josiah philips. >> watch c-span's cities tour today at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span2's booktv and sunday at two p.m. on american history tv on c-span3. the c-span cities tour working with our cable partners as we explore america. .. [applause]. >> good evening. i had the great honor of being the president of the institute and it's my pleasure to welcome you here tonight along with our

special guest for this evening's program, katy tur and robin young who will come through this door in a minute. we are 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 that might be visiting that institute for the first time, welcome to our replica senate chamber. it's truly spectacular in the way senator kennedy envisioned it might remind people about the important role of the senate and the life of our government and every day students and adults like you and i sit in those seats and they become senators for a day and actually try to grapple with the same issues and

be reminded of the important role of participation in a democracy. we all have to be involved. through our interactive programs like tonight our goal is to see ourselves with the new generation and they keep thinking to myself real spy or as of the older generation to see ourselves as shapers of our community and to take an active role in civic life. that's what senator kennedy hoped for. this evening's program is part of getting to the point series and as you can see it's not always easy to get to the point through our winding construction and sometimes it's not always easy to get to the points in our conversation, but we invite people from all walks of life to talk about important issues in our government and our country

and 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, katy tur. 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 campaigns falsities. that's an interesting word. i read it three or four times, not one we have been using much before now and as a result it she found herself singled out by then candidate trump himself. 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 is documented her experience in her exceptional new book, "unbelievable" my front row seat to the crazies campaign in american history. today she is a correspondent for nbc news in an anchor for msnbc. she's also the recipient of the 2017 walter cronkite award for excellence in journalism. we are pleased tonight to be able to hear more about her experience. after tonight's discussion you have an opportunity to purchase katie's book in our gift to store in the lobby and she will be participating in a book signing. 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 wbr, so without further ado i would like to invite katie and robin into the chamber and as for you to join me in giving them a warm welcome. [applause]. >> this is so cool. can i get you all to smile for a selfie? i went to take a panorama and i think it's the only circumstance we will sit in this position in a room like this. >> actually, while she does that , everyone wave and you are

on c-span, also. >> inappropriate use of time. >> katy tur-- by the way how many of you use the #i'm with katy tur? how did that feel quite make the #. >> know that reception just now see make amazing. undeserved, surreal, exciting. >> i don't know i mean the undeserved part. let's review. foreign correspondent when nbc ds-- signed you to be the only correspondent signed to follow the trump campaign. they would be those infamous now moments long before president trump referred to senator bob corker as little cork. you were little katie.

huge rally back in the area where the trump campaign reporter so it was sort of like indicating to the rabid dog where the meets-- where the meat was. little katie's back their. she's such a liar. what a liar she is. unheard-of in the history of american politics. >> it's no secret politicians don't like reporters, generally. next certain had a fraught relationship with his press corps and there are legendary stories about ron ziegler, his press person 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 blue as. there were moments when i served to someone on the campaign late in the campaign after we had

armed security and after i had gotten death threats and not only nbc provided our security, but so did abc and cnn and during the height of the cnn subset as well and i said does he know he's potentially putting us in real harms way endanger that something really bad could happen and the person said yes, he knows. i said does he care and the person said i don't think he cares. >> why do you think it was that you in particular were so singled out, i mean, from the very first interview 2016-- are -- not interview, but first rally in 2015 he said something about in the television reporters are here and there is katy tur and she's not even looking at me. >> yeah, that was the first time we shared the same air.

i did not know him. i knew him from the apprentice, the new york tabloids, not as a serious political candidates and i had no reason to believe he knew who i was, so i'm standing in the back of this rally which was just a couple hundred people thinking what the heck am i doing here and what the heck is this guy talking about because he was talking about the wall he was going to build and defending, it's about representative-- mexico and then alternating between that and how he gets more standing ovations than anyone and how the press is terrible and katie you have not even looked up at me once and i'm like are you talking about me and he was and i remember just screaming back at him i'm tweeting what you are saying and he liked that, thought i did a good job and then he continued on. >> that's important he said i hope so in by the way you do a good job. when i read over these again in the book, which is terrific and

