only me but the entire team at the west evidence of any action taken on a improper motive. >> watch today at 6 p.m. eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> did eating and welcome to pp life. i'm bradley graham, co-owner politics and prose along with my wife lissa muscatine. we have a great program for you this evening. for those of you not familiar with how this virtual format works, you will still be able to ask the question of the author if you would like. to do so click on the q&a icon at the bottom of your screen. bob woodward has been observing and reporting in washington for half a century. his decade with the "washington post," is covered nine presidents and shared in two covid surprises come first for the postcard of the watergate scandal and second in 2003 as a

lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. his books also have made big news and drawn many readers pick his nose book "rage" is his 20th. all of been national bestsellers. we are accustomed to bob's books taking us behind the scenes of high-level meetings and into the minds of those making critical u.s. policy decisions. his extraordinary about united states is at this time donald trump himself spoke with bob not once or twice but 17 times while the book was being written providing a remarkable series of glimpses into the president's thinking at key moments. the conversation with bob the cd will be another prize-winning journalist jane mayer, chief washington correspondent for the new yorker magazine which is been for 25 years. jane is also the author of authoritative books that helped deepen our understanding of such important topics as the money

behind the rise of the radical right, the war on terror, the clarence thomas hearings, and the iran-contra affair. so jane and bob, take it away. >> great. bob, great to be with you and great to be with politics and prose. i just want to start as, given there's been so much a news, with a question or two to get your thoughts on the court. and i wondered whether in your work on trump whether you gotten in insights into his relationship with mitch mcconnell, how did you work together, will they be coordinating closely, and to have the same interests when it comes to approaching filling the vacancy left by ruth bader ginsburg? >> yes, , because you have a pie in the new yorker, remind everyone what your piece said, you know, the idea that really mcconnell wants to make sure

he retains control of the senate more than getting another justice, is that correct? >> well, i think what he would like is to do both. >> i agree. >> my guess is he will be come he's very canny and will find a way to do both with some incredible maneuver. he often surprises people with the fine print of the rules in the senate, but i think people,i know who i interviewed about mitch mcconnell think that nothing matters more to him than staying majority majority leadt that way. but i imagine at this point trump really wants yet another justice, and this would be his third on the court. i'm sure mitch would like you, too, but not at the expense of losing his majority in the senate. and it's dicey politics right now as we know. things are very -- what you think is going on? how do you work together? have you gotten any -- >> i'm going to release some

audio and transcripts of trump talking with me about this very issue. i think we're going to release them in an hour, but hey, it shows that trump and mcconnell really work in tandem, much more than we thought. trump has wrapped his mind around this issue of filling the seat of the ruth bader ginsburg seat. he sees a political plus, a giant one, because what this does is it takes the focus of the virus where his performance is, quite frankly, i found in my reporting a dismal, and goes to the issue of kenny put another justice on the court. this hits his idea of lack of

decorum, is very much his style and people are criticizing him saying this is not fair, but this is a pure political power-play that mcconnell and trump might pull off quite successfully. democrats and a lot of people wait a minute, merrick garland didn't get a hearing, didn't get a vote. in reality, the senate majority mitch mcconnell controls these things and so there's much more, i think this is trump locke when one of the long conversations i had with trump a couple of months ago, he said he thought in 2016 he won the election in the last four weeks of the campaign. i think you can see that and

argue that, and he think he's hoping to duplicate that. >> you have in your book a conversation, it seems with, i don't know if you directly in a few but with lindsey graham, and you say that lindsey graham and chief justice john roberts talk a lot, which was news to me, and lindsey graham is the chairman of the judiciary committee in the senate right now. >> i key pivotal position in all of this. >> but in the book graham seems to express that he is worried that, and justice roberts, two, chief roberts, are both worried that the court has become so split and so politicized and so partisan, and they don't want it to become more so. does that suggest, do you think that kind of thinking will have any bearing on who trump picks,

