>> you're watching booktv on c-span2 with nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv,eg television for serious readers. [applause] >> good morning. wow, what a large crowd so it is my pleasure to be the presenter of our speaker. you're not here to see me, we all know that. the beauty is today in miami has got to be one of the nicest days we've had in a long time and we needed that. so it is a exciting day, but not only that but exciting day to have a distinguished guest here today. chris matthews began his career working for four democratic members of congress before moving on to media.

in 1997 he began his program hard ball, which heirs on msnbc. he is author of seven best-selling cooks. "tip and the gipper," when politics worked, and kennedy and nix hardball. he. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me in -- join me in welcoming chris matthews. [applause] >> thank you. what an intelligent crowd. i haven't seen this much i.q., i don't know. it is great stuff. well, i just came from seattle. the weather is nicer here and

it's great to come back here. it is wild, outdoorsy crowd here. i don't have to wear a coat or anything. i want to h talk about my book. we have until 11:15. i have only 35 minutes. i don't want to give away the book. it isce inexpensively priced. it is actually a beautiful piece of art. there is picture, my producer and i spent so much time peter and i wanted to get artwork for the book i wanted it to be a beautiful book for a beautiful guy. i wanted him with minority kids reaching out nobody like anybody haske done before. he was first white candidate reached into the minority community and really engulfed himself in as much of the culture as he could. the reason i wrote this book, dirt poor, white family along the jersey tracks, in june of '68, dirt poor, the kid has no

shirt. we didn't grow up like this, dirt all over you, the father is obviously affectionately patriotic about bobby kennedy. this is something democrats have lost, this affection @patriotism, gut patriotism of the heart. obviously has been in the military. he has this crisp salute that he is offering his democratic leader. thisem is all gone, this connection between the white working class and democratic party. i think it has to come back. it has to. [applause] and the salute is everything. the african-american crowds that day june of six at this 8:00, i was in grad school at chapel hill. african-american audience, something doesn't happen like this anymore. they sang 20,000 in baltimore, the battle battle hymn of the republic this is americanism.

there are fourr things that identify my book and why i wrote it. april 4th, 1968, bobby kennedy is campaigning for president. gone from notre dame university to ball state university. a african-american student said why do you have for america? because most black people and white people are good people. when heo got in the car to go to the plane in indianapolis, he got king had been assassinated by a white guy, a racist killing. why did i tell that kid to have hope? so he getshe to the scene, actually before he gets to this very tough neighborhood in indianapolis,n african-american neighborhood, the police leave him, the police escort refused to go in. they don't, they're not going to take the risk. they knew it's explosive, the situation. so b bobby goes in anyway.

he says, i have to go. so he goes in. he gets up on flatbed truck, looking at this group of african-americans. have no idea what happened. there was no twitter and all that crap back then. people heard things word of mouth and waited for cronkite to tell them at 6:30. it wasn't like today. because i worked with nbc he was able to get the tape. you heard a guy saying next to him, do they know yet? the guy says no. so he has to tell them. and so he gives this, he says, i'm not going to talk long because i have something terrible to tell you. so he tells them. initially the crowd is cheering him because they're so thrilled bobby kennedy is there, they don't actually hear his words. keep cheering he has to keep telling them. we ought to read it because the words are amazing. it is classic, what i like about this speech it is awkward. he talks about how his brother was killed by a white guy.

this was an odd thing to say. his brother was not killed for racial reasons. he did try t to connect. he took his skin off to talk to the crowd. he exposed himself. any true empathy i believe has to be, has to come clothed in vulnerability. you have to be vulnerable to be empathetic. you can't come in say i'm the tough guy, i have armor on. our prayers and thoughts are with you, that crap politicians always say. i'm so sick of it. you know. [applause] but true empathy comes from pain. it comes from experience. it comes from being a person. you can't have empathy if you don't have that. so i think a lot about the guy was empathy. we don't have it today. not from our leaders. our leaders and i'm not just pointing to the one at the top, i'm talking aboutne all the ones in. congress. they read out statements written by staff people who are bored to death, cold toast. that is what we get from these

people. the other day when trump came out with the tax bill of his, pelosi or chuck schumer, doesn't matter who reads this stuff, it is same words, oh, it is a ponzi scheme. you original little person. i'm so tired of these people. say something human. say something that means something to you. relate to people what this tax thing will mean to their lives. they don'tei even bother. it is too much work. they're too busy raising money and kissing ass, which is what at the do. [applause] i talked about the train ride. i want to talk about the cuban missile crisis. now bobby predicted, i mean he wasn't a visionary. he had a couple predictions that were fascinating. one we would have a african-american president in 40 years. he was off by seven. that is pretty good. he was damned optimistic. what are the chances of guy like barack obama going on who was absolutely unbelievable of threading needle being

