biographer walter isaacson about abraham lincoln's stance on race and slavery. >> he says that i am fundamentally an unalterably opposed to the institution of slavery. he never wavered. he never wavered about slavery. but he definitely wavered about black people. but he changed. lincoln, the attractive thing about lincoln, what we try to do in the film and what i certainly do in the book, is to show that he was a recovering racist. that he got better. he didn't know any black people who weren't servants. there's a cult of lincoln in the historical profession. they are so desperate to protect him they will say yes, yes, he had great black friends. like who? like billy the barber. what about frederick douglas? >> frederick douglas changed his life. he met frederick douglas three times at the white house. he had never met a black man this intellectual. >> you can watch this and all other book tv programs from the

past 20 years at booktv.org. type the author's name and the word book in the search bar at the top of the page. >> the national press club holds an annual book fair and this year, book tv attended and spoke with several nonfiction authors. the "new york times" magazine's mark leibovich talked with us about the current issues facing the national football league. >> mark leibovich, chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine, author of three other books. this is his new one, "big game, the nfl in dangerous times." mr. leibovich, what is the current state of the national football league? >> well, the most popular sport in the country, it's never been more profitable, never had more people watching, and yet it feels like the chandelier is going to fall on the league at any point. like it's never felt more dangerous also. the league has so many existential issues around health and safety, around partly the

incompetence of the people who run the thing, around just the changing tastes of america. the nfl has gone from being probably the most unifying institution we have had in this country to about 10, 20 years later, being probably the most divisive sports brand we have. so this is a five-year romp through the nfl. i talked to about two-thirds of the owners, the commissioner, lot of players, and this is the result of it. sort of like a safari. >> let's go back to the beginning of the national anthem controversy. that was about two years ago, correct? >> yeah. the height of it was about a year ago. it really sort of started when colin kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality. that was two years ago. it was a sort of contained controversy for a year. then donald trump weighed in and my day job is political reporting for the "new york times" and i jumped into this to sort of take a break from politics, and football unfortunately does not offer any

respite at all from american politics these days. >> why did trump go after the nfl? >> well, i think a couple reasons. one, he thinks it's a great political issue for him. he thinks his base loves the idea that he's going after these elite sort of disrespectful athletes, right, but i also think donald trump has had a long-standing obsession with the nfl. he's been trying to get into the league to own a team for about four decades. he's always been rejected by the real billionaire boys club of america, the nfl owners. so this is a great way, i mean, he last tried to get into the league by buying the buffalo bills in 2014. the owners once again wanted nothing to do with him. so i don't know what it says about the priorities of our culture but the ultimate consolation prize is to wind up in the white house. you get to troll from the bully pulpit. i think, look, i think in some ways there's some revenge involved, some personal grievance involved, as there often is with the president, but i think ultimately it's fun for him and he thinks it's a winning

issue. >> you talked to two-thirds of the owners and the commissioner, roger goodell. over the course of the five years, did you see their concerns shift from perhaps cte to public protest? >> yeah, well certainly they are a short-term thinking group of people. part of the dirty little secret of the league is the owners are quite -- first of all, they are very old, very rich, they don't often think in terms of what's the sport going to look like 30, 40 years from now because all of them are just trying to stay ahead of the next week's record tv rating or the record revenues or the huge broadcast contracts they're getting. so yes, there are these dust-ups like the ray rice situation in baltimore, the anthem controversy last year, but you do see that they don't really know how to think about these things because they just sort of react. it happens and you get a sense they don't really know what's coming, they don't know how to handle it so it's all very kind of short-term precarious for the

league. >> is it a matter of growing pains? the national football league was not always the most popular sport in america. they got very big, very quickly over the last 15 years. >> yes. well, you have to know, they have been the biggest sport in america, most popular sport in america at least as measured by tv ratings, for about 55 years now. it really goes back to the late '50s. i mean, the nfl has been king in this country at least as measured by these indicators of tv ratings and dollar signs and stuff, for a long time. what i think the league doesn't have its head around is how fast this can all change. their biggest nightmare, i did a lot of reporting on this for "big game" is becoming like the tobacco industry. smoking was such a part of this culture, literally it was the air that we breathed, right? tobacco companies thought they could just sort of get away with this forever and then all of a sudden, people sort of came around saying wait, what are we doing here, should we regulate