or how to really make this pic, do you think? >> i think he's going to pick the woman, the cuban-american from florida. it makes all the political sense in the world. she served on the supreme court of florida for many years. now she's on the federal appeals court down there. that cuban-american heritage, conservative, it's an obvious political pick for trump, but you know, in trump world you learn to not state much on your predictions because he continually surprises. this is going to be, as everyone says, bloody. but trump and mcconnell are looking at this, oh, boy, we have an opportunity here, and it

appeals to the evangelicals. it appeals to this idea that the kind of rule breaking that trump loves. in a way there's a tradition of trying to ram through a supreme court new appointee in an election year, let alone last 50 days of the campaign. i think there's a feeling of political muscle, that they're going to exercise it. a lot of people don't like it. >> and you don't see it as any kind of potential for backlash? i know the democrats are already talking about if they take the senate majority, that they would then also turn to sort of radical muscle and maybe try to pack the court or something like that.

you see any sort of a downsize for -- >> i i know there are people who talk about that. packing the court has a bad odor about it because rankling roosevelt tried that and it's -- we do like the way the court is for the way the court has been in all of american history, and we are going to now add more justices because we don't like what they are doing. i don't think that works in a political sense or in a practical sense, but if you listen to some of the democrats talk about this and just say, oh, this is absolutely awful, unfair. how can trump and mcconnell think of doing this? what do you think? you know this. >> i think that mcconnell and, i don't know, i haven't spent as much time they become sort and not as much time as you have on trump, but mcconnell, a somebody wrote today, hypocrisy

and shamelessness are not only is he a new to them, they are a management style for him. this is business as usual. they are not kindercare people say it looks unfair. >> but who are the people who are going to say it's unfair? democrats. >> right. >> and speedy the only thing i can imagine that might make a difference is, and i was in reviewing norm ornstein about this from aei and he said there's a couple of senate races with endangered republican incumbent, susan collins was declared she's not going to vote for for a replacement for ginsburg before the election, and there are a few others where it could be dicey. it puts them on the spot of having to choose between the trump base which it can't afford to lose, and the moderates at particularly women within might

not want to lose. i count you will need four who will not vote with mcconnell, four republicans, and today i can't count for much of it. they might get romney, murkowski and colleagues. i don't know who the fourth would be. anyway, everybody is watching. >> certainly, but the idea of hypocrisy, what's the hypocrisy? >> not going to hurt their feelings. >> actually, i think it's kind of the wrong word. it is playing ultimate political hardball. and as we know the democrats will do that as will the republicans. it's going to be a moment where he you have to sit on the edge of your seat because there's going to be maneuvers. there is going to be surprises,

and trump is sitting back there wow, were talking about this rather than the virus, which is now killed 200,000 people. and i found in my reporting, by discussions with trump, this all goes back to them if i can take you to what i think is what is most important meetings in the oval office, certainly in the century and may be in a long time, and that is january 28 of this year when the national security adviser robert o'brien said to president trump, the virus is going to be, not maybe, but going to be the biggest national security threat to your presidency. and then the deputy laid out the details of how they had sources.

he was an old "wall street journal" reporter, a very talented one, nominated for the pulitzer prize for what he did in china for seven years covering the 2003 sars epidemic. and he laid out for trump, he said look, this virus is airborne. people who don't show symptoms can spread it. but most importantly, he said this is not going to be just a little problem. it's going to be very much like a 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people. they went through the details of this, and the president, ten days later, told me about this. i was thinking all about, he's talking about china and it was not three months until i learned

about the january meeting, which i start my book with. it is one of those, it's almost like somebody coming to franklin roosevelt's a week before pearl harbor and saying the japanese are going to bomb us, here and just sitting on it and not doing anything. shocking behavior. it is, i think there are two pillars in the presidency, the first is, i remember talking to trump about this in our first interview in december of last year in the oval office, and the question was, what's the job of the president? and trump said, the job is to protect the people. and he failed here to protect the people. what he could've done in

february, out and say, look, i have an authoritative warning here. there are things people can do. he literally, in the state of the union address, february 4, could've said wash her hands, keep social distancing, wear a mask, don't get in the room, crowded room with people for an extended period of time. ..