african-american and a white mother and interesting aspects ofsp immigration that sort of worked for him and being a genius, absolutely 100% clean, like no politician has ever been. [applause] but he nailed that. he also nailed jimmy hoffa. the jimmy hoffa, crooked labor leader, mobbed-up leader. he couldn't quit. hoffa can't quit thehe mob. you don't walk away from the mob. you end up in cement somewhere. we don't know what kind of cement hoffa ended in but we don't think it was a happy ending. he tried to getet out are stay , whatever happened. after bay of pigs, russians will bring nuclear weapons into the country. they will bring nuclear weapons on the island within a year. he did. castro says, told the guy, the

produced movie 13 days. i didn't want them to bring in offensive weapons. he also said he liked bobby kennedy, who knows what he meant. if he said anything right. he did say they were wrong to do it. those weapons castro were bringings not to defend castro from us. they were to reach every city in the united states this side of seattle. they were offensive intermediate nuclear weapons aimed at balancing off the soviet imbalance with us in nuclear weapons. had nothing to do withh defendig cuba. they were aimed at us. castro would have been standing there, i'm sorry in central park if the war had gone the other way, watching us all being executed. he would have loved it. cuban missile crisis, when that happened, bobby's first instinct like often was in situations which are tricky was, let's go get them. let's bomb the hello out of them. then theyy realized if he and hs brother jack, if we moved on cuba, that khrushchev was ready to move on west berlin.

if he moved on west berlin we were outnumbered on conventional forces we would have to go nuclear. he could see the chain reaction it would have started. then jack said you have to calm down these hawks. you know what he did? he went into the room of hawks, bundy and curtis lemay, things like that, you know what? we're not empire of japan. we don't pull sneak attacks. we don't go in and kill everybody without notice just because we want to gain a strategic advantage. we're not like them. unfortunately george w. bush never got that memo. [applause] so, he made a lot of great call. he made a lot of mistakes in his youth. joe mccarthy, then he turned on him. the thing iob liked about bobby was his character. when he turned against joe mccarthy, he thought mccarthy went way too far fighting communism and abusing

witnesses and demagoguery, he wrote the resolution condemning him on behalf of democrats that down. bring him when mccarthy drank himself to death, took him three years to do it. he was apparently determined to drink himself to death, bobby stayed with him as a person. would to to his family and sit there with mccarthy sat across in his stupor. he would write in his diary how mccarthy was drunk the last three hearings. i'm irish. i understand this thing. i understand the whole thing. the clan. look out for a guy that grew up like you did even if he goes bad. i understand it. all the time he was risking his brother's political career, he didn't want to be friend of joe mccarthy entering the' 60 election because mccarthy was out of favor with the country. he was at the national airport with his daughter kathleen, a friend of mine daughter and friend of my wife even more. she was six years old, with daddy, that is how she talks of

course, withh daddy. daddy gets the word over the car radio that joe mccarthy drank himself to death. he was at bethesda naval hospital. he was so overwrought by this, that he drove around the airport three times. then when it came time to bury mccart think, by the way 70 senators showed up for his service at the capitol. four of them went off to appleton, wisconsin. bobby snuck along on the plane. when he got there got a ride with the reporter, but begged him to say he was never there. he went s to the funeral site, watched from the car as they buried mccarthy. he didn't want anybody to see him there. politicians are not like this. politicians are for show, most of them. he had a character because he did things he thought was important. thatat is why people believed h. why his enemies feared him because he would actually do what he said he would do. when he announced for president, nixon is watching from portland,

oregon from the hotel. bobby announced for president, march 16th, day before st. patrick's day. nixon is watching, somebody turns off the television, nixon still staring at the tv set. it is almost like, twilight zone. nix southern starts with that weird thing of this, forces will be unleashed we can not imagine. who knows where this is going to lead. because the kennedys had this sort of atmospheric connection to this country. people feared them. some hated them. people loved them. they excited us. i think in most cases in a very positive way. by the way when jack kennedy went to debate nixon in 1960, bobby was his corner man. when he said good-bye to him in the green room, what did he say to his brother? kick him in the balls. [laughter]. who doesn't wantan a brother lie that? you know is behind you.