you'll have to get it and get it signed. i was reading back over it and in the current climate of harvey weinstein and also since the comments yelled at you we had the tape of the donald trump billy bush tape talking about grabbing women's lady parts. reading over these comments now in this climate, this feels like sexual harassment from the stage >> he went after all reporters. it wasn't just female reporters. >> talked about charles krauthammer not being able to-- >> put on a pair of pants. >> of course he is in a wheelchair, so there is back, with you there seems to be-- have you thought about it. some sort of power play going on claimant 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 liked he would go on the attack from the stage. if i reported something he did like, he would tell everyone how great i was in try to introduce me to a crowd at a rally once like the great katy tur. he kissed me on the cheek one morning when he liked my reporting adding "morning joe" townhall and then went on to brag about it on television, which is unusual. at the same time it's what he does to this day when he's sitting with his counterparts of the republican party, i mean, he will have dean heller sitting next to him at a cabinet meeting-- senate meeting and joke around with him not so jovially to say if you don't do what i say i'm going to go after you wake up to the health care vote. that's just the way he operates.

to ascribe a certain other label to it i'm not going to. >> what about trump supporters because we have questions submitted by many of you and i will try to work in as many as i can and obviously people turned on you. you needed support. you were spit out. you would see families what looked like lovely families, but look closer and the guys wearing a t-shirt that said hillary sucks more than monica does-- >> but not like monica. >> and you would be taken aback and think they have small children with them. >> there was that and then the father with his two kids and wife proudly wearing a shirt that called hillary clinton a [bleep]. there was a man who wore a shirt that wish i wish are married o.j. i don't want you think

democrats have the wrong ideas for this country or republicans, that was a shirt that said i hope essentially that hillary clinton was brutally stabbed to death in the 1990s, i mean, that is so far beyond what should be acceptable for common decency, both-- for behavior while long politics. >> you got to know trump supporters and people and this is boston, but i'm sure there are many in this room and one row task he spoke about running into a trump supporter in the bathroom who helped you with your hair, an act of kindness. >> you can put a entire group of supporters with a broad brush. i thought it was a huge mistake to call donald-- donald trump supporters deplorable. you don't go after voters in this country and i don't think it's a good idea to say that this is swath of voters are bunch of racist, misogynist whatever name you want to

ascribe to them. they are a very group of people from a number of different socioeconomic backgrounds. some loaded for president obama in the past work and a lot of them were women, i mean, there's a variety of supporters and at the same time they were the kind of people who often times and would probably live their lives in a very polite and rule abiding way, not a 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 write in the book that trump had a halo of crudeness and in that halo of crudeness he allowed everyone else to be crude around him. he said whatever he wanted and never back down and a lot of people found that refreshing, people who maybe couldn't tell a joke any longer because it was a politically incorrect joke.

people worried they had to watch which they say and watch what they did and people who thought their patriotism was mistaken for racism and they walked in there and said i can say undo whatever i'm thinking. >> we talked earlier about covering the primary and early on i was in iowa and you could see the line at the trump rally their and was calling back and saying i'm meeting a lot of young people in particular, young men who are trying to decide between bernie sanders and donald trump. >> a certain rogue culture that would come out to the trump rallies, men who would wear tank tops and big make america great again hats, that college fraternity culture that would show up and really like the enthusiasm of the event in the same sort of people who would say and this is kind of a broad

brush so i apologize, i would really like either bernie sanders or like donald trump and it was because they wanted an outsider or someone different and refreshing wasn't part of the establishment, someone who's made they had not-- whose name they had not heard their whole life i hillary clinton. they both had job messages and these are young people who either just in the search-- in the middle of a search for a job or soon graduated from college and they wanted a better opportunity. >> they wanted a disruptor, also. >> definitely. >> do you think and i thought i heard 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 reality of what they might have

seen. for instance, when george bush-- george w. bush, the invasion of iraq was only people who were against that and if you had gone to the antiwar rally in washington you have seen people wearing disparaging t-shirts about george bush and they felt it was the same. >> there is an argument to be made for that. i think that is 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? doesn't get better for 2020, 2024 or will we see even more crude language, crude behavior? will there be a line that is 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's 71 years old. you will never change. the guy use on the campaign trail is the guy 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 or could then he forced staff to try to find evidence to bolster him so they are running around trying to find anything to point to some shred of truth in that statement. yesterday he did the same thing, which was saying past presidents including president obama didn't call the families of fallen soldiers. that is not true, but he said it people will want to believe it and what is the white house do, they run in circles to try to find something that backs them up and what they found was chief

of staff john kelly president obama did not call him. well, he was at a number of events with obama honoring fallen soldiers. >> and kelly is a gold star father. >> exactly, but what they have done now and this is what's sad bond politics, beyond all trump and whatever you may think about republicans or democrats is that we are now politicizing the death of john kelly's son. that's awful. that should not be happening. >> we already politicized gold star families. >> exactly. >> by the way, general kelly-- [inaudible] what should the press due? we have a question about-- let's see about whether or not someone suggest the press should boycott >> you cannot boycott the president of the united states.

