in whatever the individual has been doing. is it a man or a woman who has followers. do they have followers and what is the kind of organization in which the person is involved it is the internal workings that is a critical question. ..

[inaudible conversations] [applause] >> this is great. we have a full house tonight. good evening. i am jean mccormick and i have the honor of being the president of the institute for the united states senate. it is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight along with our special guest for this evening's program, katie and robin who will be coming through this door in a minute. we are doing something a little different tonight. we are really thrilled to be joined by so many community leaders and we are especially excited to welcome our new members of the institute, membership is one of the ways we make it possible to have

programs like this evening. for those of you who might be visiting the institute for the first time, welcome to our replica senate chamber. it is truly spectacular in the way that senator kennedy envisioned it might remind people about the important role of the senate. every day, students and adults like you and i come in and become senators for a day and try to grapple with the very same issues that congress is dealing with today. there reminded of the important role of participation in a democracy. we all have to be involved. through our interactive exhibits and our educational programs and these public programs like tonight, our goal is to inspire a new

generation, and i keep thinking to myself re- inspire us of the older generation to see ourselves as shapers of our community and to take an active role in civic life. that is what senator kennedy hoped for. this evening's program is part of our getting to the point series, as you can see it's not always easy to get to the point through our winding construction. sometimes it's not always easy to get to the point in our conversations, but we invite people from all walks of life to talk about important issues in our government and our country. this year, as many of us continue to reflect on the impact of last year's presidential election, we also consider the role of the press in our political system. perhaps no one can speak better to this than our special guest for this evening, katie turner.

in a historic 2016 campaign, katie was there from the beginning. she spent over 500 days on the campaign trail covering the trump campaign. she fact checked the campaign falsities. that is an interesting word. i read it three or four times. it's not one we been using much before now. she did find her self singled out by candidate trump herself. she became one of the most visible journalists during the 2016 election cycle, and she was part of the first women led politics team in the history of network news. she has documented her experience in her exceptional new book, unbelievable, my front row seat to the craziest campaign in american history. today, she is a correspondent

for nbc news and an acre for msnbc. she is also the recipient of the 2017 walter cronkite award for excellence in journalism. we are so thrilled to hear more about her experience. after discussion you will have an opportunity to purchase or book in the gift shop in the lobby. we are also thrilled to welcome robin young to help lead this conversation. robin, as you know, is the host of here and now on npr and uvr. without further ado, i would like to invite katie and robin into the chamber and ask you to join me in giving them a warm welcome. [applause]

[applause] >> this is so cool. can i get you all to smile for a selfie? >> , get one too. i just want to take a panorama. i think this is the only circumstance were will be sitting in a room like the. >> actually, when she does that, everybody, when you are ready, everybody waves. >> hold on. >> and you are on c-span2. >> waves. >> how many of you use # i'm with her.

check it out. how does that feel? >> that reception? >> really amazing. it's overwhelming, undeserved, surreal, exciting. >> i don't know. about the undeserved part. let's review. you are a foreign correspondent when nbc assigned you to be one of the first and only two follow the campaign. there would be those infamous moments long before president trump referred to corker as little bob corker, you were little katie. >> huge rally back where the trump campaign kept reporters so is sort of like indicating to the rabid dogs were the meat was. little katie is back there, she's such a liar, what a liar she is.

>> unheard of in the history of american politics. >> it's no secret that politicians don't like reporters, generally. nixon had a fraught relationship with his press corps, there are legendary stories about rod zigler, his press person, and getting into it with reporters, what was unusual about this was the very public nature of it, the way he would go after reporters, myself included from the stage of rallies, and have the crowd, encourage the crowd to essentially turn on us and blew us. there were moments, where i spoke to someone on the campaign, late in the campaign , after we had armed security and after i had done death threats and after not only the networks provided armed security. i said does he know he is potentially putting us in real