on other hand henry cabot lodge said to his running mate, he said erase the assassin's image. that is morale booster. i look like an assassin trying not to look like one too much during the debate. jesus. anyway i know what this book is about. i didn't realize it until i spent the last crazy six, seven months, intensely writing it. so to be as good as it is. it is about the writing i guess, and research. all the research is based on people i know, gotten to know very well. frank mankewicz, ethel kennedy kathleen kennedy. people really close. tip o'neill i worked with all those years. this is almost inside stuff, stuff nobody else knows about. so, the book is about, i wrote this in the beginning, the book is about when america could use this, a leader today, is what we

lack today. and what we lack is empathy, for real people, true empathy, not known -- phony, bs religion, truegi religious belief, when bobby talked to the black crowd in indianapolis, say a prayer for our country, he meant it. prayer meant somethingng to him. and secondly unity. he tried to bring blacks and whites together. when he went through gary, indiana, not like ron howard zing about it in the the music man. it is tough ethnic town, with long unspellable names from europe and blacks moving in with the crisis and anger. talked to the richard hatcher, the first black mayor and tony zell,, remember him, guys into boxing. he was the other guy in somebody up there likes me. the paul newman movie about

rocky graziano. everybody my age, we grew up with boxing. it was everything growing up, boxing. empathy, unity, a moral compass. somebodyll who actually as president, we like to think the time we're kids, watching robin hood movies, king richard the lie on heart shows up, he will be the right person. when with it comes down to judgment we don't have anything in our leadership. we don't have trueth empathy. war widow, we don't have unity because the person at top wants division, if he gets his 40% he is happy. if he can get 35, he is happen. as long as he gets that. division is working in america. people against him play the same game. i don't hold them as accountable because they're reacting, both sides plays the division game. gets more money into the coffers. thirdly we like a moral compass,

someone can remember when it comes to the crunch isn't political anymore, tell us the right decision. how do we deal with north korea? how do we deal with some of these crises? how do we deal with iran? do we have moral judgment that helps us. we need a moral judgment. something moral to guide you. and i think we need all those things if bobby kennedy and your spirit is running against donald trump this year, you've got a good candidate, you have got a good candidate. i hope you read the book. i love writing it. i think bobby is more interesting than jack he more like us. he iss accessible. he wasn't gifted. he wasn't elegant. even ethel admitted that. he was awkward. maybe thathy is why he understod the overlooked. a friend of mine said, ways in the peace corps, he talked about his love life with women, he was amazing that way. he said people don't mind being

used, they mind being discarded. isn't that everything, discarded? ever since we started this archie bunker thing in the early '70s making fun of white working people we kissed them good buy. you make fun of people, you get down on them, they get message. you call them deplorable. you cling to the guns and my religion? okay, i cling to my religion. a a little person. i will vote are to the other guy this time. i think we need some unity again. and this is the guy. thank you. [applause] thank t you. i will take questions. i'muy told i have got 18 minute. i be glad to, try to stick generally to the book. i know there is a lot of stuff but whatever.

i'm here. go ahead. go ahead. please. your voice must be heard. i hope i have half men and women here. man explain something over. let's mix it up. [applause] >> i have often thought how much betterer life would be today if enbby kennedy had not left us, often, often thought that. i'm no glad you wrote the book. >> thank you. >> i look forward to reading it. and maybe the answers are in there but i wanted to ask, would bobby be successful today and is there another bobby kennedy among us? >> that is the hardest question but let me think. i think his brother's tribute to him at st. patrick's cathedral after he died was pretty good, he saw suffering tried to heal

it, he saw war, tried to stop it. i think of the vietnam war, and i understood. i was part of that growing up, communism, and i did think the world was being taken over by communism. i understand how he didn't want to doan it. andry germans, taking one county at a time i get all that. that was pretty clear by the mid '60s, we were not going to win over there. the people saw it as national listic struggle, it was them against europeans, against us, the french, then us. bobby said i think he would have tried to end the war. i thinkhe the war was two times longer than it had to be. if you go to war in washington, with all the names of people killed i think half as many. if the warn ended in '69, by the same terms we got in '73. we get the pow's we come home. that wasn't much of a deal from the communist side, they got us to leave. you to. that is all they wanted us to

do. that is what the war was b we leave, let us take our prisoners back with us. they could have cut that deal anytime they wanted to. it was a good deal for the side.ist i don't think we gained anything by staying there. when you watch the movie, documentary, i'm sure everybody watched it on pbs, it was just politics. johnson, even worse nixon, sticking it out so to get elections.lives for kissinger comes off horribly. he is still celebrated. i don't get it. i think things were -- i think division we have this country between the classes, between the hard hats as we called them and long hairs, town versus town, all that stuff really got aggravated in the '60s. it never really left us during watergate. it kept getting worse, rural versus urban. everybody in this room knows what i'm talking about this fight, just seems to be the definition of every election now. reagan democrats, trump people.