i'm sorry, you may not like him, but that's not what we do in this country. he's the democratically elected president of the united states, so we have a service to everyone in this room and everyone in this land to cover the president it affects you every single day. >> lauren asks should journalists boycott the white house briefing for his lack of respect in first amendment rights. >> what you do and say you boycott the press briefings. you just validate donald trump's complaint that the press corps is out to get him and they are not on his side and they look for any reason to not report on the things he's doing. is a double edged sword now. >> and we have a question from what he's on the trail do you think the president intentionally attacked the credibility of the press to rally his base or is he really

hurt? some suggest when he lash out like this for instance in the question yesterday and what got completely of skirt is that soldiers were killed and most americans don't know why we still are talking about because the question now becomes whether or not president obama also did not-- it's a lie. >> everything gets clouded. it's very capable at distracting and everything comes around. 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 soldiers. it's about what has he done or what has he done in separation from his predecessor? every policy, every subject, interview, topic it all goes back to him. the disaster response during the hurricane, the governor called

to say i was doing a good job. the fema director called to say i did a good job, me, me, me, me what was the first are the question? i'm sorry. >> is this all about-- to do that to distract us or do you feel something that he's genuinely hurt? >> i think it's both. i think unite-- likes to dominate the headlines and on days during the campaign where he did not have the headlines he would make sure he took it over, i mean, the muslim ban is the perfect example. the day before president obama gave a speech on terrorism, so the day was being dominated by that speech by the president's and then donald trump announced the muslim van and that recaptured the narrative for that day and he wants to be liked. he really wants to be liked. he wants to be accepted. there is a chip on his shoulder that's been there since he was a

young man in queens crossing the river to start building the skyscrapers in manhattan. his father said he could never do it and he tried to prove him wrong, but he was never really accepted by the you know, ruling class if you will of manhattan, so he's always been trying to prove himself and that's why with reporters he will be extremely friendly at first and charming because he wants reporters to like him and if you meet him in person he's a charming person and very nice. he wants you to like him. >> katy tur, i went to ask you about yourself and you cannot to shuffle a bit. your family, you were born into the news business. your parents bob and marika-- >> understatement. i was born while my parents were covering a breaking news story. >> bob and marika, legendary in los angeles.

you know them without knowing you know them. they changed the face of local news and as you write, maybe not for the better. your dad is a gutsy teenage runaway with a big mouth and bigger ambition. your mom from a more stable family, but she fell in love with journalism post- watergate. they had a small news service in la chasing gang fights and fires and things. >> car accidents. they were stringers which meant they went out in the middle of the night covered news stories when the local news do not have cameramen out and then they would sell it to the morning and afternoon it shows and they built the business without. >> helicopter at one point, a big strike in la, all of the cameramen and news teams were on strike. >> they did not physically cross the picket line, but they essentially were scabs. 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 los angeles from the sky. la is a big place and you need a helicopter to get around. he had this really big idea and he walked into one helicopter come to and they laughed him out, i mean, he was 24 the time -- yeah, 24 the time. he had 30 grand in his pocket and a helicopter at that point cost 250 grand and then the second helicopter company said okay, we will give it to you. >> and they bought it and became -- >> least it. >> least it and became sensations. everything was suddenly in the sky work they did chases and then bob and marika became the people behind the famous video of reginald denny being polled from his tractor in la riots and when you hear that sound sane

they are trying to kill him. that's your dad and then the white bronco and the person in the helicopter chasing the white bronco and you hear his voice is your dad. >> my mom was the camera woman. at this time she was hanging out of the helicopter. she gets none of the credit and i feel so bad for her because she was literally hanging out of the helicopter with a beta camera on her shoulder which is like a 70-pound camera literally hanging. nothing between her and of the ground but are and she had a canvas strap that was hooking her into harness that hooked her into the helicopter and she did that over fires, over floods, over police pursuits, over riots and at one point during the la riots while they were covering the reginald denny shooting the

