it seems to be a completely different characteristic versus other ones but i will say that is characteristic of the political system in general. things tend not to get resolved and blow up and we are in a very

hyper partisan, hyper polarized deeply emotional time in the national debate and a lot of that is reflect it in and created by the trump white house, so that is different and i think the atmosphere is reflected well in this book to the extent that's what you see in thand kind of what you get wn you see the white house. >> host: anonymous calls his or her book a warning, and it protects and talks about but this is a threat to democracy. >> guest: they definitely take a strong position on whether or not he's qualified for the office that he holds and is trying to give advice with a titlthetitle of the warning to e who are valuing their choices for 2020. and his or her strong suggestion is that anyone who may have supported president trump before should rethink that decision this next time. and that case is bolstered by

the evidence that he lays out, he or she, in this book. but, you know, i think that you would also see reaction -- and i had an e-mail with white house officials about this before coming on the show. they dismiss what is in this book and say that the fact that the author has clouted himself were personal and anonymity makes it less -- well, makes it less credible. so there are many supporters of president trump who will consider that a legitimate line of criticism as well. >> host: and some people, by the way, who don't like president trump will make the same or a similar argument, which is a wind this morning, to use the title of the book, the more effective if it had a name and face attached to it as opposed to anonymity. so that takes from both sides pro- trump and anti-trump would

be somewhat similar. >> host: from the buck symbol of his cowardice that it's written anonymously, my feelings are not hurt by this accusation. do you think it would have been more effective? >> guest: a name attached to it, i think that is a judgment call. i can understand why the author's chose to do this anonymously, because i think the argument that's made in the book for anonymity is that sometimes those arguments are more powerful and he goes back to the arguments of the federalist papers. alexander hamilton and john -- james madison. they put their concerns about the process of anonymously because that depersonalized them and said it's not about me. this is about the issue, and that's the argument the author makes. it's a reasonable argument. the other side is if you feel that strongly, shouldn't you stand up -- >> host: did you take it as the author comparing himself -- >> guest: i didn't take it that way. i think that is a presumptuous kind of tone -- i don't think

that's it. he was making the argument sometimes when you want people to focus on the substance of what they want to say as opposed to the personalities attached to it, anonymous works better and that is the argument. >> host: anything to add to that, jeff mason? >> guest: i think those points are spot on. the debate about the anonymity piece will obviously affect the scope and effect the impact that it has. certainly if the author had decided to attach a name to it it would add greater meaning. at this point it's not clear if the person is still the senior trump official there is also easy to some extent to say i am doing this or i'm doing -- to protect or to assess policy without being able to actually attach your name to it and while

fact checking of that. allow other journalists to do our own reporting and say is that true, did he or she actually say or do this. can we check with some of these quotes. so, that sort of rigor that one would apply to the public that is impossible because of the anonymity. >> host: is it being read by the white house press corps? >> guest: it just came out is. that probably is affecting this book as well. the fact this is coming at a time when there are live impeachment hearings going on, and people who are describing their interactions either with the president or his team about a policy issue that has risen to the level of coming to an impeachment inquiry makes the

author look even less courageous and whether it is about courage or not. they see political invaders as it impeachable offense. the civil service and government professionals who are embedded in the establishment and have it out for the president, that is a kind of dynamic of the current debate. what the author says if i think

of it is not as a deep state of steady state. our job is to keep the government moving straight and steady while we go through this and a storm of the trump administration. so the idea that he's making an argument or she, whoever the author is, making an argument as being steady and not deep state. that does resonate in the dialogue that we are hearing a another of anonymously authored the book can out. it called primary colors and it was about the bill clinton election of 1992 and the author turned out to be joe klein, a longtime columnist. any feelings about this new anonymous book and visit was made with what happened to you in 1996? >> caller: i've not read this book and second of all let me say that comparing what i did to