>> what was going on, how do you count for failure on the issue that has killed as of today 200,000 people in -- >> we've been talking a year ago and if i said it would happen next year, you would think i've gone off the rails. >> why? >> your question on march 19th, i interviewed him in one of our many talks over 9 hours and he -- i said why have you acted

this way about the virus. now this is march, everyone knew it was airborne, knew that we were in a crisis. we were at that point 30,000 new cases a day and i said why are you doing this? he said, well, i like to down played it. i've always like to down play it. i don't want people to panic. i now look at that statement and to be direct with you. when he said i don't want people to panic. it reflects its failure to understand the people he govern, that in this country if people are told the truth -- like franklin roosevelt after pearl harbor. i know you can be told the worst, it's all bad news and you will not lose heart, that is the

american position. if you lay it on the line, look, this is going to be difficult but trump wanted to cover it up and for all 50 years trying to understand presidents, it is -- it is the action that really is failure to lead in any form, a failure to understand his responsibility. during some some of the expertse dr. fauci was saying, it's the fend of february, okay to go to the gym and the mall and the movies, you know, maybe it will be different but i think right now it's going to be fine, people are saying, well, the public officials, health officials let trump down but,

you know this so well. there are two strains, two information routes to a president, one is national security and the other is the -- coming in towards these coronavirus task force meetings that they don't meet except trump is the only one asked all of them. he knows what's going on and the failure to warn is one to have saddest moments in history as best i can tell. >> do you think he felt that he could outrun it, though? as you watch the numbers and they've exponentially ticking upwards, did you think people wouldn't notice? >> that's not the way he thinks. he thinks in a very impulsive

way as we know, how do i deal with this at this moment. and it's a failure to accept responsibility. in july, i talked with him, one of our long talks, in fact, the longers one that's in the book so this is 2 months ago, i said on the virus, what grade would you give yourself and he said, well, i would give myself an a and if we get a vaccine an a plus. on this day there were 4 million virus cases in this country, 142,000 americans had died and he's giving himself an a and then he looks at some of his comments the last week when, you know, people ask about him

downplaying it, well, i actually up-played it. well, that's a word that i checked that's not even in the scrabble dictionary let alone the real big dictionary. and one moment he's saying my book is a political hit job. he was asked by fox anchor this week, well, what about the book, he said accurate, well, it's okay, it's fine. and, you know, up, down, political hit job, and he -- sorry to say this, i'm not sure he knows what way is up and which way is bad and this is the leader of the country. >> you've covered 9 presidents

and i guess i just have to ask the most basic of questions, is trump the worst? >> well, you see, as a reporter, you want to cover each one and you could make all kinds of comparisons and nixon, the first president i covered with carl bernstein, he clearly was a criminal president and the republican party turned on nixon and he was nearly forced to resign when barry goldwater went to the office and said i counted the republican and you have only 4 votes among republicans, none in the democratic party, and one of those four votes for you is not me, goldwater said. the next night nixon announced he was resigning. so if each one is different --

this has left a gaping wound in our country and it's not over. almost a thousand people are tieing every day right now and the failure to lead and describe the things that need to be and everyone should be aware of that. oh, well, it's optional. he goes and has rallies where thousands of people are packed together without masks, what the hell is going on? i think -- i think it's -- when i did the first book on trump, it's a nervous breakdown of the executive branch. what do you call it now? >> yeah. >> i call it something that we

almost been put to sleep, oh, a thousand deaths, 142,000 deaths now, 200,000 deaths. we need a wake-up call to the populist. this isn't a political issue. this is a practical issue and quite frankly a moral issue. >> and the reason i ask whether you rank trump differently in the bottom partly is because as far as i know and, correct me if i'm wrong, but this may be the first president where you have come out and expressed an opinion that simply says this man is not qualified to be our president and -- and -- >> what i said in totality of my

reporting, he's the wrong man for the job. >> in which case -- >> conclusion based on overwhelming evidence. how could -- because in a way, the book is about the truth. are we going to face the truth. as i was working on the epilogue i pipe that and then i consulted my assistant evelyn duff any and my wife elsa walsh who you know so well. >> my colleague. >> yeah. and somebody -- elsa worked at the post. she was staff writer at the new yorker. she edit the book 6 times and repeatedly would take me to the woods frankly, wait a minute, you haven't absolutely confirmed this, you need talk to this person and she would give me graphs and i would have 250