people are angry on both sides, faxes mean nothing, depend on your side. alabama, four weeks, we'll see what happens down there. i think, tough one down there only alternative to moore is a liberal democrat basically. pro-choice liberal democrat. i just think abortion issue could go away, we don't recognize up here or down here, but down here is also like up heree so. i think that is a tricky one to watch but i do think doug jones will win. i think. >> hi, chris. >> for three years. he will t be in there three yea. will bring somebody else with a conservative with all those problems. >> i'm judy. thank you for the book. >> thank you. >> i see at the end of the book, it says that bobby saw the election at that time, as a fight for the soul of america.

we are now in that fight big-time. he does mention our peace corps andd what that did, the inspiration that came from that. he saw youth getting involved with drugs and that is becoming more and more materialistic. i stopped teaching. i see long lines for the new iphone, what have you, but still just as i was optimistic about peace corps and the domestic peace corps in the years when i was young and i worked for bobby's election from the ann arbor campus i see that, i have to have faith in the young people. what do you see? i see that they they are people with plenty of young people out there that want an america like the america i loved and are beginning to doubt. how do you see the young people?

what can be done? >> well i look at my kids, i look at my kids. i don't do polls. i. look at my kids and they're very, very ideal listic. they just are. they probably vote the way you want them to. they are very, l almost pristine in their liberalism. i'm not worried about it. >> what i would like you to do bring the book to the college campuses and a to speak there. >> okay. i love, want to book me? i'm there. >> okay. >> i'm there. i on any college campus. i will get 34 honorary degrees. i love it. i have about, i have three or four i want, never get because i'm pro-choice but i do love going to collegeol campuses. i do think you're right. people, i think kids, you know what kids are fascinated by, my

kids are? they love any story of the '60s. the'6 6's, the music was unbelievable, the culture, the zeitgeist on campus. every guy is facing the draft. every young woman knows the guys next to them are facing the draft. it captures your attention and it was real. politics was not a theory, when i was at chapel hill. i can tell you it was exciting. i miss it, i do think the '60s were great, despite all the horror. bill clinton said this, if you like the '60s, you are probably progressive. if you didn't like the '60s, you're probably conservative. i think the '60s were wild. i was at march at the pentagon. baby kayrages, nuns, before the antiwar thing got bitter. all things turn bitter for a while before they get going too long. i'm with you, miss, i think you're nor optimistic you let

on. thank you for teaching. teaching is it. sir? >> two quick questions. speaking of t division, will we ever get rid of the hastert rule? speaking of great politicians, did you ever go to tip o'neill toes betty's rolls-royce? >> to where? >> betty's rolls-royce in boston? >> no i didn't. i spent every day for six years, every day, listening to the stories in the back room. that was my education. what was the first question? >> hastert rule. >> it's a stupid rule. we already have checks and balance. we have the house and senate. president, supreme court, the court system and we have the legislature. they're all checking off. if it works we have independent judiciary. we have free press it is a good system. it really is, standard for the world. the freee press. every country worth their salt has those elements if they don't they're not worth much. i don't care if russia is gas station and police force that is

all theree is. they don't respect these things. they're not a first world country. they're jealous as hell of institutions we have. they look at us, my god, this is great country. we're not. we have great history. novelists, musicians, ballet and they don't have a great political system and we do. so i believe in it. [applause] hastert rule is this weird thing that hastert himself didn't even believe in, unless there is a majority of the republicans caucus, republican side supporting something, they don't even bring it to the floor. here is where the hell of that was. we could have a comprehensive immigration system in this country, stop arguing about it. if they took it, senate bill, which had 12 republicans for it, it had all the elements of a -- it was not open door policy. it was not open borders. it was nothing like that. it said no more illegal hiring.

