use the same term to hold a comedian who holds a bleeding head of a president. these are personal psychological programs manifested by people who have an idealogical cultural idea. you have all the talk on the left about bullying. if you look on college campuses woo does the bullying it is the left. if you look at the news media, i mean cnn was 93% negative according to a harvard study. you can't be 93% negative unless it is deliberate. you know? nobody at cnn feels any shame. they will say they are covering

the news with a straight face even though it is an absurdity. i think group think is dangerous and some of you have experienced. you go into the right newsroom saying you are pro-trump watch the reaction. this is why i worry about the justice department. 97% of the donations of justice went to hillary, 99% of the donations at state went to hillary. i ask you what do you think the cultural pattern is in a room where 97-3 they are donating to hillary? this is why i think the idea of a deep state is real. full time, permanent bureaucrats. in the pentagon the term for political appointees were they were the summer help. they will be gone. just relax.

>> thanks. i am the congressional correspondent for the hispanic outlook. hillary said during a campaign event she would never deport an illegal immigrant child or their family. i didn't believe her. it was campaign rhetoric but how much should the campaign rhetoric be translated into real policy when they become president? >> first of all, i think you are better off as a candidate to campaign what you mean which was reagan's great strength and our great strength in '94. you say what you mean and then you do it. it is not rhetoric in that sense. rhetoric ought to be about reality and that is how you build fate in the system. that is why we were the first

reelected house republican majority since 1928. it was in part because we kept our word and people thought those guys are real. we are also the only guy who balanced the federal budget in our life time. johnson did it once. not that it was a gimmick. let's take immigration. i was very happy this morning that the department of homeland security said they will not deport any of the dreamers and the people under daca are going to stay in the u.s. which i think is pertinent. on the other hand, the courts ruled obama's effort to extend that to their families was illegal. secretary kelly said if congress

wants to change the order they can but the court ruled the president didn't have the authority to extend it from 6,000 dreamers to 6 million people. i thought it was an almost solomon-like decision. i happen to think the dreamers should not be deported. if you came here at three years of age, don't speak spanish and your entire identity it american it is goofy to say good luck in guatemala. but at the same time, it does mean you are potentially breaking up families. that is one of the sad parts of historic change. all campaigns communicate what you intend to do and what you should do. that is not the norm in american politics. obama promised you can keep your doctor and insurance policies and knew that was a lie.

trump exaggerates. you ought to come to my golf course it is unbelievable. he became a billionaire by selling. you know? you don't sell your hotel by saying it is not very good. personally, if you can avoid it i would go somewhere else. but that brings with it the baggage because he at times overpromises and exaggerates. this is another thing i wrote about in "understanding trump." trump always wants to negotiate down not up. he sets the initial term we will build a wall and mexico will pay for it. up here, okay? it was great. they cut this deal with the democrats to get the continuing resolution and can't build a concrete wall which the democrats thought they were clever. and the following day they

released a picture of the steel wall and pointed out you negotiate with trump you have to read the fine point because this guy has done more contracts than all of congress combined and knows how to negotiate. >> let's stay in the front over there. >> good morning. i am a software engineer for the federal agencies. my question is more along the line of whistleblowers. sometimes when you working in the agency, you are light years away from the white house. help me understand from your perspective a framework upon which software engineers like myself would work with this administration given the animosity toward leakers, the cybersecurity issue that is out here floating around publically. i represent an organization called federal software

engineers and data sciences. we are about 350. i am really curious. i wasn't going to ask a question but can't help to get your opinion. >> great question. first of all, i would hope your organization might come forward and offer specific advice on how we should be dealing with cybersecurity issues because this goes back to the left, you know something about the topic. better than most of the guys at the think tank who know about the topic but not the topic. if your group came up saying here are eight things you ought to do it would be helpful and a step in the right direction. second, i would hope you try to implement the laws of the united states as it relates to your job and focus on that and not worry about most of the noise. and then third, and i don't know this effects you but it effects a lot of federal employees, but we have to rethink the current civil service rules that operate

in a way that if you are incompetent you keep your job still. and you know the people who love their job and want to come in early and work hard and are excited get drawn down. i talked to somebody who runs a small agency, probably a liberal democrat, but she said in her small agency, she has one person who came in and put his head on the desk every day. she has one person who has never come in for two years and can't get the hr department to fire the two people. that is just crazy. that lowers the morale of everybody else in the department. that is a different zone. my advice is obey the law, do your best to help serve america -- it is a great privilege to be able to serve the united states of america. i understand if you don't have people who care about the

country and who work their hearts out it ain't going to work. i am glad you are here today and if you come up with 6-8 steps if you get them to me i will personally put them into the white house. >> anybody else over there? yes? >> david martin, biomedical engineer and arlington resident. in your opinion, what are ways the average american like myself could spend time and resources to affect the change we are talking about and help the trump administration? >> well, look, as a private citizen/individual speaking up with our friends, calling in to talk radio, writing letters to the editors. people read the letter to editor more than the editorial, do a blog, tweet, do facebook. a lot of things people can do to

reach out. we live in an era where you can become your own communication system and you can find other people who agree with you and create a community. i encourage people to do it. i think this is an era where frankly if trumpism means anything it is the decentralization away from washington. we want to find ways for everybody at every level to be creative and positive and do things so the ideas may flow back to washington rather than flowing down from washington. >> yes, right there? yes. then we will move across back to the other side by the time why done. >> what are your thoughts on the election next week in georgia's six and the republican prospect for holding the house in 2018? >> i think it is probably even

