trump size the unifying potential of nationalism, is an understatement or you can come up with many examples just two months ago whenever it was when he was briefly at work with the city of baltimore, he tweeted, no human being is going to live in west tar. and the fact is that they do live there and not just human beings are americans. a donald trump is the head of state of of america. and just is it too often that does not seem to make any impression on him. a couple more like hours of tv at the miami book fair. the son is back out the crowds back out, during is now is elinor randolph, and a new biography of michael bloomberg and many lives of michael bloomberg. just of this whole. elder enough, days, big day who my michael bloomberg.

sackett definitely was. >> no not very much but ira written, he said he was in a run and i thought he wasn't running and certainly that was in my book and he doesn't run but he has an impact on the century on this country and all of a sudden these droplets of rain storm started about two weeks ago. selected mr. bloomberg anticipate and biography. >> he took questions, he allowed me to interview people i wanted to interview and talk to him several times. i followed him around a lot. but also written about in who almost 12 years. on and off who 12 years. as a member of the new york times editorial board who had met note a lot of editorials about him when he was mayor of

new york. >> how to get a start. >> he came from a very small sort of working-class family in massachusetts. his father did not give him million dollars news in the third greg. if at his father, may not sure his father made it to see something like 5000 and then sometimes it was 8000 and then, but anyway, he went to johns hopkins, and he became a student leader there. he is the very strong student leader there and then he went on to medical school sorry not medical school, i'm sorry, [laughter], is the business degree. anyway, he went, he didn't go to vietnam, get 5 feet and they

said he couldn't go. it is to you know who. sewage all straightening start at the very bottom he worked his way up and he became the big fancy partner in a big fancy investment firm and he made lots of people angry at him. he was a partner when he was fired. there is really the beginning of his career. >> when people get angry with him. >> because he could be abrasive. he also would tell the boss, how he thought the company should be run. and i don't know about you, but i found telling the boss how things should be done, and it worked very well. >> after that. >> and who when he was at

salomon brothers, was an investment house, venting upstairs into the computer section. he learned a lot about how computers and wall street could work together. and who when he moves fire, that's what he did. he created a computer who wall street. it became, and really helped brawl of the revolutionized bone street. eventually became the bloomberg terminal. they called it the market master but internet a lot of people felt that it sounded like a kitchen appliance. some bloomberg, numbing the most modest decided it should be called bloomberg machine. the bloomberg. >> what did you do. >> is the really interesting machine especially if you are in finance. it not only tells you what the price of a bond was, is and what

they called what if. it allowed you to sort of analyze the field of bonds in that area. it allowed you to take increasingly understand all of the analytics behind any trade and people, usually cost about $24000 a year for the machine. the people who have them, cinema machine or my wife don't hit me. >> these machines became an biggie what is in financial circles. remember being in the bloomberg headquarters and see these for the first time. they were everywhere. this is how he made his her name. how did the bloomberg corporation transform itself into what it is today. television networking etc.

sue beckett is hampered that machine is the bait basic fund rating is from four bloomberg. they're about 320,000 of them are the world. and one point, in 2015, they suddenly went dark. the british had to install a bond offering to see we are about offering because they were ready to offer. the idea of somebody doing this that went out having a bloomberg just didn't work. it's a powerful machine. >> how would you describe his politics pretty. >> is the pragmatist i say. he doesn't like parties. his fan party he has you know. he started out as a democrat they became a republican to be mayor of new york.

they became an independent and now is democrat again. he tried to get who example new york city to nonpartisan elections who mayor. that is who he is. he's interest and interest, mainly he like to figure out how you can get things done and what works. his try things another network, is like a lot of businessmen, he wants to move on to the next thing. >> was effective in three terms as mayor of new york city. smart hi argue that he made some big mistakes. but overall, it was really good mayor who new york city. he brought the city out of to relate recessions and one was after 911 and one was the great

recession in 2007. he stopped people from smoking and note new york city. nobody believed that could happen. i became contagious around the world. they started 311. he added 700 acres of park. he launched a building boom in the city that is still going on. it changed 40 percent of the, he did a lot of things that were really made the city better. now, no problems who him, in the name of gun control, he caused who much pain and suffering the black and hispanic communities of the city. >> but some would also argue that the crime rates dropped during that as well. the rising backup.

>> who yes, the crime rate did go down for the reasons i didn't say we could see him apologize until now, was that he kept thinking that if the next administration didn't continue the crime would go up but it did. the new administration scale back and as crime continued to stay low in the city made. >> area code. interested in talking about michael bloomberg is the politician present potential present, see the number on the screen. elinor randolph worked at the new york times editorial staff,

who 20 years or who. it's almost pretty. >> with editorials which right, what is your specialty. the politics. >> i wrote about cities followed politics and state politics. this mainly what i wrote credits the city of new york like a lot of the cities is controlled by the state. and who it is impossible really to write about city politics in new york that went out writing by the state politics. >> if you wanted text a question or comment, you can text that into 202 - centauri - eight zero zero three. we'll be taking this right now with stanley was calling in from bloomfield michigan. hi stanley. >> hello. i was in favor, and i say it was wonderful what mr. bloomberg is doing and what is done as far as

work at the john hopkins university. he could see to it the minimum system of healthcare, and has suggestions and that direction to by doing away with high cost of medical care by going with non- who profit place. i say of mro news president. an appropriate man he knows how to do it. he knows how to handle people from new york or whatever they do. >> thank you stanley. elinor what you have to see. >> what is interesting about what he is staying is i thought about mr. bloomberg as the public health mayor and public health philanthropist. he got interested in public health in the 80s. at johns hopkins and have

antismoking and trench map and you have the big things which earned him the title is in any mayor. willie says fort new yorkers, just before you die, remember you have three extra years. it is the lifespan new yorkers, is better by three years and pretty much the rest of the country. and he cares about health. that's with the gun control, could be on that umbrella. and you know, keeping put climate change on that umbrella. >> but going back to the nanny mayor. in a really strong reputation who being a little note all dignity. >> yes he did. and he knew a lot. of course course he did. what was interesting about the

make goal, what happened is it came out, and he basically said they wanted to make it who that you cannot buy a cola over 16 ounces. and people went berserk. and who, there are lawsuits in all the service of. eventually the city lost the lawsuit but bloomberg said it doesn't matter, we want anyway. people began to realize that those huge 16-ounce cups, just like they had 20 teaspoons of sugar in them. who even the koch: pepsi-cola and cola companies, as a sort of offer some of the alternatives. not just because of this but the trend began to move in that

direction who he takes credit who some of that. >> was i going to play in a state like alabama where he has filed to run the primary. >> i am glad he is filed in alabama. i don't see how you get very far in alabama. just knowing going on here alabama knowing that see, but, he said turn in hand who a dollar. he has filed in all states. i say it's only gonna work in a few of them. >> what is he worth and was the estimate of we do have to spend. >> is worth, i say 53 billion keeps going, he gives little way. the lagoon about 10 billion away. his people see. how much is he going to spend the race. many of these worth 53 billion, he it's been $3m and it wouldn't

even hurt. sorry promise is what is going hundred million digital ads against trump. 20 million who voting rights. tell people get registered and then his campaign, is at $30 million starting tomorrow morning. >> to new york billionaires, chess or the know other. >> they do i tell her. >> was our relationship. >> not closeness but that way. in the past is an important. >> what the bloomberg people, whenever the set one time, i said they were at golf tournaments and things like that. they said yes well, but bloomberg only went to these events. where charity events and things like that. they were not friends. when bloomberg and i don't know

where the you remember that speech he gave in 2016 at the democratic convention, he called trump a con man. archon and said you know, he must really country the way he runs his businesses. we've god help us. if there was any friendship between the tune of them. that pretty much ended it. >> next call comes from as andy in somerville, florida. >> thank you very much. i who want to bring up i guess sort of the elephant in the room. what chance does a jewish man have being elected in this country in this country. and i'm a jewish woman asking you that. >> say this really good question and, the only thing seems to make a difference to me is what

chance did a black man whose middle name was hussein, yet. having of getting elected present. what chance did crazy real estate casino owner have of being elected. i say we tend to see, all because of this and that, this person can't get elected. first of all, his jewish faith is one of the reasons is been such a great fluorine proposed over the years. and i say if people see that and see how important that is been to him, that's can get started in his crown. >> has a statement important to him over the years. >> privately. he doesn't talk about it. i happen to know that he participates and he sets holiday satyrs and hanukkah and everything like that.

i just doesn't talk about it. it. >> very family. >> is divorce. his two daughters and two grandchildren. >> do not necessarily well-known are they. >> no they're not. off of he has one daughter, his two daughters are really interesting. they're like two sides of him. one is the real super intellectual. in the other one is socialite. she writes books she's a horsewoman is when all news kinds of trophies. she loves parties, just like bloomberg loves. he is the party animal. >> next cause scott washington dc. >> hi good afternoon. just want to congratulate you on the timing of your book. it is a great timing. very topical.