it would be enforced. i think magnet of illegal hiring why people come here, you have la regulate. like any country regulate it. you don't outlaw immigration, you regulate it. if you can't regulate it because we're a joke. we don'twe regulate it. you got a job, you're here. nobody working making it honest above the table. put off the books stuff on the books. they had this and damn hastert rule allow boehner to prevent it from coming to a vote. i think it would have passed. democrat was have passed. teddy kennedy would have voted, good republicans, corker, lindsey graham, mccain were for it. it was a good bill, they had it in their hands, because of hastert rule they never pass it another 20, 30 years. stupid rules, totally with you, sir, something should have been laughed out of court. next. >> looking forward to reading your book. another fabulous book on robert

kennedyg was by professor evan thomas. there was a line in that book that stuck with me, i would ask you to comment on it. said, as to robert kennedy and the senate, he was in the senate. ted kennedy was of the senate. >> i i know. >> which means that robert kennedy wasn't much of a senator. he was a vehicle for him. so i just ask you to comment? >> true. he was not a club member. teddy was. . .

i mean, i say, okay, they're attractive. we say they're attractive. i don't know. maybe they are attractive, but do something. say something. make me believe in you, don't just be attractive. i mean, cory booker, well, they seem to be so thrilled with the menendez thing. if you're big on cory, take a look at his yuck-yucks in the paper, just loving the fact that menendez has gotten, you know, beat the judge here. i'm sorry, that case should be readers for voters in new jersey to look at this guy very seriously. and all of those about getting his brazilian girlfriends into the country? that's not your job. your job is not to do that. that's not your job and you're using your job to do it.

and proving bribery is so hard. bribery means you have to have a tape recording of a guy or a woman saying if you do this, i'll do that. that's very hard to get and that's what it takes for a bribery case. ever since the mcdonald case in virginia, it's now like, you do any favor for anybody, it's okay and the guy is walking around with a $5,000 watch like he's owned by somebody. why would anybody walk around with a watch like that given to them by some pal to make-- to establish his cronyism. sorry, we've got to raise our stairs. i'm watching camilla, i'm watching young joe kennedy. and i'm watching sherrod brown. if hillary would have had him on the ticket, she would have won. he went to yale and acts like

he doesn't. and has a gravelly voice to match up with hillary with a guy nobody remembers who her running mate is. that's what she wanted him for. she didn't want a competing personalities and apparently she didn't get one, and she could have picked anybody she wanted and she blew it. in wisconsin, ohio, wisconsin, ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, and act like she was interested in those people. and she didn't do it. [laughte [laughter]. yeah, that's probably not likely, but-- i was pretty tough on her husband, but, you know, it's going to get worse. i just think, not going to end with him. go ahead, miss, ma'am. >> i was wondering if we were ever going to get rid of the electoral college. >> it will never happen. why? >> because of the people-- why do you think we have the electoral college? >> i don't think we need it. >> we have it.

>> it's political. >> okay. good answer. we have it because small states don't want to be pushed around by big states and they want-- and it will be there because if you live in idaho, you matter. if you get rid of the electoral college, you get rid of the dakotas, and alaska, it won't matter and all the voting will be done here in florida, new york and california and those states will run the country and they didn't want-- and they didn't want -- [applause] >> okay. good! that's exactly what the rest of the country thinks you think. they've got your number. they want you to-- yeah, that's what i say get on a plane in new york and fly to the coast. and what are those little circles down there? it's called america and it has electoral college and 270 and i always say it comes down to math. 270, and every time we see a national poll, by the way, new

york and california, it doesn't matter in the electoral college, they will be democratic, they will be democratic and it's important for different reasons. if you wonder why we have a national poll that says democrats take house next year by 12 points. it better say 12. in it's in the single digits the republicans will win the house, you know why? because of states like, well, berkeley, san francisco, los angeles, chicago, miami, philadelphia where i grew up, new york city of 90% democratic. all of those dikts are 90% democrat and those votes flooded into the same districts and the republicans in utah win around 50 or 55% in the suburbs and they win because their votes are allocated around the country. liberals bunch, okay? whites like to be in cities that are diverse, republicans don't want to live in cities that are diverse. whites like bunching together

with lots of din people and conservatives want it to be mono chromatic. monochromatic. >> i promise to read your bobby back, but i know as a young man you worked as a speech writer for jimmy cart he and my name is kai byrd and i'm writing a biography of carter and i wonder how you look back on the-- >> i don't don't y-- why don't you call me up? i think that jamie carter was an honest guy with not a great executive ability. he tried things, human rights and nuclear arms proliferation that we're dealing with today. he knew what he was talking about and i thought-- he just didn't have that background in political ability to pull together a governing group and he wasn't a liberal in a liberal party, which is a problem. he was much more of a moderate