this author has done is like comparing apples and freight trains. i wrote in entertainment, satire. i was inspired by a certain sense of victorian. it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. this is allegedly a nonfiction account about an actual person. as the other panelists have pointed out and i point out in a "washington post" op-ed a few weeks ago there or people - are- i'm the proud father of a u.s. for an officer and there are people who were my son's colleagues who over the last few years have risked their careers by stepping forward and telling

the truth. do you think a lot of actual details of truth were withheld in this book in order to protect the author's anonymity? what we know more in greater detail about what's going wrong in the white house if this person had just put his or her name on it lacks >> i think the answer to that is yes. if you know who is in the room because she can say i hold this position in government were i held this position in the white house, i worked with jared and the various chief of staff, then that lends a credibility and

filled out the picture of the author is trying to say in this book. and i think in the introduction of the often talk about the fact that he or she has withheld details that would be identifying. and so that makes it pretty clear the details are not in the book that otherwise would have been if we saw an actual name on the front cover. >> host: can you repeat that? >> caller: that's probably limits the impact of the book, the factual details that this person knows he or she could not have reported to maintain the anonymity the flip side of the argument is that the identity of the author were known, then the response to the book and the part to a candidate for the

people who support president trump would be to attack the offetheauthor and not address te substance of the book. that would be the argument for doing it that way the author makes it isn't about me if i put my name on it will be about me. i wanted t want it to be about e problem that i see and that i've described here. i am just saying that the argument for anonymity if the name is attached to it on the cover, the name becomes the story so i could argue that either way. i don't know what the right answer is. the author clearly had to pull punches as jeff said in some cases. he or she discards the anecdotes in the meetings. the details would give away the identity of the person telling the story. >> host: you and i probably remember 1996. about six months when you and i were still anonymous was it a

fun process because of the nature of your book? >> caller: it started out as fun. i was working at "newsweek" at the time. that's like this never so. random house, which published it, they were shocked because they kep kept coming over in onf printing up until the moment it was published and it exploded like a bomb. and i think that caused me to have some very lighthearted satiric post traumatic stress and impair my judgment over the next six months. i probably stayed anonymous too long. it did become a matter in our family we have young kids and my wife was adamant that i not come out because there was also going to be a circus on the front lawn and orchids walk to public schools within a block of the

house and she thought it would endanger them so also it was really, really exhausting lighting to my friends come and not telling the truth to my friends. so, in my case, would have been kind of a food and entertainment became something far more darker because i think a lot of my colleagues in the press misinterpreted what i was doing. they saw it as an exposé, and i didn't -- i intended it as satire. there were no revelations on the book. so it became an even more painful experience, but a really important lesson for me once i was exposed. >> host: did you have a reaction from the clinton white house with the tying? >> guest: i continued to go in there and report, do my

reporting. i think that over time, i talked with both hillary clinton and bill clinton about it. we joked about it. bill clinton, the president gave me many hours of interviews in 2000 for the piece i was doing in the new yorker about what he actually accomplished in the white house. and hillary clinton and i spent a lot of time talking about military matters after she became a senator and i returned to journalism after 9/11. so, from what i heard, she kind of liked that. she thought it was funny. >> host: is there a chance a journalist wrote this book? >> guest: i don't think so. if a journalist with this book, then it is a lie because the book is written under the guide

of somebody who is genuinely on the inside. we are not on the inside. journalists get to see and be witness to a lot that's not the same as saying you are in on decision-making or you are in a position to have a discussion with fellow cabinet members or staff members about perhaps triggering the 25th amendment or something like that. we can write and testify to what we have seen, but if this is written by a journalist, then it is very, very hard to take it seriously. >> host: the 25th amendment, the triggering of the 25th amendment part of this book. did that surprise you? >> guest: it is referred to in

"the new york times" op-ed piece people can make of it what they want. i personally don't think it is a very central part of the story. i don't get all that seriously. there are people that talk in the apocalyptic tone all the time in this town. i don't think that is the burden of the story which is that the people on the inside or just about to invoke the 25th amendment. that isn't really the character of the story. the story is a much more subtle stories in it. and i do think that is a sort of sensational tidbit, but i think that the author, to be fair, he or she wants people to focus on other things than that. but i agree with jeff, we go back a long way and i was around during that whole period. period. a lot of the conversations in the town now will be simply detected fro from them and stufd who did this. people will look at specific.

