parcels of property worth ten to 30,000,000 i could've fit -- >> we will break away here and take you live to the senate, part of our commitment for more than 40 years to bring you live coverage of congress. we will return to booktv following what's expected to be a short pro forma session here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. senate will come to order. >> the u.s. senate holding these brief session between now and the november midterm elections. no votes are plant into monday november 14. and as always you can find the senate live here on c-span2. and now we take you back to our

booktv programming. >> of war with iraq would cost $200 billion or more. i asked about that and condoleezza rice said no, it won't cost knew that much, 50, 63rd and will probably get some of that back from our allies, and she's a smart woman but that had to be but one of the worst estimates in the history of the world. and then asked him i said that you can get past the traditional conservative positions of being against huge deficit spending and massive foreign aid and the u.s. being the policeman of the world and the conservatives being the biggest critics of the human and you're going to war to enforce u.n. resolutions, i said if you can get past all those traditional conservative positions, i said, do you have any evidence of any imminent threat? and it didn't. and george tenet confirmed that in his first speech at georgetown university the day after he resigned.

and so george w. bush, who i liked personally, but he ran for president saying we needed more humble foreign policy, and so, and then the other thing, and i just wrote a column about recently, resident pre, everybody knows his famous speech, his farewell address what he said that where he warned against military industrial complex, but if you want to read a really antiwar speech, read his speech in aprir speech as president. he spoke to the american association of newspaper editors and has called his cross of iron speech. and he says that spending money on new warships and bombs and fighter planes and other aircraft takes money away from people who are hungry and could be said, and people who are

naked and could be closed. and it, and i think it really should tell you something that probably the most antiwar president we've ever had spent his career in the military. and i'm not a pacifist. if you're forced, they're theren circumstances where i would vote for things, but what we've done in the middle east has just been wrong and wasteful, and thousands of people, both americans and many thousands of people in the middle east have been killed, and it's just been wrong. and so, and you talk about presidents, democrats and republicans. and i'll make some of you mad here. i thought president trump, he said and did a lot of things that it wished he hadn't said

and done, but overall, i thought his policies were good. but he ran for president saying that president obama had depleted the military. that was false, and that, they said that so much that that got out, and i knew that military spending had been tripled over those same years. so you see things like that. and a third thing that emphasize was constituent service, because i thought as interested as i was in national and international issues, i knew that i couldn't control u.s. foreign policy, that i could help people. and so a lot of my time in congress i felt like it was like when i practice law. people would come to me with their problems and i would try to help. and i really enjoyed that part of it.

>> anyway, thank you, congressman. >> thank you. >> we have some time left on what to make sure we open up for questions. if you have a question if you could get to the microphone so the folks at home could hear. i think we have one coming now. >> congressman, i wanted to warn you, don't ride in roy's pickup truck. last time i did i had a heart attack two days later. i'm a professor, give similar students convincing the company today. they're going to get mucho extra credit. i may have met you before. i was an intern for congressman joe evans. you may remember him. >> yeah, sure. >> he took me to lunch at my house dining room one time and he said that, all, there is congressman duncan with his thumb over there, so you may been with him, i don't know. he said your conservative republican. peer into dosage to secue

headquarters of the most prominent example of socialism in the united states, that tva. i hear tennessee congressman talking about socialism, how terrible socialism meant by the don't want to bother with tv, sell or anything else. republicans may the peace with tva a time ago. >> yes, i can tell you a story about that. >> i want to hear. the point is, you and your father and others came along as howard baker republicans in the people who work with democrats, when democrats dominated the state. there were people whether you voted for them or not to get suspected. had a great respect for howard baker particularly after the panama canal treaty. but now we've got republicans, literature if the political party any more. speak more like a weird cold given by all kinds of conspiracy theories and so forth. i think it's damaging the country. we're turning towards autocracy.

i think this election is a choice between democracy and autocracy. they refuse to do anything about an important issues. i think howard baker would have been concerned about global warming, and so would eisenhower and maybe nixon as well. the one major political party in his country that has, or in the world, that refuses to accept the reality of global warming is the republican party and their the ones holding up progress. meanwhile, talking all these migrants that are coming in, they're coming in because of global warming. they can't plant crops in motor am one of which are thoughts are the future of your party and what they should be doing? i like, baker used to, and joe evans, u2, although they were different parties, they would issue press conferences or press releases together about the projects in the state.