harm's way, in danger, that something really bad could happen and the person said yes, he knows and i said does he care and he said i don't think he cares. >> what you think it was that you in particular were so singled out? from the very first interview, the very first rally in 2015, he had said something about the television reporters are here and there is katie and she's not even looking at me. >> that was the first time we had ever shared the same error. i knew him from television and the new york tabloid, from the apprentice, not as a serious political candidate. i had no reason to believe he knew who i was so i was standing in the back of this rally which was just a couple hundred people who were at a backyard pool thinking what the heck am i doing here and what the heck is this guy talking about because he was

talking about the wall who's gonna build and defending his comments about mexico sending rapists and how he gets more standing ovations and anybody, and then how the press is terrible and oh, katie, you haven't even looked at me once. i was like who, me? and he was, and i remember just screaming right back at them, i'm tweeting what you're saying and he liked that. he said i did a good job and then he continued on. >> that's important. she said i hope so, and by the way you do a good job. >> when i read over these again in the book, which is terrific and you all have to get it and get it signed "after words", but when i was reading back over it, and the current climate of harvey weinstein and also since these comments yelled at you, we have had the tape of the donald trump, billy bush tape talking about grabbing women's

lady's parts. reading over these comments now, in this climate, this feels like sexual harassment from the stag stage. >> while he went after all reporters, it wasn't just female reporters. >> and he talked about charles not being able to get a pair pants. this was an interview and of course he's in a wheelchair. so there's that, but with you there seems to be something, have you thought about it, there's some sort of power-play going on. >> think there's a power-play going on, i was doing my job and he alternated between trying to charm me and trying to bully me. if i wasn't reporting what he was lik what he liked he would go on the attack and the offense from the stage. then he would tell everyone how great i was and introduce

me to a crowd at the rally. he kissed me on the cheek one morning when he liked my reporting, adding morning joe townhall and then bragged about it on television which is unusual. but at the same time, it's what he does, to this day when he is sitting with his counterparts to the republican party. he will have dean heller sitting next to him at a senate meeting, and joke around with him, not so jokingly to say if you don't do what i say, i'm in a go after you when it comes to the health care vote. that's just the way he operates. to ascribe certain, another label to it, i'm just not prepared to do it. >> we have questions by the way that were super committed by many of you and i'm in a try to work in as many as i can without dropping all of these papers.

obviously people turned on you, you needed support, you were spit at, you would see families, what looked like lovely families but look closer in the dads wearing a t-shirt that says hillary socks more than monica does, but not like monica and you'd be taken aback like wait a second, they've got small children with them. >> that was in the worst brother was that, then there was the father with his two kids and his wife wearing a shirt that called hillary clinton a cu nt. there was a man who wore a shirt that said i wish hillary married oj. i don't care what your political beliefs are, i don't care if you think democrats have all the wrong ideas for this country, that was a shirt that said i hoped essentially that hillary clinton was brutally stabbed to death in the 1990s. that is so far beyond what should be acceptable for common decency, for behavior, let alone politics.

>> but do you think, you got to know the trump supporters, this is boston, but i'm sure there's many in this room, and faith asked, you talked about running into a supporter who helped you with your hair, and active kindness. >> you can't paint an entire group of supporters with a broad brush. i thought it was a huge mistake to call donald trump supporters deplorable's. you don't go after voters in this country and i don't think it's a good idea to say this swamp of voters are racist xenophobes, misogynists, whatever name you want to ascribe to them. they are a varied group of people from a number of socioeconomic backgrounds. some of them voted for president obama in the past, a lot of them were women, there are a variety of supporters, and at the same time they are

the kind of people who often times, probably live their lives in a very polite rule abiding way, nonoffensive way, but there was something about walking into a trump rally that allowed people to shed all of those rules, to shed those burdens. i wrote in the book that he had a halo of crudeness, and in that halo, he allowed everybody else to recruit around him. he said whatever he wanted. he never backed down and a lot of people found that refreshing. people maybe couldn't tell a joke any longer because it was a politically incorrect joke. people who were worried they had to watch what they said and watch what they did, people who thought their patriotism was being mistaken for racism, and they walked in there and they said i can say and do whatever i'm thinking. >> we talked earlier about