money who lives in georgia. office is not a good candidate but has over $23 million which for a single house race is astonishing. that is all that is keeping him up now. i think he is actually decaying and only the weight of money is keeping him going. the early voting, the republican vote is up 16% and democrat vote is down 23%. and this is purely a guess but on the democrat side the democrats have done home and they have a problem getting them to vote. but i am told the people in georgia are seeing a significant shift toward handle. if she loses, we will be battered and irritated and a

little frightened. if he loses after $22 million, this will be the third loss in a row after kansas and montana, the left will go crazy. they have so much more at stake in georgia than we do it is unbelievable. but as of right now, it is an even money chance she will win. anybody who tells you they know for sure is foolish. it is a function of turnout during the last week. next year i think is simple. a tendency for us to get crazier. if you get identified as the bleeding heads, assassination, national chairman using curse words and a new york senator who uses curse words, at some point that party has a relatively small base because they sound nuts. that is what happened under thatcher and thatcher is more

like trump than reagan because reagan never threatened the left into the united states. he defeated communists but not at stanford. trump is a mortal threat to the left. the left under thatcher went crazy and by her third election in '87, the news media referred to them as the loosing left. do the democrats keep drifting into this insanity representing a world view that is 25% of the country? the second question is do the republicans get their act together and not just get things done but communicate them. we have done so much on veteran's reform and have such a weak communication system nobody realizes the house, senate and president are the best pro-veterans team we have had modern times doing real things

that are working and they cannot communicate them. they have to learn to do things that matter and break through the media and make sure everybody hears them. if they saw that and if the left keeps going crazy we could have an election where they gain ground, not lose ground. >> somebody all the way in the back this time. >> mr. speaker, you are a new intellectual giant and widely respected. is it possible trump becomes like mccarthy? it took a few years to give it

the framework and the muller investigation, you don't think it is going to find anything in terms of russian money that supported trump against the united states would no u.s. bank would or paying triple the value for the properties and flynn and man fort you don't think they will be indicted? and the senate that voted 98-2 for russian sanctions because of what happened in the election? i know it is something that can be smiled at but there is a lot of seriousness and evidence or do you just disagree there is any evidence and this is going to go nowhere? the other thing i want to say is thank you for the advertisement for the event here at the press club on tuesday. let me take your question on two

levels. there is a remarkable book by diana west that says there are no communist spies and mccarthi mccarthimccarth mccarthism is a great victory of the left. the underlying truth is there were 500 soviet spies in the united states at least. there are people on the left today who will tell you that in fact alger hess was not a communist spy. we know because after the soviet empire fell we had brief access to their records, many at hoover. and he know hess met with

stallion and was given the highest civilian award for having been such a brilliant agent of influence. this is not theoretical yet there are professors that will teach what richard nixon did was terrible and part of mcarthism. the reason reagan is no anti-communist is he goes out and has a drink with a man who says i am a real stallionist and if we win i am putting you in jail. he becomes hardline anti-communist in 1947 and the empire disappears. the framing of your question was interesting. two, i think we should look at

russian influence. why did the bank pay bill clinton $500,000? why did the people who wanted uranium decision give million do is the clinton foundation through an organization that donates to it? let's have a broad -- and this is part of what drives me crazy and a sign of republican incompetence. we should look at russian propaganda influences but let's start with the clinton's. why is it that we are worried about paul maniford but not really worried about the other people? worried about maniford because he didn't report it? what is the difference between john pedesta's brother and paul ma maniford? why only worry about half a

million to bill clinton which was paid, i think, about the same point hillary is making the decision about uranium. that can't matter because you say it is impossible for russia to be pro-clinton and therefore what -- and this is the question actually asked to this credit by republican congressman to the former head of the cia who had been talking about worried about the president talking with the russian ambassador and said how about if the president of russia said as soon as the election is over i will do a lot of stuff i can't do now which is what obama said. i am very happy to look at russian influence in the united states. i just think it ought to be bipartisan and open and we ought to know the total amount of money poured into the clinton's and pedesta's. i would expand it and i would

like to know how many countries like saudi arabia give money to universities who have professors who end up being propagandists to the countries giving the money? i am very concerned about the ability of foreign governments to corrupt the american system and i think it would be very helpful to have a deep, fundamental look at how much foreign money now penetrates our culture at ever level. >> on that note, we have run out of time and i want to thank the speaker again for appearing. >> thank you. [applause] >> before you go, i know you move off to the holy sea as your wife is ambassador to american television and you will have to get up really early sometimes for american television so to be perky on cnn in the morning or morning joe i give you the official national press club coffee mug.

>> and let me tell you, i got to be honored and happy to sign and personalize any books anybody wants to get here today. i am delighted to be here. thank you for interviewing me. this was great. >> this includes the book wrap. [inaudible conversations] >> here is a look at some of the current best selling non-fiction books according to "the wall street journal". kevin heart topping the list with "i can't make this up" followed by minnesota senator al franken's "giant of the senate". next, neil degrasse tyson explores the universe in astrophysici

astrophysiciastr astrophysics for people in a hurry. and profiles of 13 influential women in history. our look at the best selling books continues with "theft by finding" humorous. and facebook ceo comes in 7th with the advice for overcoming diversity in option b. and bill o'rielly looks at the leaders of the revolutionary war in legends and lives. followed by strength finder 2.0. and wrapping up the best selling non fiction books is jd dance with his recollection of his childhood in the rust belt in ohio. ....