and then i go to work watch this and past 20 years at booktv.org type authors name and book in the search bar at the top of the page. good evening of pros along with my wife elsa and on behalf of everybody at politics and pros and staff here george washington university. welcome, thank you, thank you very much for coming. [applause]

we have had politics and pros working here for a nusm gliers, and putting on large events like the one this evening. and we're very, very grateful to be able to have access to such a spacious and convenient facility right here in the center of washington. and drama -- we've had all too many dramatic days over past couple of years but as history looks back today senate judiciary hearing will no doubt stand out as a truly extraordinary event. if you're like me, many of you are still processing the testimony of dr. ford and judge kavanaugh and certainly are featured author this evening bob woodward will have some of his thoughts to shaish the kavanaugh

nodges in the context of the trump presidency which is new book fear, or trade in such devastating detail. bob has been observing for nearly half a century working for the post he's covered nine presidents. he's shared in two pulitzer prizes first for post coverage of the water gates scandal and second in 2003 as lead reporter for coverage of the 9-1-1 attacks. fear is bb's 19th book have all national best sellers and fear marks bb's 13th book at the top of the best seller list. i think he holds record for nonfiction best sellers of any author. now each time one of his rev la story books appears, the question comes up -- how does he get people to talk

to him and why do people agree to share their stories with him. i suppose everyone who confides in bob has his or her own reason. but one thing i know -- as a former colleague of his at the washington post who has on occasion reported in bob's wake one thing i know is how hard bob prepared and how hard he pushes and probes. he's methodical and relentless, about facts -- and hell bengt on obtaining documents whenever he can get his hands on them to verify whether something did or didn't happen. let me just say too, again, as a former colleague of bob's that bob can be truly generous with his time and his advice. many of us at the post have been grateful he's remained on the staff as an associate editor. contradicting to paper and coaching other reporters when he could have chosen a number of other career paths.

bob will be in conversation here this evening with with another first rate journalist michael schmitt. michael is with "the new york times" and he started there as a news clerk 13 years ago. and now covers national security and federal law enforcement. he was part of two teams that won pulitzer prizes this year, one for reporting on work place sexual harassment issue and other for coverage of russia's interference that 2016 presidential election and russia's connections to the trump campaign. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming both bob and michael. [applause]

nicest anyone has ever been certainly to me in a long time although they're cheering for you. obviously, a long day everyone in washington glued to the testimony about the supreme court several years ago. how did today compare to previous hearings like this? >> obviously, this is quite electric. what happened did the book, the breathen was armstrong and this book came out in 1979 were you born? it didn't come out in '79. i'll sending you a copy and conclusion in the book at the end and it is supported is that

the center of the court was in control of group of three or four justices. how they went, the left or the right would join with them, i mean, now, obviously, there is no center. or very, a very small center so that makes very big difference. on the kavanaugh issue, me tell a story about doing the book that brethren the book came out a story about memory which i think is very important to the kavanaugh issues. a book came out and a clerk called scott armstrong and myself and said in the book on a certain case you say that the clerk apologized for it was justice circulation at that

point, and he said i was the clerk. that is absolutely, totally wrong. i'm going to sue you. i'm going to hang you out to dry. i am you know everything you might possibly do to someone you have to correct what is there. so we went to our files and this is the beauty as you know of documents. and we found in the files on that case the circulation in that opinion and the clerk in his own hand had written i'm sending this around, i apologize. so we called in, and said here's what you wrote, and he said i don't believe it. we may send it to him and he called back and i think honestly said i would have staked my children's life that that did not happen. and i now realize that it did.