[laughter] thanks. >> the question relates to call the charles of the new york times. you want an article, you must never over bloomberg. as basically, his position was nonstarter who him. there's no way they hear the black community should vote who someone like him. just curious assuming that he speaks who the black community. do you say that the stop and frisk policies that were who controversial and they often translate into the national loophole and prevent african-americans and blacks from voting who mr. bloomberg. will that be a major problem who him. as more isolated. >> is the good question. i say it is one of the things that bloomberg has the be dealing with. with charles, spoke who a number

of the your invite and hispanic communities, but there are many other black and hispanic new yorkers and people elsewhere who do really like bloomberg. and i wouldn't be surprised to see him pick like or nails that he will pick a cabinet that will have some predominantly no, women and blacks and hispanics, and a diverse cabinet of people who are very qualified. and maybe even vice president. assuming ulnar enough, you talked about his abrasive personality. did that continue on when he was mayor. >> news thing, this guy is the salesman. he loves being in sales. he sold it jewish kid, christmas

reeves inventor glenn he grew up. and he loved doing that. and who he has all of these different sort of ways that he can connect with people who i say he's going to do better at this than i originally thought. >> seventy-eight years old print. >> and a seven. is the text who you. this is from george in tallahassee. mr. enough will bloomberg news run result in republican victory in 2020. >> i have no idea. the thing is, i thought hillary clinton was going to win in 2016. who predicting who's going to win next november, i am not there yet. sue might give any idea where he will pull votes from any of the other candidates are worried about his entrance into the campaign. >> i would say, is me talking. i would say that biden would be

the obvious one and then pete would a fish, probably be the other one. sue met the so-called citrus fruits to make this right. maybe >> floor brooklyn. >> hi. i was wondering in your research first book, if you had come across any influences from michael bloomberg news partner diana taylor because when he was running who mayor, in new york and when he became associated with diana taylor, we were thrilled. i say mr. bloomberg, gained a

great deal by dating such a distinguished fair-minded and intelligent marvelous person as we all know she edits. my question. >> before we leave you laura, do you remember, were you leaving in brooklyn michael bloom burr was mayor and what is your thought. it's been differently and rural very much sort of, we didn't really know him, and remember it was handing out free very small radios. yeah and they had bloomberg on them. we were sort of collecting them and we were wondering, we knew he was divorced and he was a millionaire and we had seen a few things and then when he started dating diana, i say he

rose in the i.c.e. of estimation of women all across america. >> let's hear about his partner. >> news partner diana taylor. and she is as the caller said, she's very distinguished. she is very smart and she is the banker. she considered running who say senate at one point and decided not to do it. one of the things that a few people sort of women my edge talk about him is that, the woman he dated and now, now diana and anybody else he dates, they're older. who this is the good sign. he has brought looking who arm candy. he is going who people who are

more his edge and more his intellectual loophole. >> do you know who influence on his politics, or his personality. >> she softens him. [laughter] that's what a lot of women do obviously. she is dogs and you know, she is quite beautiful. and she dresses, she looks like she comes straight out of vogue among word load board work program. she is really quite beautiful. she has always been interested in part, and what bloomberg was mayor, they added, 700 acres of parks. this really big deal who she may have had some influence in that way. >> next call skinny calling in from new york city. kenny and big tv with owner

enough. >> i'm a big fan of the tv. thank you very much. i just want to ask eleanor, really a little bit more about how she feels about the real estate development in new york city. i've lived in the city from 1 1980s in us most my friends and colleagues have lived there longer than myself. and we have just become horrified by the real estate boom of luxury apartment complexes all over the city. completely ignoring and and i'm talking about up talking about manhattan completely ignoring normal people who live and work and carry on formal jobs. the husband, is just ridiculous. what is happening on 563 is just overboard. i just want if you comments. >> is kenny new york city. assuming thanks kenny.

several people have said that if you have a city, and we are here in miami, you should see it. they are healed huge buildings everywhere places where there seem to be a little street corners. who we do only have who much property, which new york has, there's only one place to go. that's up. i really, the thing that a lot of us care about is whether or not, and you mentioned it. whether or not you find places who people to live. that is one of the big challenges who new york. affordable housing and we haven't gotten there yet. and as you probably know, the numbers of homeless as, one of. homeless rate sort of doubled during bloomberg years and is still going up. sue met we will finish on this.

lower crime rates and mr. enough seemed very hesitant to run it stop and frisk who that. what did she see that she was thinking about staying. >> [laughter]. what a nice question. well, the thing that i really say about stop and frisk was that bloomberg was trying very hard to deal with illegal guns. and they had all of these incredible stories and states buying illegal goods and things like this. who who him, stop and frisk was just the next step. . . .

him detour on stop and frisk at the brooklyn church. will this be with him for the first six months if he stays then? >> i think the fact that he apologizes meant that he really meant it. there's a lot of people who criticize the timing but he did it. you know how hard it is for a politician or strong person to say i'm sorry and i made a mistake. and he did it. it's out there. it's done. >> the many lives of michael bloomberg, a very timely book by eleanor randolph, thanks for being on booktv. >> a couple more hours of live coverage from the miami book fair. next call in segment we do will be up to you and it's what are

you reading? we want to hear what you are reading. we always enjoy hearing from viewers. the books that they are reading. you can call in or if you want to send a text and let us know what you are reading you can send that to 202-748-8003. that's our text number. we will be looking at those texts shortly. we will read them on the air. also you can send it via social media at book tv at facebook and twitter as well. that's our next call in segment here from miami. coming up in just a minute you're going to hear from james paula wasik from the new york times and richard stengel information wars is the name of his new book handed is on disinformation and information coming from russia. it's beginning now live on

booktv. good afternoon. how is everybody doing this afternoon? so excited? all right. glad to hear that. my name is tony cruz on the campus president for miami-dade college.it's a privilege to be the room host for this session. i'm sure you will really enjoy it as you've been enjoying this 36 miami book fair and as you know, today's the last day of the fair but we continue to have activities related to the book fair throughout the year, throughout the community.

please make sure to take advantage of those opportunities. i want to make sure i acknowledge our sponsors for this event. the knight foundation, royal caribbean, oh l, north america, the bachelor foundation the group foundation and the meredith and belzberg foundation. all import sponsors for this event, let's give them a hand. i also want to thank the friends of the fair, i know you're out there because every time i been doing this everybody waves. friends of the fair? great to have you. we appreciate your commitment to this extraordinary event. i also want to think and be grateful to the college for hosting this event and the hundreds of volunteers that have been giving their time and effort to make this possible for all of us. let's give them a hand.

we have a lot of friends of the fair here and i will make sure those that are not please consider joining the friends and follow us on social media. we will soon build on past successes by establishing four new programs. thank you for joining us during the session. in this session will have two amazing authors with us. first we will have richard stengel is the author of information wars, how we lost the global battle against disinformation. he was the under secretary of state for public diplomacy and the obama administration. in the former editor of time. and political analyst on nbc and msnbc.

our next author is james pamela audience of one, he shows how american media have shaped american society and politics by interweaving two crucial stories. the first one followed the evolution of television from the three network era of the 20th century your member that. three channels. and pbs. let's not forget pbs. into today's amortized media universe. the other story is a cultural critique of donald j trump who shifted into a boastful tabloid playboy into the 1980s then reality tv figure in the 2000 and finally into the biggest role of his life, president. publishers weekly called audience of one one of the top 10 politics and current events

books of fall 2019. also joining us and serving as our moderator is jeffrey brown, senior correspondent for pbs news hour. as we welcome them on stage, please give them a round of applause. it's a great pleasure to be back here at the miami book fair. one of the great book festivals in this country and all book festivals are great but this is at the very top of it. thank you for having us. and i want to say, personally, many people come up to me over the last couple days who are news our watches and say nice things. this is my opportunity to say

thank you, our gratitude to all of you for watching. one of the pitch before we start our conversation, the news hour now has a book club with the new york times called now read this. you are all book lovers you are all readers i want you all to know about it we just started fairly recently took off we have 70,000 to 80,000 people stop people read together online to talk to each other they form communities around the country read the same book. i interviewed the authors on our program we take questions from all of you. now read this you will find it online facebook page etc. and of my pitch. now to the conversation which will be a real conversation i hope. there's a lot of themes that overlap in the two books by these two authors. we will get to them but before we kind of spin it out as an

overlapping theme i want each of them to take a few minutes and tell about their particular focus they were after. rick, why don't you start. >> thank you to either be here. welcome everybody. my book information wars is about the time i was in the state department the last three years of the obama administration is under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. the longest title at the state department. public diplomacy is something that a lot of people don't understand and i have to say i didn't always understand it. about how america rejects itself abroad and around the world. as jeffrey mentioned for the introducer mansion, i went into the state department after being editor of time for the previous seven years so i do a little bit about media than in the first couple weeks in my job two things happened on the world stage, putin's invasion of ukraine and illegal

annexation of crimea in the first of the isis beheadings that attracted so much attention. even though those two things were not really part of my remit at the state department, i became obsessed with them. i became obsessed with russian disinformation, putin's narrative about ukraine. the trump story is back in ukraine now. i feel a little pathetic about that. and then isis was really excellent at social media. they were as good at twitter as they were at beheading people. and helped create this image of themselves as 10 feet fall and scared americans into think they were x essential front. the book is a narrative. it's not a classic political science book ends the sense it's not about theories about this story and the story takes

place following what happened around the annexation of commedia. seeing the rise of the internet research agency ãbseeing all the messaging they did around that supporting putin's narrative and the idea that ukraine should be part of russia and then how in 2016 they transferred that operation basically to the same recollection and started at first creating social media to kill the candidacy of hillary clinton and the support donald trump then to suppressed voters and we all pretty much know that story. the final part of the book is what we can do about disinformation. disinformation as i define it is deliberately false information meant to deceive you and there's an epidemic of it, social media platforms and my big recommendation in the last part of the book that i've been talking about over the last few weeks and months is

that the social media companies need to be regulated. right now they are exempt from any regulation because of the communications decency act of 1986 even before facebook started and they need to have some liability for the content that they publish. they can't be considered not publishers and we can talk about that later. not that that would solve the whole problem but would start to solve the problem. >> when you use the word wars in your title, i assume you use it very intentionally. are you saying this is the new way wars, is this one style of war? is this the new way wars are fought? >> that's an excellent question. this idea that modern warfare is not kinetic that is not military in a physical sense, it's absolutely a very much of a russian idea. they had a theory of warfare called active measure going back to the cold war and