people will wonder. a lot of the conversation isn't going to be about the substance of the book but that was. i asked for it and if you write a book anonymously there is another distinction, the current anonymous writer is claimin wrie a chump insider. i didn't claim to be anything. i didn't claim to be a journalist. i just claimed that this was a novel and novels are fiction and it was fiction. i made up every line of dialogue in it and it was very, i felt very honored when elaine that wrote the screenplay for the movie took many of the largest

speeches word for word from the book. i found out that i was pretty good at reading dialogue. >> host: did you find yourself at all ostracized by previous colleagues? >> caller: yes but i thought they were being utterly ridiculous. one thing i found there were several things after i had a press conference and was just turned into a pariah for about 15 minutes but my relationships with people as i assume they all survived and prospered and i have a great many friends in the business but it's interesting to me the politician's reaction to what happened to me.

the message is always the same. the way that we deal with it is by keeping our heads down and going ahead with our work. that's what you should do, too. by the way, you came pretty close as a guest on how things operate. >> guest: it makes me wonder as well would be like if you had written that kind of a bug in the era that we have the social media that we do now. i mean, the attacks that you faced no doubt would have been amplified ten of 1,000 fold. >> it might be a ta be attacks,e social media attacks that are going on now against people like

alexander van men are far more serious than the attacks. people just called me a liar and that's one way to look at it. you have to call jane austin for saying that the first sense of sensibility was written by a lady. that was the tradition that i thought it was perpetuating. the stuff that's going on now in the social media and the attacks on these people who were standing up, they are just reprehensible. and i want to say that -- i want to dispute jerry just a little bit about this being business as usual. i think that we are in a real crisis in our country right now. and i'm pretty pessimistic because of president trump has

done his conduct an all-out assault on the truth. you know come as a journalist, i've learned over time that neither side had a monopoly on the truth. but, you could have legitimate differences and discuss them. with president trump does is call the reporting that, you know, many of my former colleagues are doing, which is courageous reporting and anonymous and he calls it fake news. you hear people all the time saying i don't know what you can believe. and when you get to that pointin a democracy, you are in big trouble. and so, because of the importance of this moment, that's why i think that this anonymous person and everybody else, all of those republicans in the congress who are shielding their true feelings about president trump, they have a moral responsibility to come

forward. >> guest: i understand that, and i wasn't trying to suggest this was business as usual or normal. we are not in a normal phase. it's an abnormal taste for sure on any levels. the issue was if they are chaos in every white house, and we were talking off the air a little bit, there's some but there isn't a constant crisis a day after day and literally minute by minute sometimes. that's completely different, and it's not healthy for anybody in this environment, in this ecosystem that we live in. >> host: there was was a lot of prepublication attention to this book, 100,000 copies sold prior to its publishing. back in 96, did your book have that kind of attention or didn't just comdid itjust come onto th? >> guest: i think they published the first one was like 35,000 the start of a 60, but

the salespeople were not getting very much reaction from the booksellers. so they kept lowering the print run. and also, my boss had warned me, he said this book is a lot of fun, but books like this don't do so. then all of a sudden, it exploded in a way that i hadn't anticipated, and i don't think anybody. they had a million copies in just two weeks. >> host: jeff mason, the president in this book is described as a moral having a questionable mental state. no focus, no concentration, not the companies will control, red-faced, weakness for strongman. carlos in his review of the book in the "washington post" says this can all be put in the category of stuff we already know. but can you be elected president of the united states with these

qualities? >> guest: well, i mean the answer is yes. i mean, we have now three years after his election a body of work and the work of journalists and others that have written about this, in a very, very robust and long record of his tweets that explain who and what president trump is about. so i think that review that you referenced is true in that we know who president trump is. and a lot of people like that. a lot of people don't. but a lot of people saw that in 2016 and believed that it was disqualifying. disqualifying. a lot of people saw it in 2016 and thought it was exactly what the country needed. this author apparently was a