covering the primaries, and very early on i was in iowa, and you could see the lines at the trump rally and was calling back to the station saying i'm meeting a lot of young people in particular who are trying to decide between bernie sanders and donald trump. >> there was a certain pro culture that would come out to the rallies. men who would wear tank tops and big make america great again hats, that college fraternity culture that would show up in like the enthusiasm of the event. the same people that would say , and this is kind of a broad brush, but this is a demographic that i'm talking about, they liked bernie sanders or donald trump, and it was because they wanted an outsider. they wanted somebody different

and refreshing, somebody who wasn't part of the establishment, somebody whose name they hadn't been hearing their whole life like hillary clinton, 70 who wasn't afraid to take on the system, bernie sanders had that quality, so did donald trump and they both had jobs messages. these were young people who were either just in the middle of the search for a job or soon to be graduating from college and they wanted a better opportunity. >> they wanted the disruptor. >> definitely. >> do you think, i thought i observed this, i constantly saw people who saw things that people on the left might see as appalling, like those t-shirts you mentioned, and they thought they were perfectly acceptable parallel reality of what they may have seen, for instance when george bush, the invasion of iraq and so many people who were against that. if you had gone to the antiwar rally in washington, you would've seen disparaging t-shirts about george bush, and they really felt it was

the sam same. >> and there's an argument to be made for that. i think that's just a sign of how corrosive our politics and our public discourse has become. the question is, where does it go from here. do we correct it? does it get better for 2020 or 2024, or are we going to see even more crude language, crude behavior? will there be a line that is too far, a bridge too far? where do we go. >> do you feel somewhat validated in your reporting that we now have a president trump who hasn't really changed his style. >> he 71 years old. he is never going to change for the guy you saw on the camcampaign trail is the guy you see in the oval office every day. just yesterday, he would make these broad statements on the campaign trail like i saw

thousands of muslims cheering on the streets of new jersey after the towers came down. not true. didn't happen. then he forced his campaign staff to try to find evidence to bolster him so they're running around trying to find anything that might point to some shred of truth. you can't because is not true. yesterday he did the same thing which was to say that past presidents including obama didn't call the families of fallen soldiers. that is not true, but he said it. he put it out there. people will want to believe that and what does the white house do, they would run in circles to try to find something that backs them up and what they found was that john kelly, president obama didn't call him well, he was at a number of events with obama who was honoring fallen soldier soldiers, but what

they've done now, and this is what sad about this, beyond politics beyond donald trump, beyond whatever you think about republicans or democrats, what sad is that were not politicizing the death of john kelly son. that's awful. that should not be happening. >> we already politicized goldstar family. >> exactly. that happened in the campaign as well. >> by the way, general kelly. [inaudible] what should the press do? we have a question about whether or not the press should boycott. >> we can't boycott the president of the united states. i'm sorry. you might not like him, but that's not what we do in this country. he is the democratically elected president of the united states, and so there is , we have a service to everyone in this room and to everyone in this land to cover the president. it affects you, every single day. you have to cover it.

>> lauren asked if they should boycott white house briefings as a sign of solidarity and press accountability. >> what you do, if that happens, say you boycott the press briefings. you just validate donald trump's complaints that the press corps is out to get him, that they're not on his side or looking for any reason not to report on the things that he's doing. it's a double-edged sword in that way. >> barry also asks, from what you saw on the trail, do you think the president intentionally attacked the credibility of the press to rally his base? is it just a technique or is he really hurt. some suggested when he lashes out is that for soldiers were killed and most americans don't know why we still aren't talking about that because the question now becomes whether or not president obama did

not. >> everything gets clouded. it just makes things cloudier. he's very capable of distracting. everything comes around and it's always about him, how does it make him look, how does it affect him, what does he need to do about something. it's not about the death of the soldier, it's about what has he done or what has he done in separation with his predecessor. every policy, every subject, every interview, every topic, it all goes back to him. he uses eyes so much. the governor called to say i was doing a good job. it's me me me me. what was the first part of the question? >> is it to do that, to distract us, or do you feel there's something.