gang members were shooting to the helicopter and when they landed the mechanic said there were bullet damage and engine blades 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 rights and put that together. >> there are very many. >> and you grew up with this. this video of you as you write near the four years old during your news reporting with your dad covering fires and they used to buzz you in the playground at school. you hung out in the helicopter. >> i did not have a harness on either end there was one instance where my poor father, set a heart attack. we were over the rose parade in los angeles and my dad was doing live reports at the time and he brought me up and i was a very savvy kid and figured out how to open the helicopter door.

it's not easy. you have to pull down, out and pulled to the side and i did it as a 4-year old because i wanted a better look at the floats below and my dad remembers looking back and calmly because he's cool under pressure saying katie, please sit down. i sat down and he reaches back and pulled the door shut and then he said he immediately had to land the helicopter because he thought he was going to pass out. [laughter] >> but, i mean, it was a wonderful life for a long time, porsche is and trips to hawaii. your parents became very successful. it changed at a certain point. they were not successful and they were losing the helicopter. it seemed to spiral out. want to talk about that, but even when it was, they were at the height, it just didn't

appeal to you, journalism didn't appeal to you. >> i mean, it seemed so disruptive in our lives. i'm a terrible eater. i have to try to remind myself when i'm out with my now fiancé to eat like a lady because i have a tendency to stuff through to my face because when i was a kid we would be in the middle of a meal and there was something over the scanners and we would have to stop what we were doing and get in the helicopter and covered, i mean, they lived story to story. my mom used to sleep with a scanner in her ear. it was a disruptive lifestyle with no stability and my dad had a camera in my face all the time and i had no desire to be in front of it. i would run in the opposite direction. awkward teenager, also. you can't deny your genes, i guess. i wanted to be a doctor, but i got-- i think i got a d in chemistry. i was terrible at it, really bad

at math and then i changed my member-- major to philosophy and i was going to go to law school and i sat down with a counselor in my last year college and she said you need this court to get into ucla on the lsat and i said i just want to study any longer. i wasn't feeling it and i was driving back to school one weekend with my boyfriend at the time, college boyfriend and there was a fire in malibu, uc santa barbara. lived in los angeles, so you drove up pch and there was a cutoff because there was a fire in malibu and my dad even after the business fell apart kept making me fake press passes. [laughter] he took my photo and he put it over a photo of my grandmother who was in the business with my family and were eliminated its

and so that was my press pass. it's a felony, by the way. .. i'm always curious on what's behind the crime tape. i want to be in the no. i can't deny it any longer. i told my participants. it did not go well. >> because they didn't want you to do it. >> they didn't want me to do.

when i was 14 kcbs undercut all staff and breached their contract. the whole business fell apart. my participants fell apart because of it. they had porsches and went on haun -- hawaian vacation and when i told my dad that i was going oh into it, he was angry. he felt that he had been victimized. he didn't feel like the news business was a good place to be. he's the one that wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer because it was so much more stable and we got into a giant argument and he basically said you're going to end up asking, do you want fries for a living and i slammed the door in his face in my apartment and we didn't talk for a week. >> well, apparently there was further estrangement, you can

clarify, your participants were divorced and ten years later, your father bob tur transitioned and became zoey tur. >> dad is now zoey. >> it's now a woman. >> she's great. fantastic. >> she's great in it. how difficult was that for you or -- >> obviously it's a difficult situation. we didn't see it coming. it's hard. it's hard when a parent changes so drastically. but my dad is an incredibly brave person and she's always been an incredibly brave person, a boundary defier, rule-breaker, that's the way it's always been. the enstrangement is hard, it's

hard, my family is a complicated, but i am really, really proud of the decision that she said and i think it takes a lot of guts to do that. >> we can do a whole hour on that. but you make it clear in your book that your dad is big mouth, you know, outspoken. in fact, you say at one point when i know you're in one of the exchange with donald trump, the candidate, hey, you can tale with this because you had this dad. >> well, everybody -- i had very large can-- larger than life and the way that donald trump