putin's favorite military philosopher this guy dressed them off said that three fourths of warfare is on the information front. it's also asymmetric warfare in the sense that it's much easier to pay for a factory full of people with laptops then ns 35 or tank so it actually can help weaker powers against stronger powers but what we seen over the last few years is more authoritarian governments using it against their own people. they are repressing free speech on the one hand and using social media to get their autocratic narrative out there is a very dangerous thing for democracy. >> james, audience of one? >> why do tv critics write a book about the president of the united states? i don't know if any of you have heard about this but the guy from the apprentice got elected president. [laughter] i'm somebody who at the time

national newspaper i wrote a lot about the 2016 campaign to the frame of television debates the campaign and so forth. after the election i was looking at the same questions that a lot of journalists did which was just essentially how did we get here? and there are a lot of answers to that question. some of them have political dimensions and serve more broadly cultural and historical dimensions. one thing i thought was really underemphasized and under examined and a lot of these explainers was the aspect of how television had now become a direct route. somebody could go from prime time on nbc directly to announcing successful campaign for presidency. essentially i set out to tell the story of how television changed and therefore america changed in such a way that

enabled that. my book "audience of one" the subtitle is donald trump, television and the fracturing of america basically has two tracks. it's a parallel story. one is about donald trump essentially the television character this figure who was a mainstay of american pop culture for decades and use that to develop a presence in politics, become a force in politics and become elected. and another is the story of how television evolved over the decades since the 1980s as donald trump was creating his persona through television. where we moved from the mass medium of the three network environment, i have to say in

deference to three networks plus pbs. in which the aggregated mass audience had sort of a common experience and a common basis baseline of media experience to this sort of niche cable internet social media a bubble for everyone, everyone is a target audience, which not only changes our political discourse, it changes the culture as a whole. he creates a space for much more polarizing programming and create spaces for much more polarizing figures. as donald trump became both as reality tv start firing people on nbc and has he ultimately became as a demagogic outrageous candidate for president. you essentially got elected by making himself the protagonist of the 2016 election and providing a nonstop reality show that the cameras could not

resist turning into. >> clearly many themes we will unspool a lot of this but one obvious theme is just the changes in technology you are just starting to allude to but clearly drive what you are seeing, where you start because we are so use to now these things in our pockets and the screens we all live off of but talk a little bit about the development of that as it is played into the kinds of things you see globally. >> actually in jim's book, jim traces it the fact that the history of media scarcity when they were just three networks plus pbs and they basically people were creating information in a kind of mandarin way. it is a wonderful essay called the cathedral and the bazaar which is actually about open source content written many years ago but the idea that

old-time media was a cathedral a few people on high preaching down to people below in modern media is bizarre. one-to-one not one to many. and the change has caused this enormous change in our culture. if you think about it, the social media platforms they're not charging you. why are they not charging you because they are monetizing your information. there monetizing the traffic and the virality that they make money from to advertising. all of that media is actually created by regular folks not professional journalists like us, which was once upon a time this kind of the cathedral media. what that has done is i'm a fan of it in the sense that it's democratization of information and in a democracy why shouldn't people participate and create content?the same time, it's a vector for disinformation a vector for

conspiracy theory, a vector for hate speech in part because that content is not created by professional journalists, it's created by regular folks. who do not have the same kind of liability that we all have for what we created and in a way that also help create donald trump in the sense that there was no barrier to entry anymore. you can have a failed real estate developer from new york city not only be the star of a pseudo-reality television show but he could then get his ideas into the ecosystem by tweeting and beyond social media. it's a new era and there are many advantages and lots of disadvantages, which we all know about.

>> another key part of that i think is that not only is a lot of this media created by ordinary people but disseminated by ordinary people. there aren't necessarily gatekeepers deciding what should be brought to your attention. people are spreading and sharing things that grabbed their interest and often that's not necessarily what you judge to be most authoritative or most true but what you most want to believe. >> yes. that's the other part of it. it also uses all of the aspects of behavioral economics and cognitive biases so that basically he said something to me and i trust it because jim ã sent it to me but that doesn't mean it's accurate. also we seek out the information we already agree with confirmation bias and regret and reject the information we don't once upon a time in the old media environment that we started in in your newspaper or magazine you had to see points of view you didn't necessarily agree with. >> when i started at pbs we were the niche. you both referred to three

networks and pbs. pbs was started by robin mcneil and jim layer because there was this space for a little niche. which was, let's have an hour-long rather than and a half hour. so they created something that didn't exist. now as you both said, it's an entire world of niche. >> getting back to mcneil and layer, a little off the subject of my book but not entirely. we just seen a couple weeks of impeachment hearings. i actually wrote a piece for the times just before that geared up or went back and looked and you can find this archive online it's actually fascinating. where watched a lot of the original pbs coverage of the 1973 watergate hearings into richard nixon. at the time pbs decided they would cover gavel to gavel all

the days coverage and replay in prime time. it became this national phenomenon it was like the biggest show on american television and all the people are watching this primary source coming to their own conclusions about watergate and so forth. one thing that really struck me and that i wrote about when i was writing about this is that it was not just sort of a comparison or preview of what to expect and impeachment hearing today. it's really an object lesson in this difference i'm talking about in the tone and manner of the mass media of that time versus now. back then you have a sense that not just mcneil and layer but the senator's speaking in impeachment hearings. even if they have differences

seem to speak from a genuine sense that they are all speaking to a common audience of all americans. when you watch the impeachment hearings last week it was too different shows coming at you from from the hearing lecture. the democrats are presenting one narrative, the republicans are throwing a bunch of dos to dismantle that and launching attacks they know will play well as clips on facebook or fox news. they are speaking to a determined audience that wants to believe a certain thing about that. this is a theme that comes in my book in how television evolved over those decades into a much more polarized my truth and your truth kind of environment. if you just watch a little bit of the watergate hearings and compare with a little bit of ukraine hearings.

it's like time travel. it's like seeing how much the culture has changed because of the conduits of media over the time. >> and yet, while agreeing completely with all of this and yet television is still important somehow. you just wrote a book about it and you are making the case that we have a president because he was good on television he knew how to use the medium. he just raised the hearings many of us watch them on hearings. talk about social media of course change the game. but why is television or maybe i should say, to what extent is television this kind of older thing still important? >> for one thing, it's still the biggest amplifier we have. it's still the nervous system of our culture and the way that the medium in which our politics are carried out and in which our culture speaks to

itself. were all familiar with donald trump's twitter account. has used it as president and the campaign but many ways his use of twitter was kind of a reification of the power of 24-hour television news because it had so much of its effect because it would be amplified by that television complex.he would tweak something out and that becomes the lead story on cnn and msnbc and fox and people to over it and talk about then he tweets in response to their reaction and it becomes a cycle. that's number one, number two, just briefly with regard to the story i'm telling you how donald trump sort of made himself as a figure, that was very much a project that was carried out through the years through television. he was not the greatest businessman in new york. he was the greatest and make

himself appear to be the greatest businessman in new york within the four walls of television. he understood intuitively that celebrities incredibly powerful branding's incredibly powerful. but he was a man who loved to be his own publicist. he call up reporters pretending to be john baird. he knew that that perception was reality in a television world. that was what made him so successful in the many tv mediums he moved to. the tabloid television talk shows sitcom cameos, reality tv, wwe, wwe professional wrestling hall of fame member you can look it up. and fox news which really elevated him into a political personality. >> rick, you are looking at how these technologies have been used by other players, nations or nongovernment actors. what have you seen broadly? who was able to quickly grasp

the importance and change the nature of evil in global politics the way it's carried out now? >> when the berlin wall came down in 1991 a fellow named vladimir putin was a kgb officer interest. not a very successful kgb officer if you interrupted during the height of the cold war. >> i see a theme now a pattern. what putin recognized at the time was that the berlin wall fell without a single bullet or missile being fired. and russia had basically bankrupted itself for the past 30 years building missiles to compete with the united states and the berlin wall fell because of soft power not just hard power. putin took that as a lesson and

when he became the president of russia, the first thing he did commit the first week, was take control of all of russia's state television stations. not only did he understand he had used television to preach his message to russia, they also started building television stations throughout the russian periphery. when the wall fell in the west, francis ãsaid it was the end of history and we done so many times in our history after a war we withdraw and become more inward. putin took the message that he needed to become more outward. he started helping support russian television stations creating game shows and reality tv shows and they were pretty good. the thing i realized when i was traveling around europe after the annexation of crimea i went to ukraine three times, went to the baltic states number of times which are beautiful and wonderful countries that border

russia they were all getting russian media. russian television, all the countries had a mixture of native speakers and russian speakers and putin had created this messaging machine that gave them russian news. it was very powerful. you speaking to the russian diaspora. jim remembers that when he was at time and i was editor, we made potent president of the year in 2007 into this long interview with him at his dosha outside of moscow and it was in that interview he famously said that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the dissolution of the soviet union. he realized the way to china put the soviet union back together is this soft power, not hard power. and what happened was that after that annexation of crimea he used this soft power machine that basically we in the west had seen because we hadn't really been the recipients of it the internet research agency to create content around his

false narrative and because there is no barrier to entry with social media he shifted it over here. so those trolls in the troll factory were adopting american persona they were creating websites that people thought were american like heart of texas and tennessee gop and ãb in part because there were no people on the barricades of policing it goes there is no barrier to entry. that's how the russians use social media and that's how other people are using it as well and, frankly, the danger ultimately for all of us is not what russia or iran or what china does to a social media it's what we do ourselves. it is what more domestic disinformation and disinformation that comes from abroad and thus the larger problem. >> can i jump off this for just a second? i think another place of kind of parallel or overlap is that the connection between putin's

reality tv politics in russia and donald trump's reality tv presidency. there's the obvious trump putin connection but there's also an aesthetic one. there is this notion, i'm going to butcher his name but peter pomerantz has written about this in russia that the sort of propaganda philosophy of the regime is not necessarily deceiving people or making people believe things that are not true, it's making people believe that nothing is true or that you can never know what is true, everybody's working an angle. you might as well you are smart you see to you that you might as well stick with the team stay on your side because who knows, everybody is kind of fake. that's not just off in a very governing political philosophy of the trump administration. you remember rudy giuliani ãb