supporter, initially, or wanted to be a supporter and that is why he or she came into the white house. and the view of these things now is being disqualifying. and certainly we will find many people who agree with that. but there are also a lot of people who don't. i certainly view that when i'm traveling with the president when he does his rallies around the country, you know, he is very proud of the big crowds but he is able to generate. and you know what, that is real, those crowds are and the people that attended the rallies eat it right up and they are supporte supporters. they are a mixture of america. the president knows that, and that gives him a lot of strength now. whether or not it is enough strengtstrength to elect orallyn the reelection again in 2020, and of course we don't know the answer to that command to the extent that this book were other

warnings from democrats, republicans, from others will have an impact on that is something that we won't be able to judge until election day next year. >> host: do you have the chance -- -- >> caller: could i add something here? when i returned to journalism on september 12, 2001, for very obvious reasons, i began to spend a lot of time with the u.s. military. i embedded in both iraq and afghanistan. i spent a lot of time with those great kids. all of whom had a strong sense of citizenship, and of service and reality. they knew that politicians could send people off to die. it seems to me that the qualities -- and by the way, i spent last weekend with 19 of them, 19 iraq and afghanistan veterans who had been elected to ththe house, ten democrats and republicans. but there was a contrast between the way they see the country and the way the rest of the, many of

the rest of the country do. we are trying to do democracy with a citizen. and there is a significant number of people in this country, i would say 30 to 35%, that supports trump no matter what cannot tell the difference between reality and reality tv. and unless we start making a really major effort to make our citizens better citizens, we are going to be in trouble because of the power of these new media forms. >> guest: i think there's a lot to the end of this transcends donald trump and goes to the basic answer of civil discourse or the lack thereof that we have right now, which is to say not everybody, but a lot of people are in an eco- chamber of their own choosing and they stay in the eco- chamber. the voices are very familiar to them and they get louder and louder and prevent them from carrying the voices and the

other eco- chamber and that is kind of where we are. and i think that just said something important, which is a lot of people say wow, if only people had known what donald trump was like in 2016, they wouldn't have voted -- i think they knew and they know now. so they know more. wilwill that stop them from votg to reelect him or drive them even further in the process? i don't know. i think that the problem isn't that people don't know what's going on. i think the problem is the shouting is so loud they can't possibly hear someone with a different point of view. >> host: one of the critiques of the book the is yes, everybody knew who donald trump was in 2016 and this is a rehash from 2015 today. and if you follow the news at all, it is like yes -- >> guest: that struck me. i was pacing through it as well. a lot of the episodes or the

vignettes and little bits that come from the book's -- some of them were new, but many of them said things like the description of the president's remarks after a the charlottesville incident. i was in trump tower for that myself. i was part of the press pool that day and shouted questions and listened to his responses. that is already part of our history now. so, having that recounted here, it didn't really add a new element -- >> host: you were there? >> guest: i was, but even if i weren't, there were tv cameras running in trump tower, and americans were able to read and see and listen to the president's reactions. now the fact that somebody deeply, apparently deeply inside of the trump white house found this very offensive it is interesting but also not new. i mean, gary was also somebody that sounded offensive and

almost a left at that point because of that. so those are the details that are not uninteresting, but also really kind of part already of the historical body of work to accept that it's historical. but the body of work that we already have about president trump's tenure. >> guest: i think that's true, although i would add i'm not saying there's anything wrong with revisiting all these themes particularly now that we are on the verge of an impeachment process and in every election year as it turns out. so i don't have a problem with that. all i'm saying is the same thing just is. a lot of the great themes about donald trump, like him or hate him, are pretty well-know well y now, and this isn't necessarily going to bring any new things to the table. it's going to teach you what some people more about things they already knew that they will know better after they read the book. >> host: i'm doing. a quote from the book and give all three of you the chance to respond. you wanted to say something?

