they chronicle the current issues facing the nfl. that is followed by former secretary of state john henry's memoir. every day is extra. they will be appearing on book tv. simply enter the author's name and the word book into the search function at the top of the page. thank you for joining us on c-span. how would you characterize from putting all of the things in the book together the current function of the white house. it is a nervous breakdown. there is not the team. there is lots of disagreement.

and some theory of how the economy works. does it apply to the white house or is it a different characterization. for the first six months in the white house. ideally it's there. natural predators you describe. on either side though. there are many sides but it's every person for himself. the basic approach in the book is to describe how president trump make decisions in national security and the economy. and the things i think really matter to people there's just

to take one scene. the national security council meeting earlier this yearta in which the president is still worried about all of the expenditures that had troops abroad particularly in south korea. $3.5billion though. we may get some money back. nato thinks that we are being ripped off. his really persisting after a year in officeer on this idea that we are being cheated. we are being played for suckers he makes the point this is the best bargain we have we get benefits to protect our country in the

president won't let go of it. so finally he says. we are doing this to present -- prevent world war iii. what the declaration from the secretary of defense to the president. he went on and said why are we doing this. why are we spending money on taiwan and south korea he does not understand this old world order. where we thrive on trade relations the security agreement and the top-secret intelligence partnerships that we have.hi you mech what do you get in the sense of a core philosophy of the president. he has a couple of ideas. one that trade deficit somehow are bad and take money from

americans 99.9 percent of the economists would say that is just not so actually, it helps the economy. it sounds kind of technical because it's not. americans are buying goods abroad because there are better quality -- quality or cheaper. americans have more money to buy other things or to say. the president president thinks we are losing this money and then it's bad policy and he stands alone with two of his aides in persists in this. it is alarming to the policy makers on policymakers on the left, the right.

it's just not true. see mac if you have these core philosophies than who in the white house either previous or present helps shape those. who are the biggest drivers of that. the point is he shapes it himself. there is one scene with the book. the chief economic policy in director of the council and the white house. what was that specific action. don't waste your time.

every organization and that's in part measured by how much they grow and learn and the inclination to not learn and change his mind. it's not a hesitancy. as a declaration. this is the way it is. we can talk about this further in the book. they take them to the pentagon. the various forces in the world. and the reaction is a negative one. he is a disruptor. he came in to change things but when you are a change agent you inherit the past and you can't just go in and do that. you can't burn it down. let's redesign. let's renovate let's change things but he wants to discard these things that are foundations of our national security and the global

economic policy. bob woodward joining us for the hour. if you want to ask him questions . you talked about the sourcing in the book how does it work out practically. i'm going to protect the sources. they get more information. there is a passage there.

after about five minutes. we've been hearing about this for 17 years. ". if a bunch of inconsistent shortened strategies. is not". some of these are there. i remember i remember exact language and it's accepted. you can get a pretty exact picture of what's going on. a lot of people think we had

been in that war forin 17 years.ha in the pentagon wanted to do that. he was very resistant.as whether the commander-in-chief is with us. to fight the half asked war. this is what they said about the book. that approach has not changed. every administration is filled with people that have an agenda. they are taking on the trump presidency they had left an unreliable source. is a reliable book for

reliable sources. are you the sole person to make sure it's accurate. that's an important question. i have an assistant who transcribes all the tapes. it was hundreds of hours of tapes. we will go through it and make sure that they represent no wait a minute. this is the word.d.

we need to clarify here. let's be as meticulous as you can and it's a great asset and i think her at the beginning of the book in spirit and commitment. it was effectively the co-author of this book. you are on with bob woodward. go ahead i just want to know.

it's covered in a way what i've said is that i found no new evidence of collusion there is some out there on the record publicly some of the reporting done by my own newspaper and the washington post.he but i found no new evidence but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. in fact, president trump's lawyer for 18 months john dowd concluded that moeller have something that he was not telling john dowd about in the meetings that he have. the other point on this i think and i think it's critical. the real answer to collusion is in russia.