so -- when is memory valid and as you know, in your terrific reporting, you've got -- one source doesn't work. you've got two sources you have to see if you can get some sort of documentation. and that takes time and that's hard. was contentiousness today how did that compare to bork or thomas and is it different because of the media? >> what -- what's interesting -- the democrats are particularly saying we have to have an fbi investigation, and they talk as if fbi investigations reach conclusions has been pointed out they normally don't but sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming it's implied in what they report. but going back to the nixon case

in "watergate" the fbi investigation was part of the coverup. and it was a way to mask and protect nixon and protect people in the nixon campaign and the white house in the attorney general at the time. i remember this -- very well richard went on television and said, wow, we conducted 1,345 interviews all over the world. we with got it right. it's over. no one else was involved in the original burglars and their two handlers, and there was that sense of well, wait a minute. that's a lot of interviews, a lot of work, and they've got to young. so maybe an -- not always definitive and it may not always be right. i'm sure everyone here is seen that the book on enormous amount of attention in the thing that

struck me the most about the the book was that i thought that you -- drew conclusions in a way that you may not have in previous books. you're very critical of how combny handled his interactions with the president when he briefed him on the dossier, and then your largest conclusion was the threat -- can you imagine you're two weeks away from becoming president and the fbi director comes in and there's no way that ghost of j. edgar hoover is not far behind. and says by the way, we have this secret dossier about you being with prostitutes in moscow three years earlier. how would you feel? >> well how should comey have handled this? >> not that way. >> well, and trump has legitimate beefs in my view, and i say so in the book, and being the prisoner of --

too much history and writing too much about presidents, in the case of bill clinton when he came in to office in 1993, and his had white house counsel was burning this bomb. and first of like six. >> that's right. but the first, and as you imagined clinton had some baggage too and all kiengdz of things that the fbi got about clinton extracurricular activities which were abundant so they sent all of this instead of briefing clinton on it they sent to bernie the white house counsel and this bomb looked at it and said -- put it in the burn bag. and said okay let's see how it happen and see these thing and i'm not sure the burn bag is i wish called me --

or -- and he didn't. but the idea of the fbi director getting in the face of somebody like trump who has a big ego, has -- i quote in the book clinton told his lawyer when he was -- after this briefing, he said can never find out about this. of course it was about two minutes or two days later she did as did the world. >> and you draw a conclusion that thed a plrgs is in a very dangerous spot i felt that was the furthest you have ever again and why did you go so far? >> evelyn duffy who is my stangt are you here evelyn that raise your with hand evelyn stands up. because --

[applause] a george washington university graduate class -- and the year of 2007 she's worked for me since actually at that time and we've done five books, four presidents. and she knows all the secrets and she knows how to keep secrets. and she knows how to kick me in the ass. and for that i salute her and dw. but -- but elsa walsh very much involved this was a family affair, and they both said you cannot step away from the obvious conclusions of what you

found in the book that there is a group of people which i illustrate vividly who stand up to trump steal documents off his desk, on south korean trade because it's connected to lots of very sensitive intelligence operations. documents on nafta, documents on climate change, and so forth it is a regular procedure. get it off the resolute desk and he will not remember or not think about it. and as i say so -- and you've got all of the other things john, his lawyer for the russian investigation for eight months can you imagine being trump's lawyer. eight months? and -- [laughter] he goes through and he finally does a practice session. with --

with with trump and in the white house and they're overlooking the monument the lawyer plays mueller and plays questions it is a dry run, and trump makes things up. lies -- loses emotional control and finally does his you cannot testify if you testify it will be as the elegantly puts it, an orange jump suit. and you don't the have to know a lot it be law enforcement to not recognize what that is. and so you connect all of these things and my conclusion in the book is that it is an administration in a white house that is going through a neives break down. >> so it's going through a nervous breakdown, how could it go wrong? what would a manifestation of that look like? is it something on the trade or

economic side? is it give us an example of okay -- it is in a dangerous spot. what could happen? >> just on trade and it sounds steeric but the trade war which china 99.9% of the economist say tariffs make no sense they hurt consumers. we buy thing abroad in this country because they're cheaper and they're better quality, and trump are somehow has in his head they're taking that had from us. they're stealing it and he will not get that out of his head, and -- one of the conclusions i make is that there's a war on truth, and part of it is not just what brought fans but what, where trump gets these ideas, and the experts go in and you know they

have to gary cohen chief economic advisor slaps him gently in an affectionate perhaps way, and says if you shut the up you would learn something. [laughter] [applause] so you've got to connect it. but i -- i think it's and it's not partisan this is not partisan may i ask you a question. sure will you answer? >> maybe. you've done great reporting and digging reporting on mueller investigation and lots of new information has come largely through you quite frankly.