this, can we sue this. there's all kinds of legal and regulatory and political obsessions the league rightfully has because that's sort of in the middle of the culture they're trying to dominate. so look, they are fully aware that they take a sport like this, it's not a long-term guarantee and they could all end very, very quickly. i don't know. growing pains is i think maybe a small part of it but ultimately, they are just trying to stay ahead of the culture. >> i'm curious as to the financial end of this in regards to the players. i'm wondering what the owners thought the players, most of them don't have guaranteed contracts, like baseball or basketball. they oftentimes, i think the average nfl player's life span is two, three years tops, and their pensions are notoriously nonexistent. so are they worried, and with the cte combined, are they worried that they are losing a pool of players? >> great question. that is like one of the big

existential questions which is that there are so many fewer kids playing football and parents allowing their kids to play football that the labor pool will skew over the next few decades to an even poorer, sort of more, you know, just basically a more poor sort of pool of labor like you see in boxing or things like that. so yeah, that's part of it. having said that, youth participation dropped in all sports, not just football. in some ways, the leagues are competing with phones, with all these sort of entertainment options that kids and grownups and people have that they compete with football. the days of everyone sort of saying all right, you got your football game on saturday, son, you got the game we watch on sunday on tv, on this set network, that's all over. it's the same free-for-all that's roiling the whole rest of america is very much at risk to football. >> it's been reported the owners

of the nfl are usually in accordance with each other. they have almost a socialist understanding in regard to how they share their money. >> it's true. the nfl, again, all 32 owners are pretty much billionaires. they are set for life, many generations down, but yeah, they basically have decided to pool their resources and 60% of the revenue from the nfl comes from tv contracts, broadcast contracts which they negotiate every few years. the league has all kinds of leverage but they all share it. so there's a piece of this pie that is individual revenues and the dallas cowboys can like make a whole bunch of money and the bigger market teams can, but ultimately, no, they are sharing their wealth and i guess that's what works for them. which is not to say that they're close or cohesive but it's essentially a cartel. the owners are sharing profits but also eyeing each other with

great suspicion. >> the players union contract is coming up shortly. gene upshaw was former commissioner of the nfl -- >> players association. yes. >> excuse me. he was known to be, he and paul tagliabue at the time, he has a sticky relationship? >> much more combative relationship, goodell and demaris smith, yeah, they have been fighting like cats and dogs over the last several years. the next collective bargaining agreement comes up in two years. there's a sense that the last one that was negotiated in 2010 was very favorable to the owners, to the league and i think smith believes that, you know, we are just going to get back at them next time. you could see a harder line. i don't know if there will be some kind of work stoppage or whatever, but it could be a very tenuous situation. we'll see. >> one quick question for you. throughout this, colin

kaepernick has asserted the owners have blackballed him. many fans would say that's true, considering nfl quarterbacks that have gotten jobs and kaepernick hasn't gotten. what do you think about that? >> i think that not only do a lot of people think that, enough people along the line of colin kaepernick's lawsuit have thought it. he's got this lawsuit against the league, a collusion lawsuit. it's gotten a lot farther than the owners and the league thought it was going to get. we will see. there's going to be, i think there's going to be a level of transparency, of exposure to the owners, who are usually pretty private, who don't like to come out in public and be testifying under oath the way they might have to be. we are going to see. it's gotten a lot farther than they thought and that's one of the many, i wouldn't say headaches, i think it's bigger than a headache, one of the many side issues the league seems to have very little idea how to handle. it seems like something that could have been handled a lot more easily and it's just grown and grown. we'll see where that goes. >> mark leibovich, chief

national correspondent for "new york times" magazine, the new book "big game, the nfl in dangerous times" came out this fall by penguin press. thank you. >> thanks for having me on. >> keep an eye out for more interviews from the national press club's book fair to air in the near future. you can also watch them and any of our programs in their entirety at booktv.org. type the author's name in the search bar at the top of the page. >> morning, everybody. thanks for joining us today. i think we're going to get going in just a couple seconds. so everyone, thanks for coming today. very honored, glad to host this event. i want to thank aspen for making it possible.