words on a page typed out neatly and then she would go after it and actually write more than 250 words on the page and rearranging, and so forth. and i am blessed, you know her as a friend, i know her as a wife and a friend, and the most -- yeah. exactly. >> but i mean, the question i had was this process that you went through of coming out of your -- you are most accomplished reporter in america and you come out of the tradition of trying to keep your voice neutral even as -- and let the reporting tell the story. and in this case you actually spoke up as an individual and said, issued an opinion, and i

can imagine that, it's kind of -- it's a hard step to take for people like you and like me, maybe, who are trained as traditional reporters. and i wonder what is it about trump that made you feel that this the time that you had to speak up and say something out loud in the end? >> not only was i able to do the reporting and had the luxury of 10 months but he would call me at all hours. i could call him at any time. he would call back or he would come on the phone at night or during the day. i've got 20 or 10 generals waiting downstairs. i need to go talk -- >> one of the questions that everyone wonders about is why did he talk to you and why do people -- why did he talk to you because he kept saying throughout the book, you know, i

know this is going to be bad, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. didn't talk to you for your first book. what -- do you think he could somehow win you over or change the -- sort of the mainstream media's view of him, he could sell you on himself or did he need someone to con fez to late at night as he rambled around the white house. why did he talk to you? >> what i'm doing -- reporting is a practical and i would lay out my questions and he would answer. i would not let him off the hook. if you go through the book, one of the most extraordinary scenes for me was going down the mar-a-lago to interview him on december 30th of last year. he's on trial, impeachment trial is going on in the senate, and

so i started asking him some questions about impeachment and the transcript he released telling that he wanted ukrainian president zelensky to talk to the attorney general about investigating joe biden and his son. so we are shouting at each other saying, you by releasing this transcript nixon famously said he gave his opponent a door by behaving the way he did. and so i said to president trump, you know, you gave your opponent a sword by releasing the transcript. >> oh, no, the transcript is perfect. we are going through it. you've read it and i'm just saying wait a minute, wait a minute, why did you do this? well, it's perfect.

but you're saying let's investigate the bidens and let's get -- you talked to the attorney general, mr. president of ukraine and trump said, no, no, it's about corruption. no, wait a minute. it says bidens and he would go on and on and deny it, deny it and i said, just a matter of policy, do you think that the president of the united states should go around asking for the leaders to investigate his political opponent? and he wouldn't hear it, it's perfect. if i hadn't released the transcript, i would have really been in trouble on this. he thought it was a shield when it's actually a sword for everyone else.

finally, do you understand how it is to apologize, he thought of apologizing. >> i never thought you'd get him to apologize. >> well, he apologized for the access hollywood tape. >> right. >> i said go talk to ivanka, walk around this wonderful place and see -- see what she says. he said it wouldn't make anything on what she said and i'm sure that's true. that's an interrogation of an impeached president on trial in the senate that the senate and the house could not do and you could just -- you could hear it, i'm going to go to one of the networks and play the tape of that and we will go through one

of the most -- i mean, the strangest, weirdest, where you're needing a wall and the wall is not logical. the president of the united states is not logical. >> i mean, he's denying reality to you and thinking that he's going to convince you of something that's not true basically. >> one of the things that i thought was interesting. i think it was jared kushner in your book. he talked about there were 4 texts you needed to read in order to understand trump, right? and one of them is a book that is -- maybe you can tell people about this, it's about -- it's basically about using disinformation and lying purposely. it's not that he's lying or something something that's false without knowing it. it's a strategy and that's what

this book is about. it's about wrong information, ewe use it -- >> scott adams book, where persuasion is a world where facts don't matter and recommending this is a task to understand his father-in-law the president of the united states. but kushner extracts a little model from this and that is controversy elevates message, means, if there's a controversy and basically you're telling the truth or enough of the truth in discussion about it will elevate your message. that's the example of trump going down saying, the best economy in the world in all of history going back to the roman empire. i mean, it's just -- that's the way it is, and kushner says, okay, everyone knows literally