as a reporter if i went there i almost certainly would not come back you can't operate in russia the united states intelligence agencies do. and they produce the initial report that russia was meddling and the 2016 presidential election it's can be very interesting to see if those agencies or the special -- special counsel come up with anything that is intelligence based from russia. but that's where the real key answer is can a come from i believe. >> we have a viewer off of twitter that said in relation to that. do they think that some other entity will subpoena the notes and recording.

let's hope that doesn't happen. i obviously hope it doesn't happen. i expected not to happen. simply because i deal with lots of very sensitive national security issues and debatess i've done this for 47 years. in nine presidencies. and try to provide as much information in the book not going so far is to disclose courses to harm operations essential to the security of this country. or that might get someone killedgh or some source blown. there is a line i tend to push it i think the public needs to know more rather than less.

the government will disagree with that. i know many times i had been careful in people who know about these intelligence operations understand that. my general approach is after 30 or 40 years like in the case of watergate our papers are at the university of texas all of the notes and draft. everything from that watergate investigation we conducted except fromil people who are still alive and once they are deceased those papers get turned over and are made public. at some point, some disc and disk and be able to go through all of this and see exactly

where it came from and see the ruggedness of the process. carl and i talk allsh the time. hit all kinds of ideas. he's working for cnn and has done a lot of his own reporting and we would talk back and forth about where this is and where it's going and what the outcome might be. my general approach is reporting on the future is futile because you don't know what's can happen. and in this case. there is an ending. has established

that there are 4,200 plus matters that the president has said our false or misrepresent what occurred. but on the outcome of the moeller investigation this is a slice of reality of covering the time during the campaign a little bit of his time in office. >> good morning.bo i have a couple of questions one of my biggest concerns is that trump seems to be antimedia and wondering

wondering if you think he is in danger of being taken over by a dictatorship. >> i certainly hope not the president is antimedia. he has coined the term fake news which a lot of people particularly a lot of trump supporters agree with that the only answer for us in the media is to do more reporting. be careful about the tone there should not be a self-satisfaction in the writing or when reporters or commentators appear on television.en we still have democracy still have a first amendment and

let's hope that that will continue trump talks tough on a lot of these matters and you see the news media generally not pulling punches. >> what the chief of staff called his bedroom where he did a lot of his tweeting. and special times when the president would be engaged in tweeting or preparing tweets the witching hour. i would try to work the schedule so he would be coming back to the white house late on sunday night after the weekend.

he normally goes out for rallies or other events.ie and so the president would come back when cable news is doing softer programming soccer programming most of the time. this is something that never took tome for ration. why don't we review. why don't we fact check them and so forth. the president runs his own twitter account. this is from washington state. independent line. lord knows i love the country and i would not had put this information out there though seems to betth it subversive go ahead sir.

i love the country. i just would not had put this information out there. the people that are enemies listening to this. it's just appalling that we don't have the sophistication to realize that the end is at work here. they are not going to be appearing as russian or jackboots. they will be dressed just as you are trying to infiltrate the government this is how they operate.rn >> i remember during the watergate case we can't seem to know the truth actually we

need to know the truth. and there was no way that i can take a position as a journalist or as an author. let's camouflage this. but somehow how hold back the democracy we had is strong. we try to base the debate on facts and whatever has going on foreigners trying to sober the government we have the fbi and the massive intelligence agencies who monitors what's going on in fact after september 11 the whole intelligence establishment blossomed and tens of billions of dollars each year spent on this. as you know we haven't have a

major terrorist attack since september 11. i just think that's my job i don't think we should pretend this gets to the emperor and has no close. i think it makes the country stronger not weaker. based on your track record. that the book is factual. you're giving us a true picture of what's going on. my question is at some point in the future trump will no longer be president will either be where he will lose or i'll be the completion of

the second term whatever it is when he leads the problem doesn't go away. in your estimation how do we get back together as a country and at least in the civil way address problems and reason things out together. i am just the reporter the political system that we have whatever strengths and weaknesses we had is you have to deal with that. obviously the political system is being tested. you're right about the divisions there is a polarization that has not existed before the remedy i have to be an optimist has to

do with people listening people agreed on agreeing on what the facts are. we may have because this has happened before a crisis in this country present trump is can have to manage the unexpected. that's in a testing in the and even in a sense the day-to-day test everything. let them figure out how to do it my approach is to try to answer the question about what really happens. who are these people you will see who trump is and what he