but also this cultural figure of donald trump, this character that he's played in the media over decades. as i write about has thrived in these environments with shadowy boundary between truth and fiction. the real and not real. the apprentice were he's actually playing donald trump but he is playing the sort of lionized idealized version that mark brunet is creating in the editing room. or in pro wrestling which is built on this idea of kk this notion that the conflicts in the ring are real and you sorta believe it but you sorta don't believe it. he can be very successful by operating politically in that environment and appealing to an audience who you told nobody really knows the truth. so believe what you want to

believe. >> that's a super good point. i quote peter ransom off in my book. where he has a lovely line about russian disinformation saying it's not an information war it's a war against information. once upon a time during the cold war it was a zero-sum ideological argument. it was two side saying we have the better system. our system won but postop time putin doesn't have an argument about his system. he is a failed economy has almost failed state estate tax losing population stop he can't say adopt our system but what he is saying is, don't trust those other guys. they are not telling you the truth. ultimately, this sounds sinister and i think it does unite putin and trump. it's an attack on the idea that there are empirical facts at all. donald trump doesn't even agree that there is such a thing as a fact or empirical fact. and putin basically does the

same thing. they're like magicians trying to erase reality. that's a danger for our democracy. if we can't agree on a certain set of facts, that's a problem. trump doesn't even agree on the most basic side effects works very quickly talking about this idea of where we heard in america this notion that you can't trust what the other guy is saying? we report, you decide. that in a way is the operating principle of fox news, which is not just about courting a politically oriented audience but undermining the idea that you can trust anyone but them. that this is the source. so there was you have to understand with donald trump this guy who is very comfortable operating in a fact optional and byron his whole

life. at the time he's interested in seriously running for president he has his entire infrastructure of right wing media that has kind of made that part of its operating principle. he then basically ports his character over. i think a lot of people who follow politics don't necessarily know that donald trump while he was toasting celebrity apprentice also had a weekly segment on fox and friends, mondays with trump. for four years before he ran for president. he basically rose has an influential figure in republican media and conservative media through that and i think that's as influential in getting him to the place he could run for president and wayne as the apprentice was itself. >> but i want to just suggest maybe it's a little even more complicated because i don't want to let us off the hook either. >> sure.

just as in the u.s. media or us as in internationally to what extent was a u.s. government not prepared for this and playing real ketchup and unable to deal with what was happening and when it comes to the last election to what extent was it, you're talking about fox, and what extent was it all of us. >> super quickly, i think fox was the gateway to which trump was able to access the conservative base. but what enabled him to be a successful candidate in modern-day politics which is largely fought through electronic media is that he thought like a television. he understood what the television camera hungers for.

that always want something new and something exciting and something shocking. like on reality show you want to be the person who's always on attack and always fomenting conflict and saying something outrageous. so that you don't end up on the cutting room floor. when you do that, you become the protagonist of the election. you are dominating the story. the story is what you are doing or what how other people are reacting to. donald trump was running for president it was like something out of a movie. you have the situation that his ãbstart a vision not just fox news but cnn showing his empty podium before they start. to them the imperatives of tv news where the idea is to always give your audience something to be excited about simply the fact that trump

might say something outrageous again was "news itself. the subhead of my book is how we lost global disinformation were in the question is, we in the u.s. government see it coming? and why did we do more about it? they're all good questions. i don't know that we actually saw it coming. it was my job to look at these things. we saw the rise of russian disinformation around crimea and the invasion of ukraine and eastern ukraine. we started to counter russian disinformation group at the state department. one of the things in my book is this kind of unification of

both isis, russia, and when trump came into the race bringing them together. if you look at what isis was doing they were as i closed the book, weapon eyes ingredients of the city muslims who felt left out of the modern world who felt they had terrible corrupt leaders, which they do. isis is basic slogan to its people and the people they were trying to list is to make islam great again. i told you about that interview with vladimir putin he said the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. his whole presidency is about weapon eyes in the grievance of ordinary russians who also feel a terrible loss of the dissolution of the soviet union. his campaign slogan is, make russia great again. when donald trump came into the race he was also weapon eyes in the grievance of americans who felt left out by the modern world and felt left out by automation ed companies leaving

the u.s. and the end of manufacturing. what unified them was this weaponization of grievance which was listing to get cosmic about it we're seeing all around the world with the rise of strongmen and autocrats who are weapon eyes ingredients. it's a swing back away from liberal democracy. and that again is a great threat to all the things we hold dear. >> because i was told we must end at 4:50 pm and we are on a tight ship. we want to allow for questions. if you have questions, go to the mic. were you going to say something? >> the microphone was too close to my mouth. we can go right to questions. i'm hoping the questions we can also get a little bit out what you are starting with at the beginning is sort of what can

citizens do our work short of things should happen? >> it 14 months from now we are fortunate enough to once again have a democrat normal president, what kind of retaliation or measures, not to use a loaded term like retaliation, against russia, against their disinformation attacks can we do or engage? in other words, we are lying prone assuming we stand back up again, how do we laid on them? >> to start with, the sanctions that the obama administration put in place after the invasion of ukraine and the annexation of crimea were pretty hard-hitting. they were surgical but they hurt put in where he heard the

most wishes by sanctioning his all guards the people to keep them in power. i would talk about ratcheting up sanctions even more. i think in terms of regulations we talked about making sure the platform companies take off disinformation that comes from foreign influence operations which is sort of flooding our system. i think continuing to support ukraine, i endorsed the legislation and the actions of the trump administration to give defensive weapons to ukraine. i actually think supporting ukraine, which is the crux of the battle between east and west and russia and europe is an absolutely vital thing in our foreign policy and the reason that the zielinski phone call is so tragic for us is that as it confirmed who's lying about americans don't trust them. their transactional they don't believe those things they advocate which is transparency and human rights and freedom of

speech and expression. i think we can't just go back to the way it was but i think we strengthened some of the things we're doing and add a few new wrinkles to it as well. >> i like to know if you think there's a solution to the ignorance in our educational system.the ignorance of a lot of people to live in rural america in the educational system that is not bringing a good system where people actually can dissect and see the truth, what's true and what's false in the second question is, do you think that breaking up things like facebook will help in any way? >> really quickly, one thing that i would like to see in a perfect world is sort of basic media studies. media literacy being taught in

school like elementary and secondary school the same way you teach civics but i hope we teach it better than that. the way you teach math. distinguishing the difference between an editorial and a straight news story. whether the headline what is it do? the different formats of media work? i have honestly think simply being aware of how media operates, how it communicates and how can be used deceptively is not gonna fix everything because i think as we been saying, a lot of this is a problem more of people kind of almost wanting to be deceived or wanting to hear the things they want to hear but trying to give kids those tools would be a big help. >> if i could just piggyback on

that, i have a line in the book which is we don't have a fake news probably have a media literacy problem. i agree, we need to teach in the schools needs to be starting taught in elementary school. digital literacy, often needs to be taught. i think the platform companies should pay multi-billions of dollars for these lesson plans and things that could go into the schools all across the country. but at the end of the day, we are all responsible. one of the other things i said is that each person who is a consumer of information or creator of information a purveyor of information has to be a screen against disinformation. we have to all exposing ourselves.be careful of this thing that someone has either retweeted or sent on. it may come from a hostile foreign power. it's completely wrong. once information has been democratized would become the agents of truthfulness and falsehood and we all have a role to play and everybody is responsible for exposing disinformation. >> i think i would like to say though that all these things apply to the whole country not

just rural america. i spent a lot of time traveling around the country i think that's important to say that this time when we talk about these things we should be talking about the country as a whole in all of us. >> you mentioned the responsibility of the media and trying to get everything exciting fresh meat get out there and expose things that will excite people and that attracts people's views. is it nacve of me to think that maybe the media should stop covering the white house because they are not covering factual material stop they are covering lies. >> is it nacve to think that they should? no. is it nacve to expect they will? probably. i think we could probably use a little more nacve ãlike that because i think that is an important principle.

i think that if you look at coverage of the trump administration and the disinformation that often comes from the president, a lot of that is often the result of media institutions making the judgment not, is this newsworthy but is it exciting. and simply applying that that filter would go a long way. do i expect it to happen? what's on tv tends to be what makes money. but journalism is a notification as well as a business. and something we in the business should at least be pushing for. >> i would only add to that i also work for nbc and msnbc.

msnbc has stopped televising live the president's possibilities. the televised ã [applause] they don't televised trumps rallies like some other folks do. i agree that we have to be much more careful in the world of marketing to kill a brand you don't attack it you ignore it and that would be the thing he would hate more than anything else. obviously he's president of the united states and there is news value to what he says but the fact that people are much more rigorous about fact checking him now, that never happened really in our history. all those things are good aspects of it. >> mine is a two-part question and when we talk about history, internationally we have countries rewriting their own

history to give them a better position on the global stage. we have countries telling other countries how to write the history so that they position the ones whose demanding the changes obviously for their own purposes. now we have in our own country a bunch of real and unreal information. who's going to write our history what record are we going to use and what is it can look like in 20 years? [laughter] >> i don't have a good answer to that. napoleon reportedly famously said history is written by the victors. one of the differences throughout history the victors did a race history of those people who are on the losing side. i think in the future historians will have a much richer play in terms of writing

history and because of the fact that people around social media you have a much more democratic ground view of what's going on in history. i hope that this is a test and a trial of liberal democracy and that the ideas of liberal democracy and freedom of speech, freedom of expression ã ã >> to what extent do you think the current first past the voting system we have in place exacerbates the problem of media in elections. such that there is only one person or another person and that's basically it.