that's not true, that in the 50's the economy was better or sometimes -- and then all the fact-checkers will couple along and sound like they are nit-picking and talking about something. an average curb mother says, looks around, well, the economy is quite good. this is before the virus and everyone attacking the president is unfair and the controversy elevates message. we are now walking into the issue of the new supreme court justice that the president is going to vote. boy, is there going to be controversy about it. it elevates message for trump. and what's the message, well, i'm trying to get -- put a supreme court justice in who has

impeccable credentials, somebody who if it turns out to be the cuban-american judge from florida or whoever she is, he's going to be able to say, see, evangelicals, see people, i'm fighting for you, i'm doing this for you, i'm doing what i believe and the controversy elevates message. >> it outplays the press that we are always drawn to the controversy and he creates the controversy by lying on a subject he wants to talk about and then we are all drawn and we have to talk about the subject he talks. and it's not an accident basically.

>> it's not purposeful lying, it's purposeful exaggeration. you take -- >> right. >> you have something that's good and you take an extra squeeze and overstate it. and in many ways it works. >> and so the things that you've made decisions on the book, what would you ask bob woodward. why did you decide to tell the public about how much trump knew about the pandemic and how serious the threat was about the coronavirus? and i know this is a perennial

question. >> in march when the pandemic exploded, that knowledge -- everyone had it. what sort of story would i write and i was looking at the question -- >> i lost your sound. one sec. >> okay. >> my internet connection is unstable. >> in february everything was about china. and we all live our lives and we

don't report in chronological order and it was not until may i learned how trump got that knowledge which was critical and that's january 28th meeting which is the key events in all of this and -- and by may, the virus was totally out of control. i didn't see it, you can bring elsa and my two assistants and they could take a note. we never sat around and said, oh, is there something that we should tell the public. i've often while i'm doing books break away and do stories for the post regularly if there's any reason i have access to the editor marty barren, because we thought we are talking about

china and that was the issue, the virus was out of control and being transmitted through the air in china and, so, you know, that's -- i think it's a fair question. i think i have public safety, public health responsibilities as journalists. if you learn something is going the happen, you have an obligation to report it and in this case also i wasn't sure whether it was true because trump occasionally, very occasion i will says things that don't check out. >> i was curious as a reporter about whether you will at some point release all of the tapes of his interviews, the interviews that you did with him. is something like 9 hours, is that right? >> yes.

i'm releasing them selectively. like the issue with the court and the judges and so forth, i'm going to release them a few minutes from now on cnn and the washington post and people can hear what trump has to say about mcconnell and how they are looking at the world and it's quite a series of transcripts and adios and -- audios, he realizes it's part of the legacy and he would like to make it more of his legacy and he understands numbers. and when i interviewed him in the oval office he had the stack of appointments for the new judges there and he was kind of

holding as something sacred and he had a picture of kim jong un, a big picture that he gave me and a binder with the letters between kim jong un and himself at that point. >> do you think he has the judicial philosophy or, in fact, policy interests that are consistent? i wondered in reading the book it seems he talks a lot about how important it is to be flexible which in another way probably means changing his mind backwards and forwards on things. do you think -- seems like one of the other things that he seemed quite fixated on was making sure that he had negated all of obama's policies, is that his major -- consistent policy direction or does he have policy interest and judicial philosophy? >> well, i think it's transactional and it's the impulse. hey, wait a minute.

you go to the grocery store. i will take the green one, i will take this. this is what drove senior people who served him early like james mattis, defense secretary tillerson and secretary of state dan coats is the number one intelligence person. there was no planning, there was no organization, there was no -- let's all get together and decide what we are going to do, trump decided it on his own and finally the alienation of these people -- they were all heading for retirement, dan coats director of national intelligence had been a republican senator from indiana for 16 years. very close friend with mike pence who became the vice

president and when pence was vice president elect he called coats up he said, you want a job, coats said no, i don't want a job. he and his wife were retiring, well, come meet with the president elect, he met with trump and they offered him number 1 intelligence job and they thought -- he and his wife marsha thought, well, you have to do this and maybe it's part of the very evangelicals and maybe this is part of god's plan for us. >> well, do you think we should try taking some questions from the audience? >> yes, certainly. >> and see what's going on out there? >> bob, thank you so much. let me see if i can figure this out. what are people asking? can you see the questions as well or --