do you consider yourself part of resistance? >> not at all and simply out to follow this story wherever it goes no matter whether it's god bachelor's degree or otherwise for either side. >> suppose mueller guess on for several more months an says, you know, i can't prove collusion or trump by somebody close to him, and that there's no objection of justice i can prove. are you going to feel badly? >> no. >> what are you going to feel? >> i'm going to try toe find out why he didn't get to that conclusion? >> do you think that's possible to reach that conclusion? >> very possible. >> you do. as public as any -- as other possible. you know that he would. >> so how do you insulate yourself emotionally?

>> we should have had a couple of couches here -- [laughter] chairs. three times week i see my therapist. [laughter] i just simply say that like -- i try to divorce myself as much as possible. i didn't vote this '16. i didn't vote in '12 to push myself away and say okay i'm sort of an outsider to this. sort of like kind of look up and i wasn't trying to cover the weather. like there's a big storm in front of you and i'm trying to see different parts of it, and i can't really affect the weather, and it is not my job to affect the weather but my job to try to figure out the weather and just try to follow what where i can, and -- when right after nixon resigned in 1974, katherine graham who

was publisher owner of "the washington post" said karl bernstein and myself a letter, and kind of, it was a -- lovely letter of personal advice and she said, you know, now this is happened. nixon is gone. don't get too full of yourself, and then she said -- beware the demon pomposity and that was really good advice. because there's a lot of pomposity in our business, in politics. even academia, occasionally, and it is the -- it is the crippling force, i think -- and you have to really try to bleep out i love your analogy it is the weather and you can get up and kind of say an awful storm is coming but that doesn't mean you're blaming the creator

or it means you're reporting. and i think there's a way to stay on this side of the nonresistance, and to be very empirical and very factual, and because i've done this so many years. sometimes you're just wrong. i thought the ford pardon of -- of nixon was really the last stage of the coverup and i investigated and discovered actually it was an act of courage to let the country move on. so that's very sobering. >> i think one thing that i had always keep in the front of my mind especially with the time pressures that i'm under is i'm always one step on gutter one

bad tweet away from destroying my reputation. i'm always you know one wrong story away from hurting myself, and you know, it's just -- it can be -- >> not only yourself. but "new york times." >> yeah, and -- >> this is where you've got to find, the great editor of the post during water gait and for couple of decades used to -- i so well remember this -- hand in the story and he look at it and he would go -- you don't have it yet. that meant we'll print it if you do get it. but you have to have more information and more sources, and i always said and believed he was great editor not just because of what he published but what he kept out. yeah. are there those filters at the "new york times" for you. there's a lot of time where we run up to write a story where we

get ready. we write it. we go to folks to get a response. and then in that last 12 hours, we realize we don't have it and we kind of recede back we where a story earlier this year on trump on john offering partens talking about about partens to the lawyers from manafort and flynt and we ran up to the the line three times kind of like a goalline stand three years yards and we took first down we tried, and we didn't have it and didn't run it. second time and then the third but in that process you flush out a lot of -- and you did run it. eventually we broke -- still denies it. correct. he still denied it. denies a lot of things. yeah. he then a lot of things. [laughter] how did -- did you think that president was well served by john down and left in march? >> it's ab interesting question

some people say definitely not. by turning all over all of the evidence over and 37 witnesses and who's the 17 hours of tape of john mcgann notes. which are supposedly very intimate and very important, and then other people say, you know, it was a gamble and you the to take it. if you're trump's lawyer because you have to keep him from testifying. and if he testifies, that would be the the legal and political catastrophe. do you agree? >> if he testifies? >> yeah. >> yeah. i mean he struggled with the truth more than any public figure right now. so -- >> how do we with deal with with that? >> especially because mueller has shown a very quick trigger on that issue. so he's rung up several folks online to investigators.