sometimes -- it wasn't unfamiliar, let's put it that way. and it was a good, it was a good primer for standing up to people later in life and but that's my whole family. we are all kind of like that. my mom, my brother, aunts and uncles, we all have big lieutenant mouths and we like to yell at each other over thanksgiving dinner table. >> would like to be a fly on that wall. >> tony, my fiance will have to deal with that for the next foreseeable future. i'm sorry, wherever you are. >> back to dtd, did you have interaction with me, he sub tweeted me, that's very exciting. he said something along the ways, it's fascinating to see people who have zero access to me write major articles and publish books. zero access which is code for

him. always like to say that he had zero access. here is the thing in donald trump, in any politician you don't need access access not now you do journalism, you fact-check, you try to shed light on the person and you don't need access to do that. access journalism is barely journalism. he's so public as it is and the idea of needing access to cover him is 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? >> yeah. >> acts of kindness for many. many trump supporters that come here to the institute, i hope i'm quoting you correctly, they feel that while they support

their guy, they elected someone to be a disruptor, they never thought he understood government, that wasn't why they elected him and now they are coming here to learn more about government so they can help him. [laughter] >> what are you hearing? we know that the polls -- >> there's some softening. >> there's some softening. >> it depends on who you ask. folks at the new hampshire that i talk to regularly. there's a gentleman down in south carolina who would show up at every trump rally that he would hold enthusiastically there, loved donald trump, thought he was wonderful, thought that he would bring change, horrified and appalled at the president that he's become, part of what he doesn't like about it is the attacks on

the press and thinks it's way overboard and not helpful for everything. there's an idea that people elected donald trump because they thought he would be sort of a bomb into the system, he might not know everything about policy, he might not know the ends and outs of health care, the ends and outs of veterans affair, but he will hire the right people to do the jobs and i asked why they believed that about him and a lot of the answer is -- don't laugh about this, i saw it in the the apprentice. [laughter] >> he's always done that since he got on to the real estate scene, tabloid scene in new york in the 1970's, 1980's. he has been selling donald

trump. he's not a real estate mogul, he's a branding mogul. he puts his name on buildings. he sells himself. he sells the image of success. he sells the illage of -- image of a deal-maker. i can make deals nobody else can. this is a terrible deal, i will make a better deal, deal, deal. the word is the most loved word in vocabulary. it wasn't just donald trump supporters, it was the reporters in new york in the 90's, 80's. this is around donald trump was in the verge of financial collapse when he was going through bankruptcies, cliché,

hanging on by the thread. how could you say that, donald trump 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 is going to come back bigger than ever and he will convince him and write stories about it -- >> using the name that isn't his. >> that too. the real estate magnets, the investors in new york city will say, donald trump can't fail and loan him money because he created methodology around himself and he's doing that successfully for a certain segment of voters till today. so when things don't go right, sorry, i keep going, it's not donald trump that made them go wrong, it's congress' fault. >> he's kicking everything down to congress. >> but there are still people that hold out that m people who 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, you know, i'm speaking, you know, their opinions now that hasn't respected the united states. stand up to trade deals that most economists say they benefited from american farmers and they don't see it that way. is there a chance, i mean, 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's just wildly different opinions of donald trump. if you're a supporter of his, you will defend it, defend it, defend it. if you're 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 pass legislation, any legislation, really, major legislation before the midterms? that is still an open question. there's a lot on their plate, if they can't agree on health care which they've been running on repealing now for seven, eight years, do you expect them to agree on tax reform? that's a much more complicated subject and he's going after bob corker. he's going after lisa murkowski and lisa collins and john mccain. he will need their voices and their votes to get any of these things done and that's unless he goes to democrats and convinces democrats to get on board and that's still a big if. >> a couple of questions from here. do you have any advice for young woman of color who fear she has so much to say and continue to

public discourse and has no idea how to get started specially today in journalistic climate? aren't there students up here? they are being shy. they could be back there. over there. they are over there. they are somewhere. >> they are right there. >> what do you say to journalism students who might have watched what you went through. >> well, the young woman of color, get loud, be out there, participate in local politics, run for office if you want to run for office. there are local positions that you can run for, just get -- participate in town halls. >> i have to say it's a really tough climate. we had gretchen carlson, she's the fox news anchor who sued and said she was fired because she department respond to roger

ailes sexual harassment i don'tr overtures. get up and fight, fight for what you believe in. that comes from a woman who hung out of a helicopter. [laughter] >> there are so many more forms of journalism now and there are so much more opportunity out there. there are digital outlets that have a whole host of jobs that didn't exist 5, 10, 15 years ago. you don't just have to go to your local newspaper or local television stations. you can get on a blog like