doesn't care about. it's almost a total universe portrait of him in the operation of the white house. that is where my energy goes not getting into the very good question and as a great question for the elected representative that we have. >> didn't relate to specific incident. he related to all specific incidents in talking to people and saying what did you see what did you know. on the key issues in the book covers foreign policy what happened in north korea what happened in afghanistan

debate. how did the president decide to impose tariffs on china. how did the tax plan get formulated. what is the debate on trade and immigration and so forth. there are people there who are specialists in key people in the white house and the west wing or in the departments and you can what is so interesting in doing something like this you can go to someone and if you win their trust you can say what happened that's important.pp and they immediately know.mm

and that is your jumping off point. what has impact and what is the nature of the relationship that the president has with his key cabinet officers. one of those interesting relationships. why did he have such a large influence there. they played golf a lot. and lindsey graham is in a sense a greek chorus of one in the book because he talks to trump a lot. they deal in foreign policy issues very much believes we need to do something humanitarian on the issues for instance and immigration.

the democrats line. you're next for our guest. thank you for taking my call this morning. i have a very deep departed complement to pay you i find this book utterly fascinating and it gives me hope i don't explain this. i am anti- trump everything about him it just turns me off i have to pay you the deepest complement you had change my mind you have given me hope that there are two sides to this. i have changed my mind concerning this.

i know that directly to you. when i read your description and in-depth detail of the i meeting i believe that it was a meeting before he was inaugurated to president in the intelligence community figures people were in went in and explain to him the situationed with the russians and the tampering. and in that you described mr. comay's the way he handled that meeting i was never a mister comay fei fate fan as you can figure out when i read

your complete definition and description of what mr. trump must have been feelingn during that meeting i saw his side. and i saw something that literally changed my mind. >> that's a fair point. what i would say is that the fbi director took a summary of this steel dossier that made some allegations about the presidentt and what he have done. and my point was.

it has the h aroma of the j edgar huger fbi. the disturbed that we head on you. i know in other presidencies that i had reported on when there was this transition time and a new president was coming in. often allegations were made weparticularly about president clinton before he took office. and the response was to take the allegations and not confront the president elect with him. but to throw them in the burn bag knowing that if there was something to it. it would come out. this was the whitewater investigation.

not that that started earlier. there is a pattern here. the fbi is one of the incredible powerful institutions if they decide to go after you in the investigation. they can look at anything finances, personal relationships all of the people who were in your organization and so forth. there was a power that has to be used very carefully.po and in this case i felt there was not the care taken particularly. they know who he was. volatile. they even report in the book that he toldi president trump after this told his lawyer this is something my wife should not hear about. i agree with you. that is a moment when i

thought about that. and they got in his face on some of these things. that created very intense suspicion between the president and the fbi. good morning. i just wanted to get your response to a comment that i heard from cheryl atkinson over the weekend. and she said that in general and specifically regarding your book that certain journalists practices are not needed here too. for example, the overreliance on anonymous sources.. she said anonymous sources should be used very sparingly with the as great of stress it's the city as possible. and the other thing she said was that when you report on something you usually

interview that person to get their view or take on what was said about them. in terms of this book he reported on the president but you actually to interview the president. finally, there were comments made by various people and i was wondering if they said those things directly to you. and if not because there tonight they said them we will let our guest address them. the sources are not anonymous to me. i know who they are s and this is about specific incidents that the sources witnessed or participated in. on the issue by having the time and checking things there

is not a vagueness to it. it's 2:00 p.m. on tuesday july 15 they gathered in this office. this is what people said. this is what the president said.s this is what the president did. i asked six people to interview president trump no one over said oh yeah he's willing to. i broke my spear on it. the president called me last month present trump did and said why didn't we have this interview and i said because he said he wanted to do it and i have always treated him fairly. i listed people he talked to in and president trump acknowledged in one case and his assistant and the other i