some of the things significant some less so. and -- the president is not someone obsessed with the facts. . so what are the -- [laughter] so what are the techniques you use as a reporter to get verification. buzz i think that's very -- i think that's something we don't communicate to the public enough about. that can you answer that without betraying trade? >> it's -- there's a -- there's a bunch of factors. one with of them is your proximity to the information. how close are you to the information? how historically helpful and accurate have you been? there are people that are in the room that are amidst big decisions that -- that -- they don't have a thousand or great memory of what goes on in front of them or great notes and

don't have great documents. he sort of look at the totality of all of these different things we have this recently with rod rosenstein story about how rod rosenstein talked about wiring himself up or using the 25th amendment to oust the president. in the end it is going into two buckets of information there was -- s and months of reporting from folks that had access to contemporary use notes of those who knew everything that was going on in real time that had a track record of being accurate and being truthful. and then in the other bucket we had one person who was a handout from the justice department who was anonymous person who said it was sarcastic. we stepped become and look at them and you look at the toal ties, how did you do that? how did you get past that in the book? >> that's what --

i have found over doing this in decades you can hear something and say well there's like -- i knew all kiengdz of people there's great tension between hr mcmaster and a rex tillerson the secretary of state and they handed out and somebody said there was a meeting in the summer. and they had a big fight about it, and then i found somebody who actually took notes, and the notes say tuesday, january 18th, 5:15 reince priebus chief of staff at the time and there are very bait and turned out it was a routine interview with are you achieving your big goals? and in walks mcmaster to the

meeting and sits down. and tillerson lets loose on the the white house, you know, the president can't make a decision he makes decision. he undecides he redecides. there's chaos here, and then finally mcfaster just rages and tillerson and says you know, money line is you are -- affirmatively acting to undermine the national security process. i don't know what you're doing and i found some examples and evelyn -- found that oh, yeah one of these examples is clearly in the public record that tillerson had made a -- antiterrorist agreement that was public with -- the the oil rich state of qatar and mcmaster didn't know about it. and they started to talk about

it and they realized tillerson actually had a press conference saying we've been working on this for weeks, and mcmaster says you know, i did not even know and then they discovered the president didn't know. that staff secretary rob porter didn't know so you put dates and documents and verbatims and i -- always am suspicious of when somebody says one afternoon in may, well, what day in may? what had time? who was there? what was said, and if you can get that kind of gran -- now i have the luxury of time to work on these things and go back and find sources who have notes and documents which, i think, are much more important than we realized. >> we're going to take questions

and if you would like to line up there are two microphones in the back. >> you want to tell them microphones have been provided by gordon lidy? [applause] we've got -- how do people who were in college know who gordon is? [laughter] ... >> what telling reporting did you do and it doesn't get as much attention? i killed myself to do that? >> was the rationale for doing that? the risk was a special program,

the great secret and separations that i do not dare describe because it defines a degree of security for this country that we don't realize. that i actually got the document got a picture of it and put it in the book. so if somebody like president trump said, if that didn't happen, i would fire him who had done it in two seconds. but there it is and so there was a kind of, you can't get around that. you can't get around some of the things. but there is this war going on. some of your best stories that i know true have been denied. sometimes the stronger the denial is, the more proof that's

there. like the rosenstein story, talking about wiring himself or somebody to get the president on tape and talking about the 25th amendment, that story would have been much more powerful if there was action that followed if he said, had a picture on the new york times, here is the wire that the deputy attorney general in the meeting with the president. or at 215 on this day, these officers got together and talked about the 25th amendment. so lots of things are said in the end, it's what's done. i tried to make this a book about what president trump does as president and all the foreign