making it easier for people to use social media to promote themselves.>> is probably above my pay grade to assess first past the post versus rain choice voting. i would leave that to somebody else. i do think that the mechanics of elections tend to affect the coverage of elections and one thing that particularly visual media like television is to reduce stories in terms of

personalities. blue in a way, you could argue that the electoral system that we have in the united states is goes more hand in glove with that kind of media coverage because obviously it's a different dynamic if you are dealing with say parliamentary system that tends to focus more on this party versus that party. i know that's not the particular choice you're talking about but i think i kind of think that the way the media likes to tell stories and agitate its audience would adapt to a tweak in the 4 like that. you definitely say the media amplifies its fact. >> we have time for one more. >> no? all right. then we are right on schedule. wait a minute. i'm sorry.

there was one hiding there. >> i didn't think i had the opportunity. i'm just curious why interest appears that if the media is interviewing someone and you know it's a lie, why the media doesn't push back much? >> in some ways cable networks have become more aggressive than fact checking in the trump administration. i think one thing i would like to see less of is particularly in cable news is bringing on spokespeople that you know are less than trustworthy. he can say there is service in pushing back but maybe just

don't go out of your way to surface it. >> one other things i find frustrating in 2016 during the republican primary debates was that trump was disinformation. he was putting out facts that were obviously false. i kept saying why doesn't the moderator stop him. >> why are you looking at me as you say that? [laughter] i think he's changed so much and has to change the way media treats public figures now. >> richard stengel, james ã thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible background conversations]

you are watching booktv on c-span2, live coverage of the miami book fair. one more offer discussion coming up featuring philip mod, malcolm ãand josh campbell. they will discuss u.s. intelligence and national security. philip mod worked for the cia and his book is called black site he also worked for the cia the plot to betray america and josh campbell writes about donald trump's war on the fbi. that's coming up in about 10 to 15 minutes but in the last call in segment we want to hear what you are reading and will put the numbers on the screen 202-748-8200 if you leave in eastham 10 central time zone.

hey if you want to send a text send it to 202-748-8003. let us know what you are reading it's always fun to hear and we have this text and this is from louise in santa barbara california. luis says "i'm reading the pioneers by david mccullough, blow up by rachel maddow, and promises to keep by joe biden. i will tell you, louise, but tv is covered two of those events the rachel maddow and david mccullough event. >> i see now that all my books are about americans who set out to accomplish something worthy that they knew would be difficult and going to be more

difficult even than they expected. and who did not give up and who learn from their mistakes. the characters are chosen to focus on always to our benefit. i think one of the reasons we ought to read history and no history is to increase our capacity for gratitude for those who went before us. of what they did for us what they achieved for us and for us to take it for granted is rooted in the extreme. i think two of the qualities history provides and what we read and teach our gratitude and empathy to put ourselves in

the place of those who went before us, what they put up with in working for the last several years and trying to understand what these pioneers who settled in ohio had to contend with and what they accomplished against such adversities i can't help but feel, we are a bunch of softies. and how much we learn from them and how much we come to know about them that we can't even getting to know people we are close to a real life because in real life you don't get to read people's diaries and mail. >> that's a little bit from david mccullough talking about his latest book the pioneers the settling of the northeast territory. the entire event is available

at booktv.org in our video library use the search box at the end of the at the top type in his name and brooke and mr. mccullough has been on tv dozens of times.he can catch him talking about any of his books if you use that search box and watch it online. it's hear from roberta in houma new jersey, roberta, what are you reading right now? >> and reading a book called all blood runs red. which i believe you advertised a few weeks ago on book tv and it is nonfiction by phil kees and tom craven and it's about an american who went into the french side of the first world war and he went over there because he felt like he was treated more equally in france

that he was treated in our country and he was a terrific soldier and he became a pilot and he found himself obstructed in high places by americans who didn't want any blacks to be able to be pilots. .....

they voted for trump and get there's been a total exclusion of any conservative thought unless you consider george a conservative. >> that was stephen in miami commenting on the miami book fair's programming. she's reading about the man who sold america by joy and read, another book covered on book tv. >> i presume that they have no choice. republicans would never say they have nowhere to go. they are constantly catering to whatever they want. the democrats leave their base on the side because they assume they've got nowhere to go. where will they go? when they go to the party in charlottesville, the neo-nazis including verified people? they have nowhere to go. they can go home.

hillary clinton found out the turnout in three states, it wasn't this people turning to jump, 9% of voters. they should have stayed home partly because russia was pinning young black voters in particular, this is not for you. don't vote, don't vote. pinning and pinning progressive voters and black voters if they don't vote for her and voter suppression. there's a lot that decreased her boat. i think democrats are always fighting the last battle. they say we've got to fix that. we need nostalgia to be nostalgic. we need an older white guy because they're fighting biden the last war. they don't understand the president of the u.s. became

president and one easily and 1000 states and won reelection, the black guy who was liberal and people of color. barack obama didn't because there is a backlash against the bush era but that's not how he won. he got people off the sidelines to never call. only in a good here did americans vote. foreign and ten don't. for white folks, for black fol folks, their majority of the nonvoters. most of them, if they thought it would vote for democrats. do what barack obama did. >> that's a portion of the program, sherry in chicago is reading. joy and read. what's on your reading list, marie? >> i read the pioneers --

>> did you do a lot of that research? >> yes, he came and did our wonderful program here. i read to my best girl, it ties in with that. the life of the grandson. his fiancée during the civil war and what a brave young man he was. it's related to the pioneers, i love book tv so thank you. >> did you go to its program when he was in marietta? >> yes, it was great. >> that's maria and marietta. next, massachusetts. give us your reading list. >> right now, those were astonishing. a different book is by jason reynolds, trakstar who grows up in a bad neighborhood and he

goes up and becomes a trakstar. i highly recommend it. >> thank you, sir. arlene in virginia texted that she's listening to malcolm's newest book, talking to strangers. here's a portion. >> this was influenced by my podcast, it made me rethink the way i want to tell stories. there's an immediacy that you discover when you are doing the podcast. i think it translates to the page so i want people to be aware that these are ongoing people in the shoes of the police officers who understand what's going on in the way you would assume a conversation.

should we trust strangers? >> yes. the problem is, many of the cases described, by going to the folks that the price you pay for not trusting them is far greater than the price you pay for trusting a stranger. the police officer in this case, everything goes awry because he does not think the best of her. he understands the most paranoid fantasies of what she might be which are crazy. we have trained a whole generation to approach everyone with suspicion. a big chunk of the book talks about the way policing has evolved in the last generation. some of it for the good, we've certainly gotten a lot better. there's an area in which we have

the direction of encouraging doctors to extend their suspicions at a reasonable level. >> in raleigh, north carolina, what are you reading right now? >> i am reading a great book i discovered thanks to her by kelly harding. she teaches at the university, i found i have taught psychology, it's the positive uplifting great book to read.

>> we got a lot of positive response about that book, it wasn't one of our producers founded, it wasn't something right in front of me but we did get a lot of positive response about that book. the author's name? >> jermaine -- her name is kelly and i think she's practicing in new york and professor in columbia. i would recommend it to anybody. >> you can go to booktv.org, type in the rabbit of fact or kathy and watch the program online. we have covered it on book tv. next is now in tennessee, what's on your reading list? >> i put you on mute first. yes, the book i just finished is a book that's been out for a few

years so it's not contemporary but is contemporary in the sense that it is a lot of conflict of the news today. it's called tony bennett. it's a marvelous book co-authored with scott simon, a marvelous commentator on npr. it's about people who wrote the songs and the other people who were prominent in the era that tony bennett has been prominent in today. >> you can but, unfortunately, that is not a book we cover on book tv but i'm sure it's a wonderful read. thank you all for calling, it's always fun to hear what you are all reading. our coverage of the miami book fair now continues. malcolm, josh campbell and philip talking about national

security and intelligence. live coverage on book tv. ♪ >> good afternoon, everyone. how is everyone? [cheering] thank you for being here for this session. my name is tony, on the campus resident. it's a pleasure to be the room post for this session. i want to welcome you to the book fair and today the book fair and here on this campus, it

goes on around around the community and different activities that go about and promote literacy in our community. just wanted to make sure i gave acknowledgment to our sponsors for this event. the royal caribbean north america, the group foundation, the meredith and foundation, all of that, give them a round of applause. [applause] onto think the hundreds of volunteers that make this event today. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] and friends of the fair. how many of you are here? all right. that's great. thank you for being here during this session.

thank you for your support of the fair. those of you not yet of affair, please consider that. follow us on social media and sign up for our news. we will build on our past successes by establishing 40 programs for youth and emerging writers in our community. he will hear more about these initiatives and how you become part of these wonderful initiatives. so we have some amazing authors with us for this session. they welcome out here in a second. [applause] in order to introduce them and serve as our moderator for this session will be printed on monday, the host of strange day podcast and also the principle of nixon and monday international. let's welcome him on the stage. [applause]

>> good evening. thank you for being here, we are very excited at the conversation you are about to see. not just because it's on other celebration or successful book fair that miami-dade book fair put on every year but it's rare to have professionals with the type of firsthand knowledge that they bring to this discussion shared with you and have the opportunity to engage. rest assured there's going to be an opportunity for all of you to ask questions of our panelists but we thank you for being here and with that, let me introduce the first of our authors this evening. josh campbell is a correspondent for cnn and prior to joining the network, he did a very distinguished tenure at the federal bureau of investigation where he served as a special assistant fbi director james

comey, he's worked with former special counsel on fbi director robert malik and he's the author of the brand-new book, crossfire hurricane inside donald trump's work on the fbi, let's give a warm welcome to josh campbell. [applause] our next author is also an alumni of the fbi and also the central intelligence agency but most important to those here in the room, he's a 305 till you die kind of guy because philip is actually native, he went to school down here, he's also the author of the book back site, the cia and the post- 9/11. [applause]

and last but by no means, by no means least, a man who's taken on the legendary persona, you see him up and down the cable television i'll offering his clues to the world, more than anything else, a navy chief and a proud one at that, the author of new york times best-selling books including his latest, the plot to betray america, how trump embraced our enemies, compromise our security and how we can fix it. welcome to the stage, malcolm. [cheering] 's. [cheering] >> that's what we call bipartisan cooperation.