>> i want to add to what we both said. despite what both of us said, i do see value in the sort of end of this as well in reminding people about what has happened. because the pace of the last two and a half to three years has been so quick. and the news cycle right now is also so quick. i sometimes forget what happened this afternoon, let alone last week or two months ago. so, whether it's this book or other sort of attacks at the trump presidency, there is some value in going over the things that have occurred again. >> guest: a week ago seems like a month ago in a month ago seems like a year ago. >> host: he talked about his interviews or talks with the clintons. you've worked with several presidents and covered. president trump seems to give access to the press every day. that's something you want, correct? >> guest: we do, yes.

there is value for sure to a shy journalist and having access to the principle. he is the principle. he's the top. being able to ask questions to him policy or practice revenues owith thenews of the day on a rr basis is certainly something to value, and this is perhaps a different discussion. i don't think that it's a reason to do away with the daily briefing, which this white house has done. but yes, we value that access absolutely. >> host: it's more access it seems to be than previous presidents. >> guest: is it a valuable access, i don't know. >> guest: of a certain sort. the daily helicopter moment, that is a certain kind of access. i remember in the white house that i covered, which for both bush, clinton and obama, there were other sort of access. there were far more important.

you know, during the obama he would have a group of us that specialized in foreign policy at that point. and every two or three months just to ask us what we were seeing because we were going places he couldn't go and also to give us his thinking on stuff which was extremely valuable but also off the record. even in the white house where i was considered a liberal columnist even in the bush white house, i still have access to a lot of the top people including the president, in this case, trump has cut off all access to a lot of people he doesn't agree with. and cut off access to a lot of the kind of working the foreign policy process and may be domestic policy as well. >> guest: i think that's true, and i think when you have disabled access now that's

soundbite access, but less contemplative kind of serious policy discussion kind of access. that's regrettable and i agree with joe. >> host: here is the quote i want to read. >> guest: your question to me me was and therefore is it better or more invaluable than access s to the access has been handled in previous white houses, and i didn't take a position on that. we do value it. but i don't think that that makes up for the things that are not present, which -- >> host: quality versus quantity, to simplify it a little bit. here is a quote from the book, you all have sources and i would like to hear your views on this. behind closed doors, senators and congressmen rattle off all the ways our administration has undercut their mandates are flat out ignored them, and i am not just talking about democrats. are you hearing this from your

sources? mr. klein, do you still have active sources in the congress? >> guest: i told you about a meeting i had last week and i don't want to implicate any of those veterans. but the people i know who are active in journalism now, and some of the people in it are active in politics, very clearly indicate that everybody is -- everybody that has been in public service for a long time and who isn't an extremist is embarrassed by this guy. >> host: do you hear this from sources outside the white house or inside the white house? >> guest: i've certainly heard along with colleagues the most recent sort of big story of the week which is impeachment that the communications between the white house and the hills hasn't always been as robust as some republicans would like.

i can't really testify from my own reporting to the general feelings among senators and lawmakers on the hill because it isn't my beat and i haven't spent as much time there as many of my colleagues who have more event across town beat then i have, but it's not surprising to me. i mean it doesn't come across to me as something that's hard to believe. >> guest: what i hear a lot from republicans is essentially a kind of agree with the president is trying to do, i just wish he wouldn't give it de way that he's doing it. that's what i hear from a lot of the republicans in congress. and because i think they recognize that in 2016 president trump, then candidate trump walked through a door and found there was a lot of the country that agreed with stuff he had been saying for a long time, and that he understood that moment. they understand that he understood that moment and accept that, but they don't

think that you have to do the things the president is doing the way that he is doing them. that's my characterization of i hear from republicans a lot. >> guest: is interesting to me in that and my observation is that a lot of the people on the hill and elsewhere who feel that way and are members of the republican party are also putting themselves in anonymity. because they will say that perhaps to a reporter or a friend or acquaintance, whatever, but they don't come out and say it in a public way with their name attached, and that is different. >> guest: there is another footnote, and i've written about this some. there is a q. or to the problem if you are in congress which is do the job of congress more assertively stand up for the institution, and i think this goes back several administrations. this isn't only true if the trump administration. people in congress have kind of