>> i think it's both. >> i think he likes to dominate the headlines, and on days we would see this in the campaign, on days where he wasn't the main focus, he would make sure that he took it over. the muslim band day is a great example. the day before he had given a speech on terrorism so today was being dominated by that speech, by the president, and then donald trump announces the muslim ban and recaptures the narrative. then he wants to be liked. he really wants to be liked. he wants to be accepted. there is a chip on his shoulder that has been there since he was a young man in queens crossing the river to start building skyscrapers in manhattan. his father said he could never do it and he was trying to prove him wrong. he was never really accepted by the ruling class, if you will, of manhattan so he's always been trying to prove

himself. that's why, with reporters, he will be extremely friendly and very charming because he wants reporters to like him. if you meet him in person, he's very charming. he wants you to like him. >> your family, you were born into the news business. your parents, bob and marika,. >> i was born while they were covering a breaking news story. as they changed the face of local news, maybe not for the better, your mom is from a more stable foundation, they teamed up and had a small news service in l.a. chasing gang

fights or fires, car accidents. >> they would go out in the middle of the night and cover news stories when the local news didn't have cameramen and then they would sell it to the morning shows in the afternoon shows during the day and they built up a business without. >> they bought a helicopter at one point, there was a big strike in l.a., all the cameramen were on strike. >> didn't physically cross the picket line, but they flew over. they didn't have a helicopter at that time. they did it because my mom was pregnant with my brother, i was two years old, and my dad had this ambition to be a helicopter journalist and to cover l.a. from the sky. l.a. is a big place. you need a helicopter to get around. he had this really big idea and he walked into one helicopter company and they

laughed him out. he was 24 at the time. he had 30 grand in his pocket and the helicopter cost 250 grand. the second helicopter company said okay, will give this to you. >> and they bought it. >> least it. >> and became sensations. they changed everything. suddenly everything was in the sky and they were doing car chases, and then they became the people behind the famous video of denny being pulled from his truck from l.a. riot. you hear that sound, oh my god, they're trying to kill him. that's your dad. and then, the white bronco and the person in the helicopter chasing the bronco and you hear his voice. >> my mom was a camera woman. she was hanging out of the helicopter with it.

she gets none of the credit, and i feel so bad for her. she was literally hanging out of the helicopter with a betacam on her shoulder which is like a 70-pound camera, literally just hanging. nothing between her and the ground but air, and she had a canvas strap that was hooking her into a harness, that hooked her into the helicopter, and she did that over fire and flood and over police pursuits and over riots, and at one point, during the l.a. riots while they were covering that beating, the gang members were shooting at the helicopter. when they landed, the mechanic said there was bullet damaging the engine blade and there was bullet damage in the battery, the camera battery that she stowed beneath her seat. >> your parents are amazing. >> i was covering the riots, and i put that together, you

grew up with us. there's videos of you at four years old doing news reports with your dad. you hung out of that helicopter. >> i did. there was one instance in my forefather almost had a heart attack where we were over the rose parade and i was a very savvy kid and i figured out how to open the helicopter door. it's pretty complicated. you have to pull down, pull out and pulled to the side. i wanted to get a better look at the floats below. my dad remembers looking back, and very calmly, because he was cool under pressure, saying katie, please sit

down. he reaches back and he pulls the door shut and he said he immediately had to land the helicopter because he thought he was going to pass out. >> understandably. >> your parents became very successful. it changed at a certain point. they were not using the helicopter and it seemed to spiral out. even when they were at the height, this didn't appeal to you. journalism didn't appeal to you. >> , no, it just seemed so disruptive in my life. i'm a terrible eater. i have to try to remind myself when i'm out with my fiancé, to eat like a lady because i have a tendency to stop food in my fac face, because as a

kid we would be in the middle of the meal and something would come over the scanner and we would have to stop and get the helicopter and cover it. my mom used to sleep with the scanner in her ear. it was at the disruptive lifestyle. there was no stability to it. there is a camera in my face all the time and i had no desire to do it. i would run in the opposite direction. >> what changed? >> you can't deny your genes, i guess. i wanted to be a doctor, but i think i got a d in chemistry. i was terrible at it. i was really bad at math. then i changed my major to philosophy and i was going to go to law school and i sat down with the counselor and she said you need the score to get in for the lsat.