5:38.com and there's politico, smaller versions, i know you guys have patch, patch still exists everywhere, right? i was hoping. you can make your way through that and work up the ladder and refuse to take no for an answer when it comes to finding a bigger job. >> and what should journalism students or any of us learn from this campaign? you're one of the first to say, president trump, i'm covering him, i'm the only one covering him besides smaller outlets, he could win, i have to say i said it in iowa having seen what was happening on the ground. >> don't discount him. we declared his candidacy that dozens and dozens of times, we've declared his presidency a failure a number of times as well and we said how could anybody vote for him again f he doesn't do this, the voters

won't vote for him. i will give you cautionary tale. what is the one thing that donald trump needs to do to keep his base, guys, what's the one thing? i'm talking to a guy in ohio. >> he said go to war. >> they said build a wall. >> i asked him late in the campaign and the man answered because he's going to build a wall. and i said, what if he doesn't build the wall, it's okay, i trust his judgment. straight face and but emblematic of donald trump's support. there's a trust there that is -- that goes beyond his policies. they voted for the man, not the positions, so don't assume

because he did not do something that those voters won't go out and vote for him again. also he's defied political gravity so many times, who's to say that that's going to stop now. >> david asked, has your book been auctioned for a movie and if so, who would you like to play you? [laughter] >> no, and no. >> really? >> it was not been auctioned for a movie. how 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're going to make a movie, make a movie about my parents because they are fascinating, fascinating people, if you buy the book and i hope you guys buy the book, chapter 6 about my family, 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. totally wild. >> well, and it sounds like it set you on the path that you were able -- >> my mom was pregnant, hours from giving birth to me on a breaking news story shooting in los angeles. i mean, it's just ridiculous. >> well, 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 afterwards to talk to kate tur. #i'm with her. thank you so much. [applause]

>> thank you, katie and robbin. it is truly an unbelievable story. we would encourage you now to buy the book, if you would like to at the bookstore and katy is going to do a signing. we encourage you to think about becoming a member of the institute so you can hear more about these kinds of exciting programs. thank you both. it was terrific. >> let's pass some legislation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> book tv has covered several authors and books about the presidential election, including hillary clinton, roger stone and

more. if this is a topic that interests you, go to our website, book tv and in the search bar type election 2016 book and you'll find a large archive of authors and materials, all of these programs are available to watch online. join us this weekend for book tv live at the texas book festival in austin. coverage begins today at 11:00 a.m. eastern and includes liza, michael herd, the story about block high school football in texas. post facts and fake news. peter, a fairwell to ice. a report from the arctic, daniel allen and her book, the life and times of michael a. acosta, deep in the shadows undercoverred in the ruthless world of human smuggling and

ellen, life and code, a personal history of technology. on sunday, our live coverage starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern with carol anderson and her book white rage, the unspoken truth of racial divide. melissa with bloodlines, true story of a drug cartel. the fbi and battle for horse-ra. live today and sunday on c-span's 2 book tv. >> trump had enough resources at any time you could have knocked him but in addition trump did something done, one of the great acts of genius in american politics comparable to fdr,

trump when -- this is part of why i wrote, understanding trump. what nobody in the cities knows is donald j. trump had a prime time 15 years, now, because it wasn't on pbs and because it didn't follow downtown abbey. nobody in the city understood that. nobody in the city said the day he announced a guy who knows television that well is by definition and what trump had done, writes in deal, any publicity which spelled your name correctly, built strength. i actually think he should modify, 10% less trump would be 100% more effective, but he had

figured out early on that if he could engage the media, the hunger of the 24-hour day cable news system and the power of facebook and twitter meant that he could take the air out of the room. all of the other guys running around raising money in order to bye tv ads to be on television, trump would get up in the morning, he would tweet, that would set up his argument with morning joe, he would call to morning joe whoa who would always take his call and argue for 25 minutes and he would call "fox & friends" and they would have a love fest for 25 minutes. all morning the media is calling the argument that trump is in the middle of of. in the 10:00 in the evening he would do an hour of hannity for free. in a course of normal trumpian a