giving away their power and authority to the other end of pennsylvania avenue. steadily the past couple of decades and one way to not complain anonymously is just say desperate to do something about it is to do something about it, but that is an editorial aside. >> guest: i'm doing some research into the roosevelt presidency, and i can tell you this argument goes back 100 years and the power has been shifting towards the white house for 100 years in contravention of the priorities by the constitution. remember article one i of the constitution establishes the legislature. article two establishes the executive, and i think that the founding fathers really thought that congress was where it was going to be at. and i think that because of technology, because of the speed of development and so on, a lot of the power has naturally moved down pennsylvania avenue.

but i think it's also true that too much has. >> host: mr. klein, from a business perspective, do your books so outside of washington march? >> guest: i don't know that there are a million people inside of washington. it sold in 33 countries and was on the bestseller list in australia, germany, england and a lot of places. the reason why i think it's because it was fun. people laughed and learned stuff. >> host: did they think they were learning about bill clinton? >> guest: i think some people might have and in a certain way on an emotional level and emotional truth rather than facts, they were learning something about clinton who inspired the main character, jack stanton. i think that -- i will tell you

a quick story. it was once said to me i just got married again, and i wanted to thank you because she hated politics until she read primary colors and then she found out it could be fun. i've gotten a lot more of that sort of reaction over the last 20 years than any other. >> host: i ask about question very inarticulately i apologize for that, but as this book a washington read or will this be arriving .-full-stop oklahoma or wherever? >> guest: i think something that struck me over the last three years is how engaged and how informed people are all over the country and for that matter all over the world about this presidency. people are watching, people are reading, people are tuning in. i think for that reason alone

it's not just a washington book. >> guest: i agree. it indicates a certain amount of interest. >> guest: i came to washington in 1987 as my first. it's the most marketing people have ever been in what's happening in washington. there's no doubt about that. part is the fascinatio of the fh donald trump, .-full-stop. i agree with jeff, this is a subject. go back home, i'm from kansas originally, visit relatives and have dinner someplace else and all people want to do is talk about donald trump. so it isn't just a washington phenomenon. >> host: why do you think that is? >> guest: she is a force of nature and completely new character in modern american history. he's controversial and a master

at creating controversy because he thrives within controversy so by definition he draws attention to himself. that may be good for the country or triple for the country, but it is a method of operation for him that has been successful on its own terms. >> host: mr. klein. >> guest: every president since john kennedy and even arguably delight eisenhower has had to become a tv character to be successful. i believe if you look at the history of presidential debates, the candidates that are more successful on tv project warmer with only a couple exceptions, usually when the elections. donald trump is the first president who has been a fictional tv character and i think that moves the ball into a very strange and dangerous area. >> host: what you mean by fictional tv character? >> guest: he was never the

kind of guy he was portrayed to be on the apprentice. i mean, that was a game show that was worded. his role on it was rigged. people that know him come and we graduated from the university of pennsylvania the same year. i knew him as a developer when i was a reporter. he wasn't a decisive businessm businessman. he was a show boat, he was a marketer. and that is how he's made most of his money by the way is selling his name so that other people, developers could put their names on his buildings with exceptions like this golf course is. but the role that the american people saw them playing on the apprentice, which was smart, decisive and so on it is not who he is. >> host: from the book the net effect of the democratic

institutions is that he's turned the government oto the governmed states into one of his companies, a badly managed enterprise defined by a sociopathic personality. >> guest: i think that if you feel that way about a human being that is your boss, you probably should either quit or make your views publicly known. >> host: i'm not going to ask about your opinion because you are a natural working reporter and you arantiwar columnists, sl get a little bit more. another quote and then i want to ask if this has been your experience. staffers are looking for a position as more people are either purged or fleeing the building. vacancies mean potential promotions, creating an incentive for overzealous claimers to undercut their colleagues in order to advance.