spent a long time with her going through what i wanted to ask the president about it is either the president or some aides decided he should not talk to me or this breakdown as i call it a nervous breakdown in the white house where information is not getting to him. so there is maximum effort to try to go over these things with them he's willing the focus of the book. and you used a name sources in my business because you got a people and get out a microphone and you say this is on the record. you will get the press release version of reality. if you establish a relationship of trust and say i want to know what's real

people are not going to talk and tell you things with their name behind it i have to be very careful and so i test everything that i get in if you look through the book you would see verbatim quotes the notes that come from people who are writing them down all kinds of documents very specific scenes so do you want the press release version. of what happened in the white house which unfortunately and i've said before. the president is conducting a war on truth. he just will not accept the truth on a lot of matters. in the environment if you talk to people on the record the

job is to take as deeply as you can. this is the night president i have done books in reporting on the washington post and the method is will tested and very meticulous. why would jim matus rex tillerson dispute observations. there is what is called the politically calculated survival denial where a number of people have said this doesn't capture everything. people have disputed some specific things but not all kinds of other things. and people need to survive going back to the nixon case.

lisa called us the nondenial denial. and in fact it is not. as part of how people survive in this administration that's part of the reality of these survival denials and take them for what they are. believe me. a selective, and everything is selected. it doesn't totally reflect someone's experience in the white house i know it accurately reflects it does it perfectly on every moment my

feeling is there has been some comments by people actually greater confidence in how you do that. >> good grief good grief you answer questions a lot of time. it's a great cross-section of america every day. and he is putting himself out for some open questions to the american people for a change. i've creek questions. i hope you did take that ladies complement from tennessee as a complement. she's referring to the dossier which is what the corrupt fbi leadership used to open up the false probe against the president.

then you said the repeated, all the time that the president said the media is the enemy r of the american people. he said the fake news and the false stories is the enemy which it is. the third thing is and what came to mind before i called today. is the despicable choice that you took to introduce your book on september 11 with all days of the year. i think there should be a photo character of the charlatan your face would be on it. here's two quick questions. you've made it very clear how you approach these things. the president has said the news media is the enemy of the people. not fake news. he does call various organizations fake news. in the publication date of this book is decided by the

publisher and it's a sequence to get it out in the fall. i'm not sure what your point is. we know there was a corruption of the fbi that fed you all those stories during watergate. >> would you tell everybody how many of these a and norman the sources that you're using are from fbi sources and the other questions i've have all these years. first of all, all of the information in the reporting on watergate has been substantiated the president resigned we have all kinds of sources which are identified in the book. i did call all the presidents men.n. you're just run on that sir.

i thought it was interesting. that the burglars that nobody ever talks about that were caught in the watergate hotel where the same crew under g gordon liddy that were in the pigs invasion. >> i stand by that in history and the nixon piece. what happened in watergate. who the sources are in the trump book that is in a has been to come out someday. .. ..

to reality and not deal in some conspiracy theory that the fbi is behind all of this. the people behind my reporting work or worked for the president. >> host: from phoenix arizona democrat on the line, hello. >> caller: yes, good morning thank you for c-span and thank you for having mr. woodward on. this is a call of thank you and i give up five stars for accurate b reporting and i'm a third of the way through the book and i feel like i'm reading a confidential report that i should not be reading. it has banned for four and a half decades. i have read all of your

watergate stuff and i love it. i gave you an a+ and that's all i have to say. thank you. >> thank you. >> michael from washington state, good morning. >> caller: good morning. hi mr. woodward. thanks very much for your many years of service to our country. i would like to ask two quick questions please. if you believe a fifth or sixth-grader mentality would be able to beat hillary clinton in multiple debates and also what is it that you believe has happened to investigative journalism because it doesn't seem to get a whole lot of that going on anymore and i'm wondering if you believe as i do that it seemed to have stopped right after9/ 9/11. >> guest: i think there has been a lot of very good investigative reporting.