and the kennedy people were much more in tune with the party, but i loved it. i'm flying around with air force one. i'm smoking cigarettes, drinking good white wine, writing speeches for the president of the united states and on air force one and even when they took off diagonally, straight up. and rick and i, the top guy, knocking out index card speeches. you can't beat it and the president of the united states is going to give your speech when he stops. it was the greatest job in the world. and we had steaks. you get on the plane at the end of the day, you smelled the steaks being cooked. come on. [laughter] >> i don't care, i'm not saying i'd like to work for trump, but-- but the perks are all there. it's exciting to write for the president and i like carter and we tried, you know? and we lost, but i was there when he lost, i was there that night and we got the word in

seattle, and across the country, and one of the guys with me, david rubenstein, now a billionaire said, somebody how come we're not stopping anywhere? we went to michigan and flew all the way to oregon. why are we not stopping? and dry david rubenstein goes, well, the reason we're not stopping is because not a single state we're flying over we have a chance of carrying, it was that bad. even in florida people came out to see the president, not to vote for him. they were the middle class people in winter park and places like that along that i-4, whatever it is and they were all nice, suburb people, but they weren't going to vote for carter, it wasn't going to happen. it was great. i'll help you though. just give me a plug. [laughter] >> we're doing a documentary, jerry and i are doing a documentary. >> can you talk about bobby's relationship to lyndon johnson? the movie of lbj, trob reiner

was pretty critical of bobby. i wonder what you thought about that and talk about how they got along? >> i had dinner last week with rob reiner and tell you, he's a smart guy. the movie was about lbj, not bobby. you've got to read the book. if starts in 1940. in 1940 lyndon johnson was an accolade of the art one of the knew dealersment and fdr is on the phone with the ambassador of britain, he doesn't like and doesn't trust. kennedy is an appeaser and worse, probably soft on naziism, it's all in the book. and fdr is doing the charm on the phone. come on home, joe, you and rose will have dinner tonight can't wait to see you. then off the phone, i'm going

to fire the s-o-b. and bobby hears about he's enjoying insider with fdr. and they're in the senate cafeteria and bobby is working for joe mccarthy and lyndon johnson is a senate majority leader and everybody is sitting up calling him mr. leader and bobby is sitting there quietly and ignoring them. and i knew this because larry king, the writer, i went wherever he was and johnson would make a beeline for anyone who wasn't kissing his butt and bobby wasn't. finally he goes over, yeah, young man and bobby gives him a fish handshake and then johnson walks over to his press secretary and says, it's about 1940, i got that from robert caro, and the latest edition, latest episode.

so, that thing went-- is like, it was like two dogs meeting on the sidewalk. they didn't like each other. instincti instinctively. of course, bobby eventually wanted to succeed jack. he wanted to be the next president. and that's a fact. he just wanted to continue the new frontier and johnson was in the way. and johnson said things about the kennedys, some of it true. the old man, you've go the to remember, he was an appeaser not a good american. look what they did. joe kennedy kills himself fighting the nazis. i'm going to kill the nazis and he killed himself in an amazingly dangerous mission over occupied france over the b-2 targets and jack missing for a week, he could have been gone easily, but was cut in half by that japanese destroyer, risking their lives and bobby couldn't get to get into a ship.

he gave up his rotc, just so he could get into a ship. so, they were great americans, the kids. i grew up with a family like this, my grandmother came here from ireland and she has pictures on the wall of my dad in the navy, my uncle in australia as an air corps guy. army air course and george in the tank helping to liberate the camps. there's a great american pride for the immigrants and the kids fighting for the country. the kennedys were like that. the kids were so much better than the father. and anytime they brought up joe kennedy, and et johnson brought up how the old man was an appeaser, a neville chamberlain umbrella guy and thought hitler was great and he said that in front of cameras and do you think that the kennedys liked that. jack said i need him as my running mate. kennedy didn't care what

johnson said, he needed texas and other southern states. and bobby said this guy is not to be rewarded. bobby was right, jack was politics. one was charm and one was brains, together they were magic. separately they were very different people. good question though. good may tread though. as i say in the book, friend can mean anything. enemy only means one thing. it was very clear what enemies are. >> so there's never enough time. >> no-- >> and i'd like to ask for a round of applause. >>. [applause] . >> thank you very much. [applause]