>> well, i can almost write another book about all the things that you said, but, but i will tell you when interesting story. you talk about abolishing tva. my dad ran for congress the first time in 1964, and howard baker was running and ultimate y losing race for the senate that year. he won two years later, but barry goldwater was flying in the knoxville to speak at a campaign rally. and they got an advance copy of his speech, and in his speech he was coming to knoxville and was advocating the sale of tva. well, my dad called howard baker

and they decided that they were not going to go to the airport for the rally. if he, if senator goldwater said that. and so guy smith was the republican editor of the knoxville journal, the morning newspaper, and use one who got them that advanced copy. so then howard baker called everett dirksen, and everett dirksen called the goldwater plane and got that part of the speech removed from the rally. >> congressman, can you read about that in this excellent book "from batboy to congressman"? >> yes. >> i will say this. there are bad people in both parties. i mean, for instance, it really

bothers me that conservatives, conservative students are attack on college campuses and that they have to get an extra security when a conservative goes to speak to a young republican or a young americans for freedom group. george will has written, says that the place with the least freedom of speech in this country today is on college and university campuses. that, if that's true, and i'm sure you would disagree with that, but if that's true that would be -- [inaudible] >> you say there there's o that? that's interesting. [inaudible] >> all i can tell you is this. if you go to, if you would go to any republican club or republican meeting in this country, you would find mostly very, very fine people, very

good people who love this country and who are sincerely trying to make things better. that's the main thing i can tell you. and i spoke about 2000 times to school groups about half in washington and about half in going around to the schools in east tennessee. and i thought, well, i shouldn't do that in a partisan way. so i told, i would sometimes a lot of consummate aspic of this or what's the between the republicans and the democrats? and i would say, and i really honestly believe this, both parties want the same good things. i want clean air. i grew up in a family where nobody spoke. i want clean air is much as anybody, clean water. i want people to have a good education. about the the economy to be strong. i want disabled people to be helped. i mean, everything. i want the same good things that

senator herron does, and there are ways we can work together. and i'm very conservative but i'm not an anarchist i do want to do away with the entire government. i just want to make it as good as it can be. and that includes tva and other things. although i'll tell you another story fits in my book. >> can i insert one writer? you talk about the difference between democrats and republicans. i am reminded of what al gore used to quote, probably butchering the pronunciation of them from california, senator, and allegedly the difference between democrats and republicans is they see a man drowning 50 yards offshore, and so the republicans throw him a 25-yard wrote and safe swim for it, it will do you good. and the democrats throw a 100-yard wrote and then rather than pulling him in go off to do

other good deeds. either way, they guy drowns. that would be the difference between democrats and republicans. there are important differences i do think, but there's also the common ground and we seem to have lost the capacity with so many now to look for that common ground. what we need is not just people who can blow -- harry truman said any jack you know what can kick down a bar. it takes a real carpenter to be able to build one. right now we've got a lot of you know what's kicking down barns and very few building them. >> you've got too many people on both sides who hate the people on the other side. i just don't understand why there's that much hatred. [inaudible] >> it's like president clinton, one time i had a beating with bill warlick and jeff's

tewksbury who were two fyre festival knoxville at and a , i said in an hour i'm going to lunch with president clinton in the rayburn room. i said come on a new bill warlick, he was a knox county democratic chairman but he was a good friend of mine. i said i might be able to addition to the president if you'll meet here at the subway and i'll take you up there, we will stand right outside the room. and i go up there and we're standing here and all, we hear all this, all the reporters and photographers, and then we hear bagpipes and you comes the prime minister of ireland and president clinton here and so i step up there and introduce them to president clinton, and resident clinton was the best schmoozer i think i've ever been around, i really likable person, but he put his arm around me and he said, he said can you all take care of this guy down there now. and bill warner, he said, we do, mr. president, we think

congressman duncan is agreed. i always wish i had a recording of that because i don't believe he knew what he was saying. i think he he was so excited. [laughing] >> we have a question here. >> congressman duncan, you imagine that you believe that in all the republican groups around the country that a vast majority of them would be really good people who just want good things for the country. but right now we have an enormous number of people in the republican party who either are election deniers, the 22 election, or are silent about the other election deniers. and there's a saying that, for, you know, for evil to triumph in the world, it just takes good people to do nothing. and where are the people and the republican party to want the good things for the country who are not shutting down the election deniers but, in fact, hundreds of them are running for office? >> well, you know, it's, it's

water over the dan and a don't believe that republican candidates around the country are speaking about that nearly as much as some in the media tried to say that they are. they are talking about the inflation, they're talking that gas prices, the talking about everything else but that. but a lot of the democrats, and it's understandable because they are as political as republicans are, they want, they want to emphasize the democrats want to emphasize abortion and want to emphasize january 6th and of course i was interested, i saw bernie sanders wrote a column a few days ago in which he said the democrats are making a bad mistake trying to run just and tired on the abortion issue, because in most polls the abortion issue iik