the question about a fifth or sixth-grader, secretary of defense mattis saying president trump has the understanding of quote a fifth or sixth-grader. this is documented and the reasons for that conclusion are laid out in the book. interesting question of whether donald trump beat hillary in those debates. lots of people think he did in something he didn't. the important point is he won the election and so what i'm trying to do is describe what he does as president and as i have said going into all areas that affect people's lives and

foreign-policy foreign policy and domestic and economic policy. >> host: republicans line north carolina, karen hello. >> caller: hyde. first of all i would say democrat that voted for barack obama twice. the democrats are openly bigoted against white people now but the only way i buy your book is if i was in venezuela to help them with their toilet paper shortage. the thing that really -- about you bob is you don't, you aren't even aware enough to know that you have the obama school player you'd thwack. >> host: all right banks. >> guest: will we know what she thinks and that's what'san great about c-span doing this. people can judge the merits of what it says. >> host: jim on twitter as

about process. how do we know what quoted passages are real and which ones you quote reconstructed tree at. >> guest: they are all real. there is nothing reconstructed about it. you get those documents and you interview people who were there and get their memory is the the pals. it's so carefully done and heat's what i'll. one of the other colors in him and him and his will you and you in an happened to him him.

that's what this book is to go and that you didn't mind robert, i'm not. >> caller: good morning and i just want to say thank you for the book because what i'm seeing him look at all the people. point him and go to in a handbasket. if a person in that demonstrated he is a to him and people are willing him and you know it. i thank you for the book and having the courage to bring the truth to us because he is not the united states. he only works the united states

and people don't understand that. the guy is not prepared for the presidency and the people that are spinning him, to meet the enemy of the truth is demonstrated. he denied the hollywood tape. i mean what else do the people want? to me it's like tell the truth on your part and i give you great credit because the country right now is so divided. >> guest: do you have a question sir? am caller: the question is, i'm asking what do you think that the president should do or what we should do to have the president respect the rule of law in this country? >> host: caller, thank you.

>> guest: that's an important question and there are debates about the things he does. there is the smaller investigation which is ongoing. they have achieved guilty pleas and convictions of lots of people on issues related or marginally related to the focus of the investigation. did someone, did president trump or somebody in his campaign or in his government colluded with russia? during the 2016 election? that question has not been answered yet and we are going to get to some finding some time by special counsel mueller. i have looked at some of this

and i think there are non-conclusive, at least pieces of evidence that i could find one way or the other. >> host: when you talk about the mueller investigate me talk about god -- john god and how he offered information to the investigation. can you tell us what he offered? >> guest: the case was let's cooperate with smaller. there is nothing the president has to hide so they turned over the data provided 37 witnesses in the campaign from the white house. 1.4 million pages of documents from the campaign. 20,000 pages of documents from the white house. dowd thought this would speed up the investigation and mueller m would declare it over and the president, that there would be

no evidence that the president did anything wrong in this. at the end as i report in the book doubt concluded that mueller seemed to have something, that there was some thing he was not telling the president lawyer john dowd about and doubt concluded that the president's suspicion about mueller both publicly and privately, the witchhunt, the suspicion was correct and that mueller had played dowd for a, the president for a and got all of this evidence and then was not teen forthcoming, kept pressing for some sort of session under oath with the president which dowd insisted

after practicing with the president quite simply the president is not capable of telling the truth and when the president said he was going to testify dowd resigned. very human phonecalls between dowd and the president on this and dowd regretting very much that he resigned but he said i cannot sit next to you as your lawyer and let you testify. you are incapable of testifying in telling the truth. a very severe conclusion and let's face it, look at the president's statements time and time again that are just not supported by fact. >> host: on the democrats line patrick, hello. >> caller: hello stunning.

axios came out with a poll regarding americans in the press and mr. woodward is part of this cabal. the system is identified by the american people and 85% of the american people believe the mainstream media produces fake fnews which they do. my friend who lives in the soviet union said corporatized media is literally likeis listening to soviet news agency is. >> host: caller we are short on the sides so directly to your comment or question please. >> caller: michael comments mr. woodward why don't you support the fairness doctrine? it you have nothing to hide about the couple that is destroying the democracy of the first amendment by the american people than you should be in support of the fairness doctrine which will give the american people a voice instead of destroying social media networks

and equating every american with conspiring. >> guest: okay sir, i personally practice the fairness doctrine and try to get as much information that i can and as i say and i will repeat myself, it's very very carefully done. i have done this for 47 years.it i don't carry politics into it. i've been accused of being a leftist, being a conservative, of being this or that. president trump accused me of being his democratic operative. ask hillary clinton about that in some of the things that i've written about her and her husband in books. it's absurd.