i just didn't want to study any longer. i wasn't feeling it. i was driving back with my college boyfriend at the time and there was a fire in malibu. there was a cut off because there was a fire in malibu. my dad, even after the business fell apart, kept making me fake press passes. [laughter] he took my photo any put it over a photo of my grandmother who was in the business with my family and then re- laminated it and so that was my press pass. it's a felony, by the way. i don't know if you know that. i didn't have the time. or obviously would not have done this next thing. i pulled up to the sheriff's officer he was guarding the line and a showed him my press

pass and i said my crew is ahead and i like to go see the fire. i'm sure he knew it was fake. it was so obviously fake. , but he let me through and my boyfriend looked at me and said i have never seen you more confident then you were just then, lying to that officer. i thought i'm chasing ambulance and always curious what's behind the crime tape. i want to be in the know. i can't deny any longer. i'm in a go into the news business. i told my parents, it did not go well. >> didn't want you to do it. >> didn't want me to do it. when i was 14, kcbs undercut all of their staff and breached their contract and the whole business fell apart we went on hawaiian vacations but they never put any money into a bank account so they

didn't really save. when the business fell apart, the family fell apart. when i told my dad specifically i was going into it, he was angry. he felt like he had been victimized. he didn't feel like the news business was a good place to be. he was the one who wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer because it was so much more stable. he ended up saying that i was going to be asking, do you want fries with that, for my life. we ended up slamming the door in each other's face and not talking for a week. >> your parents were divorced and ten years later he transitioned, your father transitioned and became zoe. if you see the main america

documentary, she is great and it. >> she is great. >> your dad is great. how difficult was that for you. >> obviously was a difficult situation. we didn't see it coming. it's hard. it's hard when it changes so drastically. my dad is an incredibly rate person and she has always been an incredibly brave person. she's always been a boundary to fire and a rule breaker. it's not a complete estrangement, we talk, but it's hard. my family is complicated. i am really, really proud of the decision she made and i think it takes a lot of guts to do that.

>> boy, we could do a whole hour on that, could we not. >> you make it clear in your book that your dad is a big mouth, outspoken, you say at one point when you are in exchange with donald trump, the president, you say you can deal with this because you had this dad. >> i have these very larger than life figures in my life. argument that dinner. the way that donald trump, it was more than unfamiliar, let's put it that way. it was a good primer for standing up to people later in life. that's my whole family.

we are all kind of like that. my mom, my brother, my dad, my aunts, we all have big loudmouths and would like to yell at each other over a thanksgiving dinner table. >> we would love to be a fly on that wall. >> tony, my fiancé is here, he will have to deal with that for the next foreseeable future. i'm sorry, wherever you are. >> back to donald trump, have you had any interaction with you? did he respond to the book. >> his son tweeted me. he had said something like it's fascinating to see people who have zero access to me right major articles and publish major books. i just had done an article for the new york times, and then he said zero access which is kind of his code word for me. >> i have a lot of access, but here's the thing. you don't need access. access is not how you do journalism. you dig and you factor act and you contextualize and you try

to shed light on the person, and you don't need access to do that. access journalism is barely journalism. he is so public as it is, the idea of needing access to cover him is a bit laughable, or any public figure for that matter. >> where are we now, and where do you think trump supporters are now. are you still in contact with the many you met. >> yes. >> doctor mccormick was telling us that there are many trump supporters who come here to this institute because they feel that while they support their guy, they elected someone to be a disruptor, they never thought he understood government, that's not why they elected him, another coming here to learn more about government to help you. [laughter] what are you hearing? we know that the polls show

there is some softening. >> it depends on who you ask. there are some that volunteer for trump that are still very enthusiastic about him, some folks up in new hampshire that i talk to regularly. there is a gentleman down in south carolina who would show up at every trump rally that he would hold, enthusiastically, loved donald trump, thought he was wonderful, thought he was a disruptor, that he would bring change and is horrified and appalled that he has been president. part of what he doesn't like as the attack on the prospered he thanks it's just way overboard and not helpful for anything. but, there is an idea that people elected donald trump because they thought he would be throwing a bomb into the system. he might not know everything about policy, he might not

know the ins and outs of healthcare or the ins and outs of veteran affairs, but he will hire the right people to do the job, and i would ask people why they believe that about him and a lot of the times the answer i would get, and don't laugh, but they would say i saw him do it on the apprentice. i told you not to laugh. donald trump has created a mythology around himself, and he's always done that, since he got onto the real estate scene in the tabloid scene in new york in the 1970s, 1980s. he has been selling donald trump. he is not a real estate mogul. he is a branding mogul. he doesn't build buildings, generally, he puts his name on buildings. he sells his name. he sells himself. he sells the image of success.