policies, all of the trade, the tax areas, the things that matter to people's lives. if there's been a lot of focus on the molar investigation for very good reason, there's been a lot of focus on all of the untruths that trump tells into my paper has counted 4000, or 2000, i don't know. it's in the thousands. the real issue is, evelyn and my wife helped me with this, what did you do as president? [laughter] >> it often is, people will say, these are the facts, we win 85.7% of cases in the world

trade organization will refile unfair trade practices against countries. that's the worst organization of the world, i say, this is your government. your trade representative. call him and check. i don't want to call. i don't want to know. often he will say there's one scene, startling. where do you get these ideas? he said i had them for 30 years. if you disagree, you're wrong. so there is the close line which of course, lead you to the question, what should we really worry about? we should worry about a crisis. something unexpected. it's not a team. >> first question. good evening.

thank you so much for being here. it's a tremendous honor to see you. i'm elliott and i'm a proud gw 2008 : be in college. what you and mr. bernstein were covering, you and the washington post and other newspapers faced threats and things that i can't even imagine. today it seems that the press is under assault worst ever. how in your opinion, does what happened to you and the most and other journalist in 1973, compare to what is happening today? >> what's the question? >> have at the criticisms of the press, how does it compare to the criticisms of today?

>> nixon and his spokespeople were pretty tough. the original -- i would rather be called fake news. i'm sorry -- >> to answer the question, it was january 1973, carl and i had written these stories that really said the nixon white house, reelection campaign operation and the key was that it wasn't just the watergate burglary, it was a certain ease of operations. we had a bit of a problem, no one believed the story. nixon won a massive reelection in november of 72.

so they invited them for lunch. january of 73. she supported the story and i knew her a little bit, not well. carla had to go to a funeral that day. she sat down in the lunchroom and said, she truly blew my mind with how she knew the facts of watergate. she had all kinds of questions. she even at one point said she'd read something about watergate. i remember thinking, what is she reading? [laughter] no one in chicago does. but there she was, scooping up the information and had a leadership style and later described as mind on, hands off. didn't tell us how too do things but was intellectually involved and completely informed.

she said at one point, will when is the truth going to come out? i said, the cover-up is very effective because people won't talk to us now. nixon is one reelection. they pay watergate burglars for their silence. never and she, i remember she had this pained, wounded look on her face. any of your bosses of the new york times ever had that look? you hate it. she said, i said, so the answer is, it's never going to come out. she said, never, don't tell me never. i left the lunch a highly

motored baited employee. but it wasn't a threat, it was a statement of purpose. this is the strength of gutsy leadership in the news media. she said to me, why do you think we are doing this? i was 29. i didn't have an answer. she said, look, this involves the president of the united states, we are the triple, quadruple responsibility to get to the bottom of it. so keep working instead of pulling back, go forward. more aggressively and why do we do this? i don't have an answer. she gave a great answer. that's the business we are in. that's somebody really saying -- [applause] willing to assume the risk, the

necessary city. >> we got a post guide. like to know what the post guy thinks of the new york times. what he thinks of the substance and what he thinks of publishing anonymous things like that. >> great question. i'll let you answer first. [laughter] >> somebody in a well-placed position in the new york times said, i want you to write a story quoting me, essentially saying what's in that piece. what would you have done? >> we would need many more details and examples.

by 15, july 18. >> specifics. >> how would you have gone about that? >> question them and then ask if they have anything to corroborate what they are saying. it's easy to say, this administration is a mess. but it's much more powerful to show an example. if anonymous had to come to me, i would've said, go to the new york times. [laughter] >> mr. woodward, thank you. i feel like you are the most qualified person to answer this. in the era, you can't make somebody understand something if they are salary depends on them not understanding it.

how to get truth from someone who genuinely believes the delusion that they are buying into and you need to get truth from them but they just can't accept the truth? >> wow. [laughter] this sounds like a philosophy 523 at gw. [laughter] what you want to deal in concrete and let me answer it this way. can we do a little role-playing? >> i'm a reporter, i'm me. you are the secretary of defense. i come to interview you. what's going through your head? >> why is he here? what is he going to ask me? for noble? >> for noble and maybe the truth. makes you for noble.