>> guest: it sounds like any workplace in a way, doesn't it. what's interesting and the author gets into this hospital is how many people have left the trump administration who this writer portrays as having been kind of a bulwark. to a large extent, a lot of those people from our understanding of the roles that have been played with things that they did oregon. i don't know to what extent for power within the white house. i do know and i think we have all learned president trump is the one who is the ultimate decider, and of course this is ththat isthe job of any preside. he really follows his own instincts on anything from foreign policy which we have seen recently in the decision to the marketing show was just talking about. he is his own secretary and

communications director. he is his own national security advisor. so though there may be jockeying, it really comes down to one person, and that is the man sitting behind the desk. >> host: i think that's true, and that is the big change from the first year to the second and third year of the trump white house and jeff knows better than i do, but my observation has been that if you had an evolution of the white house moving to the point where trump could be trump and we are not nt the point where trump can be, and he has based this he's the national security adviser, that is the way that he ran his business and so it shouldn't surprise anybody that that is the way he wants to run the white house. can debate whether that is a good thing or bad thing but i think that is a factual observation. >> host: leaving the title acting chief of staff, acting fill in the blank makes him more

powerful in the sense. his supporters would argue thats getting things done. >> guest: she sees that as a badge of honor that it's a non- politically correct president that has come in and is getting things done and following on promises he made. if we have the broader discussion about while the base of her potential believe and i don't think that and if they were to dwindle it wouldn't be because of this language or some of what his opponents consider outrageous behavior. it would be because he made he is unable to fulfill the promises that he made comedy about the law or about the

economy and so far he's been able to demonstrate this is what i promised and this is the result. >> guest: when i covered the campaign in 2016, i've ask supporters why do you support him and there were always two reasons, one was he's going to bring back jobs. the other one was he talks like people, like us. when i watched the democratic debate this past week, you know, you look at senators like amy klobuchar referring to bills by their members or processes by their acronyms and things like that, and i think that for a lot of people, donald trump was a refreshing change from that sort of language. i was shocked people would still take them seriously after he attacked war heroes like john

mccain, but apparently the idea to many of the people i interviewed that he would be willing to say something like that made him different than the regular run-of-the-mill politicians that they had gotten used to. >> guest: that is true and i will go back to something i said about republicans in congress who likes what he's doing but not the way that he's doing it say we have to break this much along the way. what i worry about and i wrote a column about this this week is harming institutions along the way or the committees in congress. there are institutions being damaged in the process that may create long-term problems. >> host: i'm going to do one

more quote and have you all respond. from a warning, representatives are not the source of washington's problem. we are the ones who pick them. if you can give the founders credit for anything, the democratic systems reflect the public mood. when we are going to compromise on our representatives are. when we are angry and unyielding, partisan and greedy, they will display the same traits. >> guest: they want to complain about policies in washington they can vote for representatives to compromise in the middle rather than people to dig in on either extreme. i think that there is a lot of truth in that. >> guest: that is a challenge to people that are unhappy about what's going on in the

presidency and no doubt a warning to people that are happy with him to continue despite the people that are going to mobilize against it. >> host: joe klein clucks >> guest: i'm just happy that my son is in east asia expert. if i can strike a kind of optimistic, mildly optimistic note i think the performance of these career professionals that we have been watching for the last couple of week's should give all americans, both conservatives and liberals except for the extremes, should give people a lot of faith in the strength of our country and the strength of our state department and also my own experience with the military and

intelligence community leads me to have a similar faith in those institutions. we are not going t to lay down e tubes yet, and these people demonstrate that. >> host: with any of the three of you venture to guess who wrote this clucks >> guest: i wouldn't. when the op-ed came out there was a lot of speculation and back and forth about it. this time it is dominated by the impeachment hearings that the book is not generating as much guessing is the initial op-ed. >> host: your 500 miles away. who wrote the book? >> guest: while i know i didn't. there's two things we haven't touched on and that is the original rationale for the op-ed

there was a system of guardrails in place. people like jim mattis, gary cohn and the others, john kelly. all those people are gone now so i think the rationale for the book is differenthatis differene for the column. .. >> jeff mason and the other primary colors, thank you gentlemen for