we got to get another one. i think there's one missing. having said that, gentlemen, there's a tremendous amount of interest in your books and i think part of the reason why is not just because of the information you offer to the country and the globe but this backdrop of strange times that i don't think anyone would argue we are living in. josh, i would like to start with you first, crossfire hurricane, your book the curtain on a lot of people wondering what was going on within the fbi and preludes of the 2016 election and aftermath that culminated in the dismissal of your boss, comey. what's the number one most important message you are hoping readers of your book come away with in writing this? >> thanks to all of you for being here, one thank you may not know, we know you're out there but we never get to see

you. as we stare into this camera so the best part for me is doing the book tours and interacting with people and see people who care about these important issues. to answer your question -- thank you. the take away from this book is that there are real consequences to public safety when any elective leader tries to destroy the reputations of law enforcement and intelligence community agencies. we've seen over the course of a moment investigation since the beginning of the russia investigation that not every agency has operated one 100% correctly. there have been issues that the department of justice inspector general has found but in the agencies staffed with patriots who go to work every day, trying to protect this nation from external threat -- .mac thank

you. so what i fear and the purpose of writing this book is happy american people actually start to believe this nonsense, these agencies are filled with corrupt stake, i'm to get any elective leader, how many people will lose confidence in the answer to that require this in order to do their work? i try to take you behind the scenes as an agency tries to grapple with something, i was having people associated with presidential campaign under investigation with ties to a foreign adversary. >> it might have been an ultimate title because that's the center of the storm you had to endure both as professional and central intelligence and later on during deputy director but you wrote your book, the cia and the post- 9/11 work to address the controversies around

the enhanced interrogation program. again, so much passionate debate on both sides of the issue, what was your message you wanted to convey to your readers and your book? >> i witnessed the senate report not very positively, but by the way i'm not happy to be there, i would prefer to be out on south beach. [laughter] the answer is, we don't usually tell you the truth. but i'd rather not be here. >> i witnessed this and i've heard a lot of people attack their american right, people on a different side of the political spectrum say you represented our interest after 9/11, you saved us. neither side on the conservative and liberal side was able to talk to the 35 or 40 people i

spoke with, most of whom will never speak to you and say the book is not meant to be defensive of what many people hate, that's what the cia did to detainees. it's meant to say if you want to live our life so you understand why it happened, you might have ammunition to say that's fine, you might have ammunition to say i think what you did was right for you all to live the life you live to at least say if i want to attack what they did or supported, i have an understanding of 17 years ago to understand what people like me live through so you can understand on either side why we did what we did. that's it. >> bill talked about trying to explain the past, your trilogy of books has predicted events that have become transpired directly supported by the futu future. in your book, the plot betray america. you sounded the warning in july

2016 as it unfolding in real time and a lot of people wanted to dismiss the at the time, they thought it might happen a little fear mongering and yet i think there.that out. what is the message of the plot to betray america? what should americans and people of good faith be taking away from your book? >> first, let me pause my two colleagues here on the stage. i read both of their books, i love crossfire hurricane. i then fbi story. [laughter] you're sitting in there, going meeting to meeting, why are we being attacked? you prattville's story, which i was involved with because i had testified about all of these things. we are in this secure site and stuff, we have no windows in there. we rarely use the televisions,

we are doing whatever it is we do and guys like this whether it's counterterrorism, they have a perspective you can't have. you have to appreciate if they did something good, you will never learn about it. if you do something bad, you will probably learn about it. it's the good that they do, it's the people who fill out travel claims and issue your checks and do all the things that many of us would think of as thankless, you can't think them. you will never go into the buildings and you will never be around them and watch these people try to struggle with the popcorn machine at 1:00 a.m. when they're watching activities in the middle of the night because daytime in the middle east. they have thankless lives. they are the true patriots of this nation who they defend us all. it offends me --

[applause] it offends me even though i have fought my entire career for the right, american citizens, i have defended against terrorists to say any stupid things that comes to your mind. that's your right but that's why i reelect the terrace. they will take that away from you. those two books were brilliant and that let me to my book which was finally writing about russian intelligence activity russian measures, how putin is essentially taking over europe to democracy. he's destroy democracy by getting government to vote themselves out of power, to vote in and we have been attacked so my book was designed to give you a warning about the very people that right now are deep in the impeachment. the difference is, none of us here on this stage who have written books are journalists.

we are intelligence professionals, national security professionals and we write to inform you. that's all i do in my book and my favorite chapter of that book is the good guys lose. guys like josh campbell and call me in all of them are trying to help this nation in decent manner with what has happened and now we have 40% of this country who will believe every word out of the mouths of the national counterterrorism syndrome, you won't believe anything we believe but we can tell you you've been attacked by russia and the attack is ongoing and continuous in all of u.s. intelligence moves it, you call people like that conspiracy theorist. the conspiracy theory is you will not believe what is before your own eyes and that's all i have done in that book, teach

you what you actually see before your own eyes before fox news grabs you. [applause] >> it seems that we find ourselves in, you cannot do an event without breaking news happening in real time. as we took to the stage, a major development happened and if i weren't home, i would turn on the television and look for commentary. i have the ability to do that in real time now but the washington post is reporting, so those of you unaware, the chief of the pentagon has asked for the resignation of the secretary of the navy amid the controversy over the navy seal explosion. malcolm is our navy man on the panel, should we be concerned? >> i will keep this short. as the navy chief, i get very upset. this morning i did a segment

where i spoke as a chief from the chief from a long family of navy chief. are they out of their minds? the secretary of the navy does serve the pleasure of the u.s. but he has a good order and discipline of every sailor down there and when he makes a decision for the commander of special warfare makes a decision that someone should not be entitled to their work perfect or whatever, the president of the u.s. needs to stay out of navy business. [applause] he had his chance five times to serve this nation and he cowered it out and got out of it. [applause] the president of the u.s. right now has damaged good order and discipline and even though the secretary of the navy said he didn't make that statement about thinking of resigning, they

should have set that out loud and probably. they have every sailor in this country and every soldier was thinking i can commit more crime and if trump gets me up, i can get away with it. [applause] >> this is for phil and josh -- >> you want me to follow that? [laughter] >> both of you served again under dual bipartisan administrations, republican presidents or democratic and the word unprecedented overused a lot these days. from your perspective, have you ever seen anything like this where the president of the u.s. will go out and attack the integrity of institutions

designed to protect the american people in your case, the ci of your investigation. >> i served from 85 to 2010, five presidents, i think the opportunity is to take you to the water cooler and offer you not necessarily what i say on tv but a perspective you can't share, i don't remember conversations among colleagues. i spent five years and. i joined at an entry level and finished out the teller, i don't remember that many conversations about what a president did. the president is having this approach to iran or north korea or russia, you might talk about it over cocktails but one way to

characterize, to give you a perspective that's a little different than just saying yes, that's a weird time, i don't remember in 25 years, conversation saying, how do we end up saying turkey and egypt and philippians our friends and nato the g7 our enemies? this is not only weird policy, these are people who don't represent american value and places -- the filipinos are remembering people without due process and we don't talk about it. i'll have a president -- i don't have a problem with the president talking about north korea, i do have a problem saying it's odd, i never witnessed this in 25 years, to

sit back and say why is it that we like people who oppose democratic values to the point that they murder the opposition and the people who stood with us to oppose oppression since world war ii and the creation in 1947 are somehow enemies on twitter? that dude is weird. [laughter] [applause] >> in that spirit, you had a birds eye view of what it's like to be on the other side, all of us in this room who haven't served in the federal investigation there is this sense that at the end of the day, the adults are charged, there's a plan, a contingency and surely there has to be a scenario where the patriots of the fbi have had to have this scenario plan for the president tax them on a daily basis. surely that plan exists. >> the truth is, i don't think it does in the sense that you

mentioned before how unprecedented these times are and i don't think -- we hear that word used a lot but i don't think that is an overstatement because these are unprecedented times in different ways. as a reporter on the panelists, my job is to report on actions and leave the value judgments to our viewers and listeners to make up your mind about what this means but all you have to do is look to the past and compare it to the present. what i did in my book, i went back and looked since watergate, in instances where you had a white house that was in conflict with the department of justice, in doing research for this book, of all the presidents since richard nixon with the exception of obama, the only president who didn't have someone senior in his white house under investigation by the justice department, there has been instances of conflict between

the white house and institutions of justice. you go back from every president except obama since nixon, they've had special counsel or someone being investigated. we saw especially under president clinton a robust effort, the independent counsel at the time but what you didn't see is any of those instances was an attempt to burn down an entire institution, trying to destroy the credibility of these institutions of justice and the intelligence community. it was always off-limits. there was a system of norms in place, so called guardrail you couldn't go this far. every president, every person in the u.s. who finds themselves accused of something is entitled to a robust one. trump is the same. a robust defense. we are now fair game to destroy reputation and credibly ensure

political survival which is a dangerous place. the knocks on someone's door and they need help investigating. the willingness of that person to help is directly correlated to the agency. is this an honorable person standing before? i trust them asking for help. they testify that jury, their willingness to believe their view on the agency. is that present a truthful person from a truthful and trustful agency? this continued erosion will impact all of our impacts in a negative way. i went back and did research looking at polling data and what was fascinating is that if you look at republicans in 2014, a survey of public confidence in

the fbi and among republicans, the numbers were in the high 70s. the day that number is less than 50%. that tells me people are out there that are leaving this narrative that these agencies are corrupt and that will make us less safe. whether there's a plan on the shelf that they can deal with, how they grapple with this, it's an unprecedented time, they have to deal with this before so i think they are just a shell shock now as the rest of the country when you continue to hear this narrative day in and day out. these agencies are imperfect. i cover them every day as a reporter, my job is to unearth them in the main, which you are being told. >> you use the word shellshocked in the breaking news broken again. resignation was asked for, it's no turned into a full-blown firing.