>> personally and where the administration is, i'm going to come in and start asking you things and then i'm going to get out a piece of paper and i'm going to say, mr. assistant secretary, in an article in defense news, 32 years ago, you wrote the following : and i'm going to quote it. you might think, i thought only my mother read that damn artic article. [laughter] hears this guy coming in, quoting -- it's not a ruse, i want to know how you think. the larger theory of the case is to treat you seriously as you treat yourself. as you look at yourself. you take yourself seriously, right? i have to sake you seriously. i'm getting that detail and then

if you're helpful, i'm going to say, can i come back? then after two or three interviews, if it's useful, i'm going to say, how about talking next week? well i'm busy next week. then i find out where you live. i come knocking on your door. right? i say, associate,. [laughter] do you let me and? >> probably. why? >> it's hard to turn people aw away. i it's hard for people to turn away other people. >> yes. my line on this is we are not showing up enough. we've got to really show up and it means physical presence. we are doing, people will crowd around computers. we fast the white house for comment on it.

three people at the white house saying how can we respond to this and not say anything of substance? you've got to get out of that mode. you have to get out of the impatience and speed mode. we've got to have this so competitive -- you read, i suspect i hope, the washington post as soon as it comes out each night and it's kind of a continuum, do you like it when the post has a good story or not? >> i don't like it at all. ass. >> not at all? >> not at all. [laughter] this reminds me of something i recently read a book. what did you do after in early 1973, you came down from the cover of watergate, nixon has

been reelected, what did you do after he wrote a story? >> it was a story about the watergate burglars being -- i called them up and said thank you. why? >> we were alone. it was a key piece of evidence to the cover up. they would pay actual money for family support and lawyers fees and so forth, it was a stunning story. the other side of it was, i felt agony if we did not have the story. but it was such a good story and it really lifted our spirit. >> validated, showed a nether report on the same path. on a good way. >> and not buying the line of

course, the line then, 45 years ago was very much what we hear now. let's examine the kind of press, not the conduct of the president. [applause] >> hello, gentlemen. thank you for being here tonight. my name is ethan and i'm currently a tenth grader. [applause] mr. woodward, you've had one of the most successful careers in journalism in american history. i was wondering, how a highschooler like myself would go about following a career like yourself in journalism or politics? >> get an internship at the new york times. [laughter] they are really easy to get. [laughter]

isn't that the way you started? >> i started answering the phone, they wouldn't even let me be an intern. i had to start answering the phone. >> how did you move up? >> i started at a college as a clerk. on the foreign desk. it was my job to do two things. one was to get reporters in iraq on the phone with editors of the new york times who don't know how to dial their own phone. on the phone with editors of the new york times who don't know how to dial their own phone. the other one was to take phone calls from jeter because the only number she remembered wa was -- [laughter] but just being in the newsroom gave me an enormous opportunity and i said i will take any assignment possible. i will cover murders in the bronx and eventually got a break in sports by doing the duty by standing out of the yankee studio.

i did a lot of low-end things that no one wanted to do. i knew they could lead to other things down the line. if you take the attitude, you can really go. >> get your foot in the door. >> yeah, get your foot in the door. >> just were quickly, jeff who owns the washington post, the amazon ceo, i asked him once, i said how do you decide who to hire? this applies to your question. he said, i have four criteria. i like people who have been right a lot. i like people who listen, really listen that strategic listening where you are listening so you can think of what you're going to say rather than letting it come in. he likes to hire people who change their minds. i think that's important. then his fourth criteria, it most fascinated me, i like to hire people who have failed and