he sells the image of a dealmaker. he goes out and says i alone can fix this. i can make deals nobody else ca can. this is a terrible deal. i will make it better. deal, deal, deal, deal. i think that's his most loved word in his vocabulary. he is successful at it, but he's always been successful at it. it wasn't just donald trump supporters, it was the reporters in new york in the '90s and the 80s. jimmy breslin wrote about this early on for newsday in new yor york. this was around the time donald trump is on the verge of financial collapse, when he was going through bankruptcy, he was hanging on by a thread, to use a cliché. they were saying he's going to fail. breslin came out and said how can you say that. he will create a razzle-dazzle , he will call all the reporters in new york and say donald trump is too big to fail. donald trump will come back bigger than ever, and he will convince them and they will write stories about it.

>> and hill username that is in his. >> that too. >> than the real estate magnets, the investors in new york city was a no-no, he can't fail, and they will loan him money because he has created this mythology around himself and he's doing that successfully for a certain segment of voters to this day. so when things don't go right, it's not donald trump that made them go wrong. it's congress will. >> it's kicking everything down to congress. >> but there are still people who hold out, many people that hold out that his is the voice needed right now, stand up to the president of north korea, stand up to the world that hasn't respected the united states, stand up to trade deals that most economists say

they've actually benefited people like american farmers, but they don't see it that way. is there a chance, is there a chance this could turn out to be a great presidency? >> i think it depends on who you ask, honestly. i think there are wildly differing opinions of donald trump. if you are a supporter of his, you will defend it. you will defend, defend, defend. if you are not, you will take it apart. we will see what people say in four years. does he get anything done? does this republican-controlled congress passed legislation, any legislation, major legislation before the midterm? that is still an open question. there is a lot on their plate. if they can't agree on healthcare which they have been running on repealing for seven or eight years, do you

expect them to agree on tax reform? that's a much more complicated subject. he is going after bob corker. he's going after susan collins. he's going after john mccain. he will need their voices and their votes to get any of these things done. that is unless he suddenly goes to democrats and convinces democrats get on th board and that is a big if as well. >> a couple more questions from people who are here. is magdalena here? anyway, she had a great question. she said do you have any advice for a young woman of color who fears she has so much to say and contribute to the public discourse but has no idea how to get started, especially in today's political and journalistic climate. what do you say. i know we have some students appear. where are they? there being shy. oh my god, they could be back there. oh, over there. there over there.

there you are. thank you. >> what do you say to journalism students who might have watched what you went through. >> the young women of color, get loud, be out there, participate in your local politics. run for office. there are local positions that you can run for. just participate in your town hall. >> it's a really tough climate. we have gretchen carlson on our program, she is the fox news anchor who sued and successfully sued saying she was fired because she didn't respond to roger ailes sexual harassment overtures. you look at her twitter feed and what she gets, i know how she gets out of bed in the morning. >> you ignore it. >> yes at the top climate, so what. get up and fight. fight for what you believe in. it's not to get better if you just say it's a tough climate,

i can't get out there. that's not how it gets better. >> that comes from a woman who hung out of a helicopter when she was four. [laughter] >> what i would say to journalism students is, it's a tough business. there's no doubt about it. especially the tv world. it can be hard to break in, but there are so many more forms of journalism now and there is so much more opportunity out there. there are digital outlets that have a whole host of jobs that didn't exist five, ten, 1520 years ago. you don't just have to go to your local newspaper or to your local television station. you can get on a blog like 538.com. you can get on a number of smaller versions of those. there's patch. patch still exists everywhere, right?