they are having questionable on the american media. the american intelligence community and now it's over into the american military. it as anonymous as we think it is? >> yes. you have a full-blown one in the white house. you go through policies and you have robust discussion, he's doing top-down finger-pointing. i don't like you, you're fired. here's a tweet. this man actually refuted what he has said but that's not good enough. i worked against many of these in the world and this reminds me of those trials that they would have for everybody would be

sitting there and say gay saddam and they would say there's a traitor in the audience and they would point up there and he would plead for his life and they would be dragged out. this is a malfunction. that is all there is to it. [applause] but that malfunction is the constitutional process. we all defend with our lives. i take this very personally. the constitutional processes we all wheel know and believe in, one can't decided he is king george the fourth. king george the third wasn't good enough. i'm waiting for him to start ordering troops into our houses and pay for it. everything we have known since 1776 is in danger. when you point to a secretary of the navy, yes he served but you

should have enough common sense to understand people other have duty to the constitution, to our sailors and soldiers and marines and airmen. when you destroy that by saying i'm appointing a guy who's convicted of a crime, i'm giving a convicted war criminal for murder and he gets to go on fox news and lecture all of us. this has destroyed good order. there will be robust debate happening at every level. the chief of naval operations right now, they had better decide whether you stand with my navy, you stand in the tradition of john paul jones and doc him

off the ship and drop your anchors in front of the president and tell him what the navy is about or resign yourself. [applause] >> shall i come back to you? [laughter] >> this crisis in a row doesn't seem to be limited to one of the agencies, we just have come off two weeks of an impeachment inquiry where one side tries to make the case for why presidential use of power and high crimes were committed and how that was documented by public servants in the federal government. the other side was focused on the whistleblower. a whistleblower that many suspect may have come from one of the intelligence agencies that you pertain to. if you talk to us a bit about what you think the morales in

the agency right now when at any moment, someone who risks career and possibly safety is potentially exposed by the president or someone in the administration. >> i think one of the challenges of what we do for living is to step back and reflect again, in my time in 35 years after i started, i think the story has changed in the past couple of weeks because before the institutional attacks, some in my case, i don't trust the ci says about russia. i don't trust the military, i felt it was extremely embarrassing for the literary officers in uniform. the military is going with plans fast enough. you don't understand what a

military plan is. my point is, the institutions were being attacked. what look what has changed. in the case of the cia where i served, there's a threat i don't know who the individual is, i can't confirmed who they worked for, these are news reports say. if you're in the business, nursing if that person has a family and they don't, forget about death fact, i get death threats. they have to move. after protect their kids in school, they will get threat death letters for years. the president is putting them at risk. if you're in the business, you're saying this is from institution to personal and to close what he's saying, you understand the president is just attacking military, i was watching and i didn't serve in the military at the time, i testify secretly when i ci --

>> hold on, can you keep a secret? >> when a contractor murdered, what you testified in favor of putting the individual in jail for a long time. first of all the president shouldn't intervene that. he has to worry about other stuff like why north korea hasn't lost an ounce of nuclear material despite the fact the president says we are. why is the president intervening at levels below him? now it's getting personal. you're telling me that individuals in the military who murdered a detainee is appropriate for you to intervene us, that is murder. that's not an act of war. i think to translate to a broader audience, what i am seeing at the state department, the president isn't just attacking them, people like me who serve to start to say the

president, this is interesting, risky revenge of the nerds. he's risking people coming out saying it's my duty to support, i don't care how many of you elected trump, he is the president. it's my duty to support the man elected by the american people. i don't care if it's popular vote or not. we do electoral college but what he's doing by attacking people by name, forcing people where my old position it to say you cannot do this. ibm or ford mortar, i must protect my people. >> a quick follow-up, not only has a present attacked people by name, you're the only one on this stage he actually has attacked by the. >> i am so jealous. [laughter] >> one the is really offensive but -- >> first off, what is it like to

go through the crucible of having the most powerful man in the world single you out, especially at a time when we have seen our fellow citizens in some cases take two violent attributions? >> i don't want to get to dramatic, within 72 hours, an individual later arrested making death threats within 72 hours of the president threatening, a pipe bomb, he attacked me on twitter. he said i needed to watch my back which i don't do twitter. when where we live in, it's a negative tweet, you understand every time you got into a restaurant, every time i walk into the miami book fair, you have to wonder, is this the person? have a personal relationship with my local police.

meister is sister is here, she doesn't know this. i'm sorry. when i call the local police and testify myself, i get prioritized because i get stopped. some of the stockers have made threats. if the president hasn't responded, whether or not i voted, he does not seem to understand when he threatens people people by name, it lists my life. this is not an everyday promise. but i'm here to say, i think part of our job is to take you in a different world and give you a perspective in my file, daily hate mail says i have to have a relationship with the police department in my town to say if i call you, you need to be here now. it's real and personal. it's everybody in my world. >> personal and professional, we sometimes forget these are not

faceless bureaucrats. these are american public servants and patriots that with all the noise going on around them, they still have to do the job. if josh, you were in the unique position of one day doing your job, discovering your job just like that is over. what does the experience where you are with the director the moment he was fired by the president without any for knowledge, not only for you and the directors state of mind for the morale of the colleagues that stayed behind? what is something like that like? >> if we go back to that day in 2017 when the fbi director found out by watching cnn he was no longer the fbi director, it was a date that set in motion a chain of events inside the fbi was so fascinating is i think

everyone on the stage will agree, there are no indispensable people inside the u.s. government. everybody who serves, no space you can be replaced but if you leave, the agency continues. all these agencies have been around for hundreds of years and they will continue the mission. the problem that occurs with commies firing, i have to step back a little bit because obviously i work for him as a special assistant, even then i have had lots of conversations. we know and knew at the time that any fbi director could be fired for any reason or no reason at all. the problem is twofold. first, the reason the public was given about why the fbi director was fired was alive. those of us who care about the truth, we get up every day doing

what we do because we care about the public being many belated. we care about the truth being told, these politicians and government in both parties, they have this platform to try to change your mind, your feel. we try to do is provide perspective and say here's what one side is saying. here's the center of gravity. commies firing was a campaign of public manipulation. we were told the american people that the reason why president trump fired james comey was because he was too mean to hillary clinton. you go back to that letter given to the public and publicized that he was fired because the panel -- the way he handled the case and had to go. the american people didn't know at the time that there was this investigation going on and the president asked and demanded

loyalty of the fbi director, the american people didn't know is that president sat in the oval office across from the fbi director and asked him to drop an investigation into the president himself would soon go on news and like the whole thing there and say it was the rush i think. the russia things on his mind. inside the fbi not only were we grappling with the decapitation of the leadership, the director was gone. we knew the reason why he was being fired was because the president was firing the person feeding the investigation into his campaign. remove the name, the party and the u.s., it's chilling to think republican or democrat were trying to cut these out from law enforcement to make an investigation go away. you have two frames of mind. people who highly respect james comey were sad to see him go and

fastest not anecdotal. every year it's about your leadership, it's anonymous. they understand how they are doing. they were off the charts as far as what people thought of james comey. they agreed with his decisions, i didn't agree with them. he was highly respected so grappling two things at the same time, the dismissal of a leader that was highly respected and grappling with the fact that the american people were being many belated about the reason for the firing. it was so fascinating is that it set in motion a chain of events where the firing of commie, you wouldn't have mueller, human have special counsel laying out all of these instances of the, all of these people associated with the president going to ja jail, but for the action i firmly believe.

they were frustrated at the ti time, it's no reason to anger. i talk to people all the time, they're covering these agencies, they are angry. they're angry that they continue to be lied about, they make mistakes. we learned about an official that was fired allegedly for altering something. in the agencies, they are these people in these agencies, it's risen to anger. it started with the firing of james comey. >> if i can make a comment, i think we all see all of us in this room, we see on the state may be a level of anger and sometimes hate universe yet because of social media, the anger that josh talks about that i see in hate mail, you cannot, all of us, you all have children

and grandparents, coworkers, all of us live in a toxic environment. you cannot accept at the dinner table at the restaurant from the word that says i hate the president, i hate the fbi, i hate the cia, i don't care which side you are on but when i see people slipping, people who think they are with me walk-up in a restaurant and say i hate the president if my answer is, that's not acceptable you don't like him, vote against them but when you contribute to this environment of eight by saying toxicity means i can hate, that is not acceptable. i don't care if it includes the people in this room who don't like the president. we don't hate people. we want him out or we want him in.

i'm tired of getting e-mails from people saying i don't know cute but i hate you for what you say. that is un-american. [applause] >> this is for all of you, we have all in our own ways, in our professions how to analyze data, intelligence and reports on the basis of data, those behaviors come away with conclusions. i have seen the president of the u.s. not in one moment or two permits or three with every choice and every decision that vladimir putin would want to make instead of the interest of the u.s. and i understand the

disturbing implications that analysis leads to, understand it sounded hyperbolic but based not on what we suspect but on what we have seen with our own eyes and heard with our ears, malcolm, josh and phil, is it crazy to believe whether the president of the u.s. is an accident of vladimir putin? [applause] >> our job is to look at actions and i can tell you having written this book and had the pleasure and honor of traveling to 15 cities across the country, it's a question that comes up. people ask, what explains the president's decision as it relates to russia?