>> no, i can't. >> okay. why do you think trump was willing to put himself on tape with such incriminating information contradictory to what he was saying in public? >> i think it kind of just became part of his day or his week. we would talk, i wasn't writing stories and as you know, when you have time to think and plan, i could say what's going on in the world that i want to ask him about, for instance, may 25th george floyd was killed and set off an awareness of race relations and -- and so i was able to ask trump and i said, you're a man of white privilege, i'm a man of white privilege

also, my father was a judge and lawyer in illinois, do you understand the pain and anger that black people feel and this is on tape and wow, bob, you sure drank the kool-aid. i don't feel bad at all. and just mocked me, and so you could see in this case and dozens of other cases i believe what he really felt. >> here is another question, trump is often highly critical of the news media outlets that are not explicitly aligned, how did you get trump to speak so candidly to you about what you he knew about the coronavirus in early days and it's related to this again. ii have to add one more bit to the question as fellow reporter. i heard way back that you had a special time when you thought it

was best to approach people to interview them. it was an hour -- maybe write before dinner when they might have poured themselves a drink and be loosening up a little bit. now, i know the president doesn't drink and seems like he was calling you at later hours, but what is the woodward technique that gets people to just plain own themselves as he did with you? >> you know what you have to do, one of the things you know so well, everywhere but particularly in washington, everyone takes themselves very seriously, right? is that true? and when you're talking and interviewing somebody, you have to take them as seriously as they take themselves and so you want to ask open-ended questions, you want to follow up, you never do like some reporters that you will have an

interview setup, 11 o'clock, one at 12:00, 4 hours on the end of an interview so it can go as long and rarely do they go 4 hours, but sometimes they do, but it creates not a sense of, oh, i've got to go some place. i've got to do something and i think that you communicate that to the person that you're communicating and they are quite often engaged and you need to think, you need to follow up, release some of the tapes about the supreme court. i mean, it's -- it's pretty amazing stuff, and it's not stuff that trump would go say out by the helicopter or in the oval office and i think he grew

comfortable with it and he said a number of times that you're asking good questions, these are good questions. i like to hear what you're working about and it's news of the day. >> do you think people describe him as narcissist, he loves to talk about and thinks about himself, did you find that to be true of him? >> see, i'm not a psychiatrist. the psychiatric slate is blank as far as i'm concerned, and so i don't think that way. i'm not working that way. what i'm working toward is getting a straight and detailed

answer as possible. >> a very specific thing that you -- a piece of news that you have in the book. the president talk about a powerful new weapon. in the book you say you couldn't confirm it. since then, have you gained any insight to what it is? >> yes, he said out of the blue, he has nuclear weapons that even putin and president xi doesn't know about, it's the most destructive thing in the world so forth. i asked people about it. some people said, yes, they know of such on the board but not part of the arsenal yet and people people thought, no, there's something -- and so it's one of the mysteries, one of the trump mysteries that quite frankly i could not answer in the book.

people i asked and said they exist and they can't talk about it, mysteriously and some experts say there's no such a weapon. >> i'm curious just anything -- if you found him to be surprising in any way or different from what you were expecting? >> you know, i don't bring -- >> he would let me go at him and say, no, wait a minute, what's going on here. april 5th i spent a long time on how do you deal and

international coordination and i went through them one by one with him. and we went through all 12 of them and they said did you write those and go over them again and write them down, and my wife elsa was on the speaker phone and she said it sounds like you're telling the president what to do, and i'm not trying to tell him what to do, i'm trying to tell him what my reporting shows and the bottom line is we need full mobilization. people want to know it's a manhattan project like roosevelt

had that led to the atomic bomb and when roosevelt, a famous moment in history, 1939 albert einstein wrote roosevelt a private letter saying, all this business of uranium and so forth and einstein was just getting going and somebody could make a bomb, devastating bomb and what did roosevelt do, oh, no, do i want to panic people, action now, set up the manhattan project and 6 years later that was realized in the first atopic bomb was exploded over hiroshima and lots of debates determined the right thing, to deter the