somebody sometime ago called me a radical centrist and i think that's probably where i come from. what happened, can you verify it and present it and that's what i have tried to do. >> host: how many of your previous books have taken the same background of approaches you have with this book? >> guest: all of them. what i do is going back to nixon ford, carter, reagan, the bushes, obama. getting information that i can verify from other sources. it is a consistent approach. what is interesting when they book will come out people like henry o kissinger on nixon, it s

fascinating.te carl bernstein and i wrote about a very emotional scene on the eve of nixons rested nation where nixon and kissinger got down and prayed and president kind of lost it and was pounding the carpet. when that was published kissinger came out and denied it and years later when his own memoir was published to describe exact weight the same scene and said two people that president nixon was almost a basket case. so as ben rackley the editor of the post said the truth the verges. sometimes it takes a day or two

and sometimes it takes years. >> host: you talked about the president's relationship with melania trump. how would you characterize that lacks. >> guest: i have a couple of scenes of melania focuses very much on their son and that's one of the things she should do. i didn't get into the nature of the relationship very much. a number of people in the white house say she has a lot of influence and i think steve denon refers to her as thehe hammer, that she is very tough. >> host: from a republican line in texas, this is jane. jane and texas go ahead you are on. >> caller: yes, it's not scientific in its personal

communication and the general presses the same way. they do not publish any sample size. they do not publish any probability. they did not publish any -- so no one can tell the national polls are personal. >> guest: reporting is not pure science but there is a method of talking to people and getting records and documents and notes and files and tell people what you found what carl bernstein and i have said the best of all versions is the church then after we presented in this book. >> host: from georgia, hello. >> caller: i didn't hear the conversation before now but i

heard somebody denigrating our president obama. we all remember how these fatcat republicans sought to it that this guy didn't get reelected. i wanted to call and thank you for your work. i just want to ask. [inaudible] i'm in my 71st year and people don't say hello to each other. [inaudible] >> host: got you caller, thanks. >> guest: i'm not sure what the question was if there was one. >> host: we will go to maryland then, gloria how low. >> caller: good morning mr. woodward.

there's a m reason why i called. i don't have enough god bless you's to this though. thank you for your service. i pray for you when you were previously wanted while embedded on foreign soil and the ou a great deal because the truth is you're a journalist that we all need. i want to encourage america to continue to stay wedded to the fact that this government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth and we will continue to form a more perfect union. we will become one nation under god indivisible in spite of the madness and insanity that is going on in the white house. >> guest: i recognize some of that language. in fairness i was not wounded. you are mixing me up with bob woodruff from abc, the reporter

who was indeed wounded but i was not. i served in the navy for five years after i got out of college. >> host: from dorothy and virginia, go ahead. >> oh okay. this is my first time calling. good morning to you. this is my first time calling ever but i just wanted to make a brief comment about what's going on. for oneon thing i did not vote r president trump. i voted for hillary and the minute i came out of the booth from voting for hillary i felt that i shouldn't have done it

and i said lord i repent. i'm sorry i voted for hillary. but now i know why i got that feeling. >> host: dorothy not to cut you short but do you have a question about that? >> caller: the thing is about what i'm saying is i voted for president trump and i'm glad i voted for him because i feel that he is doing an excellent job. i can't see why people can't see that. i wish people would get on there and talk about not only president trump but other people that they are talking about. >> host: got you dorothy, thank you. >> guest: okay, i think this is the case where the book and information speaks for itself. >> host: when you get responses to this via twitter

but what are responses be a twitter other social media? what has that been like are you? >> guest: to certain extent it reflects the polarization in the country but i p p also think the simple fact is lots of people know i have done this almost for five decades now. the reporting in every case has stood the test of time and winds up as i said sometimes very quickly and sometimes it takes a long time to be verified. it's something that has no political perspective oro animus and people have pointed out there are some things in the book that show president trump's strong as the victim at times.

it also shows that he is conducting a war on the truth and does not understand some of the fundamental economic and national security issues. >> host: bob woodward joins us for this conversation. mr. woodward thank you for your time. >> guest: thank you. it's been nice meeting you.