you can make your way in through that and work up the ladder and just refused to take no for an answer when it comes to finding a bigger job. >> what should journalism students learn from this campaign? you are one of the first to say president trump, i'm covering him, i'm the only one covering him, he could win. i have to say i set it in iowa, having seen was happening on the ground. >> don't discount him. we've declared his candidacy dead dozens and dozens and dozens of times. we declared his presidency a failure a number of times as well and we said how could anybody vote for him again, if he doesn't do this is voters will vote for him. i'll give you this is a cautionary tale. what is the one thing that donald trump needs to do to keep his base? what's the one thing? >> some talking to a guy in ohio. >> they said go to war. >> they said build a wall.

>> oh, i thought you said go to war. >> it could be either, but okay build the wall. we will take that one. and i was talking to a guy in ohio, and i asked him late in the campaign, why do you like donald trump. the man answered because he is going to build a wall. i said what if he doesn't build the wall. it's okay, i trust his judgment. straightfaced, but that's emblematic of his support. there is a trust there that goes beyond his policies. they voted for the man, not the position so don't assume because he did not do something that those voters won't go out and vote for him again. also, he has defied political gravity so many times, who's to say that will stop now. >> david asked, has your book

been considered for a movie, and if so, who would you like to play you? >> no, and no. it has not been optioned for a movie. what about a play? a musical. >> but then you don't get the helicopter. [laughter] >> i'm just interested in the helicopter part. that would be better in a movie. >> if you can make a movie, i say make a movie about my parents because they are fascinating people. if you buy the book, and i hope you buy the book, the chapter six about my family, it is the best chapter in the book. my parents are incredible amazing people, and the way we grew up, my brother and i, is just wild. it's totally wild. >> and it sounds like it set you on the path that you were able too. >> my mom was pregnant, she was hours from giving birth to me on a breaking news story shooting in l.a.

it's just ridiculous. >> no wonder you held up under the incredible pressure of the last year. i do encourage you to buy the book and there will be an opportunity "after words" to talk to katie. thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> thank you katie and robin. it is truly an unbelievable story. we encourage you now to buy the book if you would like at the bookstore and katie will do a signing. we would also encourage you to think about th becoming a

member of the institute so you can hear more about these kinds of exciting programs. thank you both. it was terrific. [applause] tv tapes hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. here's a look at some of the events we are covering this week. monday at the new york historical society to hear michael porter, author and former editor-in-chief of simon and schuster. he chronicled his life during the run-up to world war ii. later we are out west where university of southern california history professor, they will recall the infiltration of nazi and

fascist groups by an assortment of american veterans in world war ii. on tuesday at the smithsonian ripley center in washington d.c., lindsay looks at surgery in the 19th century and the medical advances of british doctor joseph lister. wednesday we are at the redwood library in newport rhode island for gordon woods recount of the tumultuous friendship between john adams and thomas jefferson. also the night we will be at politics and prose bookstore in the nation's capital to hear and often tell the story of how a member of the french resistance gave her life to save hundreds of jewish children from being sent to auschwitz. on thursday at hoover institute, lee edwards recalls his career in the conservative movement. saturday and sunday, watch the live coverage of the texas book festival in austin. also best-selling author michael lewis will discuss many books and take your calls live on in depth. many of these events are open

to the public. look for them to air in the near future on the tv on c-span2. >> good morning my friend eric , how are you today. >> as soon as i heard gig, i said i know this is, i've known him since we were 17. it's so good to hear your voice. >> it's great to hear you and see you on television. thank you for your works and the discussion you are having around this whole german nazi issue. as you and i both know, every german during that time period, if you wanted to buy bread, you had to have a nazi card. it wasn't really a matter of choice. the thing that i really would love for you to talk about is the notion of coming you touched upon briefly, binary choices. where i live, here in northern california, in the bay area, there is a growing population

of people who call themselves progressives, and it seems to me that term has been hijacked to the point where, it's really at the exclusion of god. it is progression toward the notion of yes we are making our culture and society better. we are progressing, but it's to include everything except god as the focal point and centrality issue and most important thing in our lives. i would love to hear you talk a little bit about how progressives are almost co-opting and hijacking what it means to be alive and working in god's kingdom. >> gig, before we hear from them, tell us about yourself. >> tell you about myself, well, as eric knows, my grandfather was also in the german military. he was one of those who was in the german resistance. he was a german officer, as were many and his family.