my journalistic lines, we rule things out. if you look at certain actions taken place, the only thing you have to understand is there's a reason for that. talk yourself through. i don't care who you voted for but there's a reason why the president of the u.s. stood next to vladimir putin and signed with him over the u.s. intelligence community. as a reason for that. don't know what it is yet. you have reporters were working to determine motivations of many different leaders but the one thing that fascinates me if you look at trump all the recent presidents in modern american history, his ego is probably the largest and most robust of anyone in the office, he would

tell you the same thing. i imagine. he says he's a genius, very comfy mentoring about himself. it's not a criticism. it's important to understand that for this reason. why would someone with that strong ego stand next to them and seemingly cower? there's a reason for that. that's not what people with giant egos do. i'm not going down the conspiracy theory, what expense acts are right but i will say there's a reason why people look at the foreign policy decisions as it relates to russia and run counter to the analysis of the u.s. intelligence community. there's a reason why the most powerful person in the world is deciding what that country over these agencies. >> i have addressed this many times and first off, let's get

something off the table. i don't believe trump has signed a contract with vladimir putin that says he's an agent of the russian federation and he has them coming in from moscow saying donald, i need these tomorrow morning. that's all the other agents running over there. that's a technical term, the question on the table is, is he proving beneficial to russia? is he aware of the benefits that come from his relationship with russia? you don't have to ask any of us that question. i was on page two of the mueller report. he said he was aware that russia was carrying out activities in his interest, he's organized his team and the trump campaign to age that material working through news media or wikileaks or roger stone or people going

to prison. we are going to use that to benefit, he's still doing it today. i've said this on the day it happened. when he came out and made his speech that said russia, if you're listening, i want you to release 30,000 hillary clinton e-mails, i believe that day, i'm pretty sure we have separate russia, i believe he came in, russia was in his court and was going to help him. he expected him to help him, he is now almost confessed he wanted china to do it. he went to ukraine and pretty much blackmailed them and extorted them to try to cheat again in an election in which he cheated before.

therefore, he is an asset of vladimir putin. vladimir putin actually said that, have special security services just russia's speak for his intelligence agency, he did what donald trump did to be president. don't ask me, read all the news media that comes out of russia. the only say this man is ours. he's hours for a reason. the one thing we do within the intelligence community, we don't care about who, when, where and how. the question we are all after is why? why is this behavior occurring? i don't think using an analogy from astra, the black hole. when i see many indicators of intelligence, all client down to

a place where there is no answ answer, there is only a black hole of information, then all of those indicators going in there, insulting u.s. intelligence, getting rid of the fbi director, breaking he did it to russia or blocking u.s. news media, hundreds of indicators all leading to a black hole. i can pretty much figure out what's in that whole because someday we will cross the horizon and we will determine that donald trump in some way, shape or form is in debt to vladimir putin. [applause] i don't know what it is, maybe he will get a trump 2.0 out of it. he thought he would offer

vladimir putin a $50 million bribe of a penthouse at the top of trump tower moscow. vladimir putin would own it. he does not see how -- if he doesn't see how he's been manipulated, that he is being manipulated by teams of intelligence professionals and human intelligence and psychology by vladimir putin himself was a former human intelligence officer. ...

they abandon fully functional camps in the russians went in and raised their flag and our position. if it happened at any other point the impeachment would've happened within minutes. brush it now owns our position in syria explain that to me. the y is missing around the black hole of intelligence and the only thing we can do is go through contacts and precedent and say it's unprecedented. there is no context. except the suspicion. this man owes his bookie something and he will never insult his key. see mac. >> in the remaining minutes we have a microphone if you all

had questions please line up behind the microphone centerstage i can imagine that there are many of you i would ask please it seems like there are a lot of questions directed to one of the panel members. let's go to the first gentleman over there. thanks to all of you. i note republican congress person are afraid of being primary all of them are intelligent enough to know everything that you know and that the millions know. how do you explain is it money from the russians the traitorous behavior of

republicans in congress. for those of you who are a certain age my age or older. there was a cartoon way back when called little abner. a mythical place in dogpatch kentucky or something like that. and there was an animal there that is imaginary called the schmidt and it would turn into anything you desired to eat if you looked at it hard enough. i think the republicans because of the scarcity of their base that they have better become the schmo. with enough hatred they have better join the trade or not only will they be out of office. i think they always have believed like trump the evidence is there.

they were restrained by common decency and comity among american citizens. right now like phil said. i don't hate donald trump. he sits at the seat of the man. he is not the greatest president in american history. he sits in the chair. they are in lockstep because i think they fundamentally see a different america they head at the fig leaf of the constitution over their desire to have a top-down

government. like a woman said on television earlier this year, i never thought we would like to have a dictator in america but if there has to be one it should be donald trump. let's go to the next question again. do you know that russia and china are a threat to america. the man doesn't want to go to work.

>> what is the question. why the criticism against president trump. he is afraid of russia and china. are we just not seen the bigger picture is it to bring about peace and stability throughout the world. i wouldn't go to war. i'm not sure why they are threatened by china and russia today. i've a different perspective on why the president operates the way he does. it's the right analysis. they will enter -- analyze foreign leaders. i can do this in 60 seconds or less. the president says he is genius. he has used that term.

these are all threats to his power to do what he thinks is right for him or america. russia, north korea and egypt. what are the characteristics of every leader in those cases. they all have an approach that says legislature opposition parties members of the opposition in the civilian population they are impeding my ability to do what's best for my country. i think russia in the context of all of these other countries is just another place where he says that is how i should be able to operate. nobody knows better but i do and all of the people i like they think like i do. the canadians, the french the brits they got it wrong.

i have not heard anybody say this, on the news or anywhere i think when trump took out marie in a college she is our asset my question is how long will it take the united states to recover if i'm correct. on the ambassador, the one overarching question with her dismissal as we continue to watch the scandal play out is how the rationale given for removal does not square with the reason that that white house continues to get. his interests and talk into talking to the president of ukraine about what was going on was because he was

interested in rooting out corruption. the problem with that is it is an ambassador whose entire reputation as one base. and she wrangled a lot of people over there throughout her tenure because she was so anticorruption so that is the one thing that doesn't square. if your goal was to really get to the bottom of what was happening with the country. it was such a dog against the corrupt act. i think because the president does not operate on the same system and every other president of the united states works on an as love of country, decency, maintains the ability and advance the american system. he works on the goodfellas system of government. in his world you to go find the corruption you are fired. he thinks like a chief would.

when he wrote his book about going after the russian mafia in new york city these guys ran on peer arrogance. maintaining what thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin started in the state department. it's almost a follow up on his. we have to get everything balance back to where it was in all of these other countries. would you consider a vp position in the next administration, negative.

>> i don't have an ego like that. i am not qualified i am man enough to say it. maybe on the intelligence review board. we had time with time for one more question and i want to make a very important closing thought for you all. >> this is a very quick one. i'm very simple question that has not, vietnam the public, the kids, it may change. they force the issue. i don't see tons of millions of people going to washington why is that. i don't have a good answer.

he told me that he have to teach his students what a fact was. one of the challenges especially. the white house back in vietnam when we lost walter we lost the war. they are looking at different media sources. most of them are biased. i think people have different understandings not on facts but on different interpretations. i don't think there is an equal understanding as there was in vietnam. walter would tell you nobody knows who is gonna tell you today. there is no agreed on fact. the final question for the panel. there is so much noise going out there. information and news and we are less than a year whether you are for or against the

current president and election for american history. what do you think is the one thing that the american public should be focused on like a dog with a bone between now and election day. >> mine is easy that is transparency. anyone in this room if you were accused of wrongdoing he would move mountains to ensure that anyone that could exonerate you were serve as a witness helpful to you could be heard. that's what we need to be focused on today. there were certain elements that were trying to obstruct those efforts. well had to wait and see how transparent people are.

i have a very hard time seeing some of the things that are said from one american to the other. i feel like this is the most serious type i was a kid in 1967 sure how bad it was. to me this feels like 1860. mentally we had trouble because now the information bubble that you were talking about the sphere is like a heart that was beating into steady rhythm. it means shaking uncontrollably out of control. and something is can have to shock us back into the mutual love for this country i don't want to be a terrorist attack

i don't want to be some massacre of children. we people right now they say they hate the fbi but you love them when there is a bobbing or shooting enough to understand this nation is formed on one founding principle however imperfect it was at the time by a bunch of flaming hypocrites who were from the enlightenment. even though they were sleeping with their slaves that someday they would make us a more perfect union. 40% of us are taking the country and we will rule over the other 60%. we must find the inner love of america.

do you think we are going to get treated better. we have an opportunity to shoe at the people that captured them. but they wanted to make america better for the next generation of children. we are ripping that fabric apart. everyone on the opposite side of the bench of me.

you vote because the american republic has stood up from the time of george washington when he swear his swore his oath to protect and defend the constitution till 2016 is in danger. thirty seconds and then we have to say goodbye. we offer a child a future for health it is mediocre. why, and does is a 24-year-old have to go to an emergency room. i think we have to focus on what affects a child. that child forget about what we talk about. it deserves a healthy life.

mac that wraps up our live coverage of this year's may amy book fair. we can watch any of the programs we had aired this weekend. book tv now continues. here are some of the current nonfiction books according to the book store. topping the list is catch and kill. the investigative journalist.

the account of the efforts made by others to stifle his reporting. and then and talking to strangers. malcolm gladwell examines how we miss read the words and actions. as a memoir by the late musician prints. at how the human body works in the body wrapping up a look at some of the best non- selling books -- top selling books. the westover account of growing up in idaho amounts. enter introduction to formal education at age 17. in her book educated it has been on the bestseller list for nearly two years. they have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online.

it looks behind the scenes of the donald trump presidency from anonymous source. the ultimate decider. he really follows his own instincts. he is his own national security adviser. >> they have given away their powers in their authority to the other end of pennsylvania avenue over the last couple of decades. one way to not complain anonymously is to do something about it. watch book tv every weekend on c-span two.