>> whenever i'm telling a story whether it's for the globe or magazines or "national public radio" or of luck i like to think of it in terms of moments and identify those important scenes and moments early on and build around those. i wanted to begin tonight with you, with the moment. imagine chicago september 1933. the waning days of summer, labor day weekend. the city had been struggling in the grips of the great depression now for years with record unemployment, lines down

the street and flophouses so filled that they would steal everything from you, even your shoes. but that weekend labor day 1933 was going to be different in jakarta. 400,000 people were streaming into the city by rail car and automobile. they were coming for an exciting event. they were coming. forget about what you know about modern day air shows. our polish scripted flying events. it was a real thing with winners and losers in massive jackpots for the fate there's an also enormous crowds. it was unquestionably an undoubtedly one of the most popular sports of the time and it was definitely the most dangerous. and inevitably pilots flying in a single propeller open cockpit playing at a high rate of speed

at 50 to 75 feet off the ground would crash and they would often die right there in front of the grandstand. with dangers like these, many men, air racing was no place for a woman. it sounds absurd today. sexist, demeaning and clearly wrong but in the late 1920s it's important to remember that there were laws still on the books that forbade women from doing all sorts of things. in rhode island and virginia only the father would consider the sole guardian of of a child but only the father could determine a child's general welfare, religion or education. by law the mother had no say. in georgia and maryland a father who died goodwill that his child

or his children be raised by someone other than his wife, someone other than the mother of his children and the mother, the wife could do nothing to stop it an iowa woman could run for the state legislature. in new york they couldn't work the night shift. no waiting tables after 10:00 p.m., no driving taxicabs anytime of day in any major american city. indeed laws forbade women and working in as many as 15 different professions at this time in the this time and they deny them other basic rights to. around this time made to the late 1920s a theater room collapsed in washington d.c. killing a small boy. the mother sued the company for negligence that case she likely would have won. only a father could collect damages in a wrongful death of a

minor. this boy's father was already dead meaning of the mother had no husband, no child and no recourse. women wishing to fly faced similar challenges. the story in this book begins in 1927, 1928. for seven years, eight years removed from women winning the right to vote. there are that time roughly 30 million registered female voters in the country. 30 million of dull women in the country and there are fewer than a dozen in 1928, fewer than a dozen with pilots license on file with the department of commerce. that means the few women who did fly, true radicals. chicago labor day 19331 of these women was about to do the most radical thing of all.

she was going to raise men in her plane was being this machine around pylons, small towers placed on the ground and the triangular course at a high rate of speed. she was 29 years old, divorced and afraid of nothing. her plane was so fast is to be known as dangerous. it was built right here in massachusetts, springfield, not far from here. this particular model of plane was the kind of plane he wanted to have in the air races even though it'd kill many men before this woman knew what she was doing. she knew how to fly it. the end of the first lap that labor day in chicago the crowd knew it to as she reached the home pile on from the grandstand flying about 75 feet off the deck at 200 miles an hour.

she banked her plane so hard it stood up on one wing. just look at that girl the announcer said. that was his word, just look at that girl. have you ever seen such a beautiful race? she was trailing the two leaders but she was vying for third place. she was right there and then on the eighth lap at the home pile on, a problem. the right-wing of her plane began to buckle under the strain pieces of it again to rip away and flutter to the ground like so much confetti. with the wind whistling through the wings she knew what she was supposed to do. she peeled off course, flying away from her competitors and the crowd. she flew southport chicago out over glenview road and lake avenue. she was trying to save the people on the ground and she was

struggling to gain elevation -- elevation and altitude to save herself. everyone now from the field and chicago was watching the little red plane in the sky know when one of two things is about to happen. she is going to bail out from the dangerously low altitude or she is going to crash. either way it probably wasn't going to end well. that woman's name was florence kling and smith. you probably haven't heard of her. most people haven't. when we think about women in aviation in the 1920s and 30s we tend to think about one woman, amelia earhart as if she was all alone. flying so low in the sky but in a time of earhart other women were flying with her forming