are still standing. you learn from failure. you can't fail and begone, you've got to still stand. then they will hire you. [laughter] >> what we ever see trumps return? >> between now and the end of time, yes. [laughter] maybe not, sometimes they never come out. i think in terms of really getting, traveling the painful road of introspection, i think it's one of the medias failures, i personally, my failure because i was working on tax returns in 2016 and we did not get them, i did not get them. we should have because people in the irs have said, very constant

confidential, very confidential way, if you had these, this is the roadmap to his life and who he is. i also, we did not find the political system didn't find a way to demand that he turnover his tax returns. he just said no. of course, that's trump, i'm going to do it my way. one of the failures and i think if you ask a group like this, how many people basically just trust the media and i ask how many people basically distrust the media, raise your hand. okay, not many. you can tell it's a college audience. [laughter] but you can go to an audience and get 90% of the people who will say they distrust the media.

so, there's enough distrust out there and whether it's 20 or 30% or it's too high and we can't blame the customers, we've got to think about fixing it ourselves and being more empirical, being -- getting on tv. i think it's a dangerous -- have you found that? >> yeah. >> you say things on tv that you will put in your stories. >> well, i shouldn't. are you asking, are you saying i did? [laughter] i tried to do anything that i haven't written. >> one of your editors told me, they heard you say something on television and they said, why was it they had it in the story? [laughter] >> that's the problem. >> yet what do you think tv for print journalists, my paper, your paper and good things?

>> i think there's another way to reach folks. i that when people see us and they see that we are fact face people trying to tell a story, i think that can be helpful. i do. i think we need to be out there more, explaining our work and showing ourselves because when we are just a byline, and there's not much more they can factors about us. >> it can be tough but it's got to be neutral, hugh conservative radio talkshow host, went on his show and he said he found things in my book that actually made trump look strong. he liked that and he said, i'm going to buy lots of the books and airdropped them into every embassy in washington. be a lot of books, i gave him the address where he can find them and give them a discount.

but i don't think he ever did it. quite honestly, was hardened nice summary like that. saying, there are things here and also, the explanatory part of trump. >> it shows that it's fair. a fair assessment. >> it's a fellow when trump called me and complaints last month, that i had and interviewed him and first thing i said, i would like to tape-record this mr. president and he said, certainly. and i said i'd try six people and didn't get through. he acknowledged one or two and it was -- did you read this? what did you think of that? >> what would you have asked him if you could have interviewed him? >> if i asked a question, the book was already printed, what do we do, have a kind of

pamphlet that we stick and? [laughter] well, trump called and i looked at it as -- >> if you had sat down with him, what would you have asked? [crowd boos] ultimately, you want to get to specific if you want to ask the question why? what is the big theory, what are you trying to do? what's the next stage of good for the majority of people? >> we have to wrap things up but i want to end it by having you read the last paragraph of the book. i think it's a great summary of what you had found. it's a good way to end things. >> evelyn wrote this paragraph. [laughter] now, she did not but she helped

me. this is about the lawyer who has resigned because he said i cannot sit next to you, mr. president. have you destroy yourself and not tell the truth. i said you are incapable of telling the truth. but in the man and his presidency, seen a tragic fall. the denials, the tweeting, the x gearing, the big news, indignation, trump had one overriding problem that the new but could not bring himself to say to the president. you are a fracking liar. [laughter] [applause]

twenty years ago, c-span launched book to be on c-span2. since then we've covered many events over 40 events u.s. presence. in 1999, former president read from his collection of letters, memos and diary entries. the impression pressed on my mind. we are very close to the front. when the goose stepping arm swinging margin. we had a little weight and i

watched the changing of the guard and looked at space and i saw my son. i saw a funeral without tears. i saw funeral without god and how sad and lonely. i can't speak for george but let me say two things now. first, thanks for sending us on an unforgettable mission. second, we must succeed in our quest for peace. >> you can watch this and all other programs for the past 20 for your ears. type the others name and the word book in the search bar. at the top of the page. >> we want to introduce you too professor richard, where do you teach and what you teach? >> california state, modern european history.