day, million dollars of free media meanwhile competitors off the air trying to raise money to be able to get on the air and what was happening a sheer name id. there's only one poll in the entire campaign where trump is not ahead for the nomination, people tend to forget this. he was the front-runner from the day he renounced except for one poll where dr. carson pulled ahead and nobody in the elite media could say in themselves -- an interesting example. nobody could say to themselves, if he's the front runner every single poll, could it be he's the front runner? because everybody in the washington elite be he couldn't be the front runner because everything they believed in would be crazy and since they couldn't be crazy, he had to be crazy and if he was crazy, he couldn't be the front runner even though he was the front runner. [laughter] >> this went on. i'm in a situation who by the way have learned nothing, i mean, stuff you get on tv today

is as wrong as the people who laugh when he announced, the people who laughed at primaries and people who laughed at convention and election. they haven't learned anything because they can't, it's repudiation of their own life. their choice is, i can believe in a fantasy which least validates me or decide the world is really changing dramatically and that invalidates me. i pick the fantasy and that's literally where we are right now which dramatically, interesting how it continues for the next three years because i think gradually trump will figure out an angle to break out of this in a way that's historic. >> it's still happening? people haven't learned from the campaign? >> no, look at the whole russian fantasy. what happened on election night was the democrats said hillary can't have lost. and certainly donald trump can't have won, so somebody cheated. putin cheated. you realize this is all putin's fault and that means that there

must have been collusion, they must have colluded and for the last six months everybody in the left has been walking around town chanting, watch for the russian connection, look for the collusion, turns out even diane feinstein says there's zero evidence of collusion. so now the newest one is, but there was obstruction of justice over the collusion. so the fantasy that didn't occur is now being replaced by -- by the way technically president of the united states cannot obstruct justice, the president of the united states is chief executive offer of the united states f he wants to fire the fbi director, all he has to do is fire him. it's a very good task. if john f kennedy would have fired hoover over investigating and wiretapping martin luther, jr., would people have thought it was obstruction? so it's not really collusion? what's the latest leak for the washington post whose record by the way on running anonymous

leaks is actually beaten "the new york times"? an enormous achievement. i give the post credit that they have been more consistently wrong than the times which is actually in the olympics a stupidity and enormous challenge. [laughter] >> so the latest thing is mueller who will not be able to get anything on russia and will not be able to get anything on obstruction is now going to look at finances. and what you are seeing, of course, this is why when i was speaker i opposed renewing the independent counsel act. what happens is you bring high-priced lawyers, they give up regular career, they are going to find somebody and the fitzgerald case where comey brought in the godfather to his children, fitzgerald in order to appoint him as special counsel when they knew there was no crime because, in fact, valerie had been -- was no longer a protected name at the cia and

they knew who had done it, richard, had leaked it. and they still appointed independent counsel who promptly decided his mission was to get dick cheney. i mean, it is the most grotesque miscarried justice. you go back and look at the case. that's why i am very worried about mueller. not that mueller is a bad person, he's a patriot, he served with great distinction in vietnam. mueller, i have no doubt that he's a person who is going to do his best but 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 arthur mueller, which is about the witchcraft trials of the late 17th century and understand that's the mentality of the left right now. left is engaged in the sale of witchcraft process. we know somebody is evil, we know somebody is bad. i wonder who we should burn at the stake, maybe it's you, whoever you. >> you can watch this on and

other programs online at booktv.org. you're watching book tv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. book tv, television for serious readers. >> and this weekend we are live from austin from the texas book festival, you'll hear from several authors including professors angela j. davis, espn reporter and many others and on sunday it's in-depth with best-selling author arthur lewis fox news host laura ingraham, donald trump's appeal to populist movement and how to move president's agenda forward. diana enríquez recounts black monday when the stock market lost 22% of its value and

lawrence talks about what prior generations thought war was going to look like in the future versus reality. 38 hours of nonfiction books, television for serious readers. >> tomorrow morning at 2:00 a.m. is the end of daylight savings time which means that most americans will turn their clock back one hour. up next michael downing discusses the history of daylight savings time. .. ..