another relative an uncle was also in the german conspiracy against hitler, and another uncle was the german ambassador to russia and was the architect of the hitler, stalin nonaggression pact. all three of them were found guilty of treason when the famous bomb plot failed and they were all executed. these things are very near and dear to my heart. i just think eric for exposing a lot of these things through the stories that they were really some brave germans. the truth is, i think eric mentioned, germany has been paying this notion of guilt, this debt of guilt for so long , and you're right, you can never get past that. >> i was going to say, if if he didn't say it himself, his

family are heroes. the bonder he lumbered family, that's his family, they gave their lives to defeat nazis from the inside. they were heroes. they were mentioned in my book. there are many people who literally gave their lives. they were tortured horribly to stand against hitler. these are germans. their people from the inside. it brings us to the larger question of progressives and the bay area. i really think that people of good faith in america, on the left and on the right understand that when people take to the streets in violence and when the democratic party is hijacked by people on the angry, bitter left, you are going to have problems. we have had, and continue to have some wonderful people on the democratic side in america, and i have to say, something has happened.

it does seem to me that the anger, the gloves off incivility tells you something. even if you didn't agree with martin luther king jr., the nonviolence would give you pause to say there's something there, these people look so humble and so noble and so dignified. when you have people behaving like animals, even if you agree with them, you are disinclined from supporting them because you don't approve of what they're doing. i think there are a lot of young people today who are just angry. the looking for an excuse to break something that they know that i can smash a columbus statue or something like that and no one will prosecute me. it is troubling to me. i do blame the news media's coverage. i've been incredibly grieved by the new york times in the last year or so. they printed an article the other day, in effect, excusing the violence as defensive,

that these are people who are willing to fight, if necessary , that is rank nonsense. they ought to be condemning this because this is not going to lead to a better america or to a safer america. i think we have to be fair. i would think that anybody would condemn, any fool doing the hitler salute saying he's a neo-nazi, but you better condemn everybody who's an idiot and his willing to divide the country along these lines. it's really, we are in a bad spot and if good people on the left don't stand up, and if good journalists don't emerge to do their job, we are in big trouble. we depend on journalists to do their job. it's not your job to take down this president, it's your job to tell the truth. if you can't tell the difference come you should get out of the journalism business. we are really in need of honest journalism today. i'm really concerned about the state of the union because of

that. >> you can watch this and other programs online booktv.org. >> here's a look at some of the best-selling books according to the conservative book club. topping the list is bill o'reilly in the history of the revolutionary war, killing england. next laura ingram weighs in on trumps political agenda and relationship with the republican party. that's followed by the latest novel enemy of the state. then audio and radio host explains how the christian monk reshaped religion. after that, jd recalls his childhood in a rust belt town in ohio. a look at the best-selling books according to the conservative book club continues with scalia speaks, a collection of the late supreme court justice speeches, edited by his son and his former law clerk

edward. in seventh is another novel, american assassin followed by author and filmmaker critical look at the political left in the big lie. the final two books on the conservative book club bestseller list are bill o'reilly's legends and lies, the civil war, and robert o'neill's account of his 400 mission career as a navy seal in the operator. some of these authors have or will be appearing booktv. you can watch them on our website, but tv.org. >> we are in our 22nd year of the texas book festival. it was founded in 1995 by first lady laura bush and a pretty amazing group of dedicated volunteers who decided that we needed to have a book festival in austin texas to celebrate texas authors and literacy.

and to support our texas library. since those early years, the book festival has just exploded, and very quickly became a national premier destination for the biggest books of the year. >> joined book tv for the texas book festival, live from austin saturday and sunday november 4 and fifth on c-span2. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created by a public service by american cable television companies and brought you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> next on book tv "after words", bob schaffer, former host of cbs "face the nation"