war and so forth, but what roosevelt did in that case is prepare the nation and said action now. trump -- let's not panic, and -- >> it seems that you were having conversations with him where you were pushing back in ways that maybe his own advisers didn't. do you feel he's kind of isolated? >> i think he's isolated by his own lack of curiosity and lack of organization, lack of intellectual stamina. i've got to make this decision, ask 6 people what they think or 3 or 1 and so often he won't ask anyone. he will just do it. he will tweet it out and it's -- we need to be reminded and --

and this isn't partisan, this is out of the facts that are on the table. the virus is a moving train now. a thousand people are diego a day as i would say. the experts say it's going to get worst that we could have a convergence with the regular flu and god knows what we are going to be presented with in the coming months and we have a leader who -- there's robert redfield, head of cdc. i know redfield, he's a devout catholic, he's devoted his life to protecting the united states from pandemics and health crises and he's up there under oath

this week telling congress wear a mask, in fact, it may be more important than the vaccine and then trump hears about this and had a press conference and says, well, i called redfield and redfield was confused and didn't know what he was saying. i mean, god help us, god help us if you have the president of the united states calling the doctor and saying, oh i didn't like your diagnosis, it doesn't fit my political or whatever is going through my head moment and to -- i mean, i just -- if you know, you followed up, people piled on saying, redfield is not a guy who is going to say something that is not medically supported and sound.

and trump still won't put out a mask order and would not let the world expert on this issue. robert redfield tells congress what he thinks under oath without trying to restate it and call him up and to say he was confuseed. i don't want to use the words, but the word is that is outrageous behavior, you know, we always -- i have talks with trump about this. you're in charge of the national interest. you -- this is the leadership moment for you and he would say, well, no, i'd say, look, the virus is what the election is going to be about. of course, not now. this was a couple of months ago. they shifted that.

anyway -- >> sorry to interrupt but we could go on. it's 8:00 o'clock and we have to get you to the release of the tapes. >> thank you. >> getting a little worked up about this as you may know this. >> to everyone watching, thanks again for tuning in. from all of us here at politics and prose, stay well and well read. >> thank you. >> during virtual event hosted by ronald reagan foundation institute republican governor larry hogan of maryland reflected on his life and political career n. this portion he talks about cancer diagnosis at the beginning as first term as governor. >> we won this big huge overwhelming victory, the biggest one in the country and i had my first legislative session

after putting together an entire government, you know, democratic monopoly state and we cut taxes for the first time, we balanced the budget. we got rid of $5.1 billion deficit all in first 90 days and then battled the riots and days later i got hit with the news, i was on my trip in asia and i wasn't feeling really that well. aches and pains and i was a little tired but i didn't think it was anything serious and i ended up going to the doctor and i had advanced and aggressive cancer all over my body from neck and growing and it ended up being 18-months a day with chemotherapy with a lot of things going on. i talk about this experience in

my book. i think -- i got to meet so many people and, you know, my first worry was how do i tell my family. it was father's day weekend when i got the diagnosis on a friday. my first thought is i have to tell my wife and my daughters and and my dad who was 80 at the time. you know, he was coming over for father's day dinner at the governor's mansion and he took it harder than anybody. it doesn't matter how old you get, i was his little boy that he had to protect. you know, then came out and had to announce it to the whole state of maryland and i tried to be very transparent and share it with them. they had just 6 million people that put their trust in me and i had to explain to them i was going to continue to try to keep working and i worked from the hospital bed continuing to try to run the state and capable --

came out of it, thank god, stronger than ever. >> to watch more watch booktv.org, type hogan. >> joining us now on book tv is representative tom cole, republican from oklahoma. congressman cole, you've always had long reading list, what's on your current reading list. >> well, i have just finished the splendid and the vile, wonderful account of churchill and his family in the worst years of the war, right after he becomes prime minister, may tenth, 1940. really, the day of the german invasion and countries in france and then basically whatt