works and journeys across the country inti intricatety tied to these celebrated authors. common sense by thomas paine, huckleberry finn by mark twain, their eyes were watching god by zora neale hurston and free to choose. watch our 10-part series, books that shaped america, starting monday, september 18th at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now -- our free mobile video app -- or on rhine at c-span.org. ♪ ♪ enter weekends on c-span2 the are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories. and and on sundays booktv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including cast. >> are you thinking this is just

a community center? no, it's way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create wi-fi-enabled lift zones so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be rdy for anything. >> comcast, along with these television compaes, supports c-span2 as a public service. >> now how about tonight's program. are you ready? okay. great. so to many people, chris christie is known as governor, abc news analyst, national position person and also new yorkrk times best selling autho. he also has a career that extends beyond our border having hadal a successful career on wal street as well as holding the title of first lady and acquitting herself very well in doing a number of programs across thehe a state, always vey well received. but in these parts, the christie it is are friends, family,

neighbors and felloww coaches, o we're pleased to have them in our community. as a matter of fact, it was just three years ago, almost three yearshr ago when chris christies first book came out, let me finish, that he was gracious and did a fundraiser on our behalf. we held that across town at the high school, and that was a soldout event on a very bris withing february evening. i'm pleased to say that with the second book chris was agreeing to do a fundraiser, and here we are again. both that evening three years ago and tonight are sellouts, so you could say the coveted ticket, a chris christie book signing is as coveted as hamilton on broadway. [laughter] mary pat will moderate, chris try to answer the questions, maybe try to get around the questions request, w we don't kw yet e, and then we're going to have some q&a. there's a mic right here in the center if you want to jump up and ask your question. and then that's, you know,

please don't be bashful. askho questions. without furtherre ado, i present mary pat and chris christie. [applause] >> thank you. i want to make sure i don't have anydb feedback on this. but this is really, really great. this is a nice, a nice, cozy group. and i just wanted to say thank you to peter and the board. the library's been an important part of our life and our fam ally's life for the -- family's life for the last 30 years, which is amazing we've been here for 30 years. so we really, we really appreciate all that that the libraries do. and i actually just paid a fine, a $40 fine to the library -- [laughter] two weeks ago. i had to pick up a book, and i guess i hadn't been in a couple years.ou soso i paid my $40 fine.

[laughter] you don't even want to know. [laughter] it was a book club book. anyway, well, thank you to everybody for coming out here. it's really, it's been an interesting journey these last, again, six or seven months that's taken you to write this book. and what i wanted to start out with, to ask chris why he wrote it and also ask him to tell us a little bit about the process of writing it. >> sure. well, thanks, everybody, for being here tonight. it's great to be home. i've been on the road for most of the last two and a half weeks except for a couple days around thanksgiving. a book tour i've been in new york, chicago, los angeles and washington. andwa so it's been, it's been a busy few weeks. and it's good to have my haas official book event -- my last official book event at home, so thank you all for coming out tonight. i decided to write the book,

mary pat and i went away for a few days after joe biden's inaugural. i did the abc commentary on president biden's inaugural, and then we decided to take a few days down in florida to relax after what had been a really much more grueling than normal tv schedule because of all the craziness surrounding the election, how long it took for the results to come and all the rest. sohe we went down the florida fr a few days. and i was sitting at the pool and thinking to myself that, you know, this is probably one of the worst two years the republican party had had in a long time. we lost the majority in the house of representatives in 2018, and then we lose the senate and the whiteen house. in to -- in 2020. and i thought, it struck me as somebody b who's obviously been involved in this stuff for a long timee that it may have been one of the worst times we ever had. so sitting by the pool, i then got on my laptop and kind of lookedd it up. it's only happened twice to the

republican party since our founding in 1860. the last time after this this one was 1930-1932 when herbert hoover was president of the united states. ful he lost the house, the senate and the white house within with to two years. and what happened afterap that s the democrats had the white house for 28 of the next 36 years. and so it struck me that maybe somebody who had been a, you know, very big, loyal supporter of president trump's needed to write a book about how we tart to win again. we start to win again. as someone who had been opposed to president trump all the way through, for example, republicans who were, i don't think they would have had credibility in writingis this book. people would have dismissed it. but i had real concerns about where our party was headed in the immediate aftermath of the election, and i had ideas about what we needed to do to get back

on track. so i, in the process of writing the book welcome back is you pitch the book to the publishere book. we had a couple publishers who were interested, but all of them said if you're going to write that kind of book, the first part has to be about your interaction with the president in the last year and a half of the administration. after let me finish, the first book, ended through to his leaving office in jab. in january. so when you get a chance to read the book if you haven't already, it is the first third of the book is kind of a recounting of stories and incidents that happened with me and the president. and that's where i started the writing of the book. now, i have a collaborator on the book who was my collaborator on the firstir book as well. ellis and i have a process we use in writing the book. the the way we do it is we get together, we agree on which topics we're going to be cussin, hef takes out a tape recorder, e

starts asking me questions and i start talking. then there is a poor woman out inin kansas who has to transcrie all of that. she then sends the transcriptions back to me and to ellis, and then we craft chapters out of the transcription. thenhe when we get done with th, there's another poor woman who then has to do the research to make sure that everything that we say, that we're completely sure of, is actually true. and i'll give you one example from "let me finish" where i was absolutely -- i would have absolutely sworn that this was a recollection. i had a good friend of mine in high school who was murdered. and i'm telling that story to time, and he said when did this happen, and i said it was the day before school started my senior year in high school. so we write the book and write

that chapter, and then it comes back and he says are you sure it was the day before school start your senior year? if absolutely sure. i remember it like it was yesterday. really sure? the yeah. well, this woman found the front page of our local weekly paper in living son, and it was actually the day before the starting of school my junior year. not my senior year. i guarantee you, if you all put a gun to my head and said if you'rero wrong, we're going to blow your brainses out, i would have said go ahead, because i know it. [laughter] i absolutely know it. so roberta plays a really integral role in the process by researching everything that that we talked about and makes sure that that we have it right. first and foremost for the integrity of the book, and then second the lawyers at simon & schuster want to make sure we don't say something that's completely wrong that all of us will get sued. so then after my chapter comes in, we're working on it together, i'm doing a lot of

editing and o changing, maybe putting the language in my voice, and we probably go back and forthth on each chapter twoo three times. he makes suggestions, i make suggestions, and we're volleying it back and forth by e-mail. and then we get the manuscript done and we send it to our ted -- our ed editor at simon and schuster. she then will send it back to us with notes in the margins, things she wants explained more, things that she wants us to add. and in this instance we're on a very tight deadline because with to getde the start of -- when we start this in march, to have it out by november is apparently, like, land speed records for publishing. now, i don't get that, but i don't want to argue with the publisher because they're paying me. going to argue with them. so we were working really quickly. when we got to her stuff, she then decided she wanted an

additionalment chapter -- additional chapter on something. and she sent this to us by e-mail, and ellis called me and said did you read natasha's latest e-mail, and he said, no, not yet. he goes, don't. [laughter] don't. i'' going to break it to you gently,ing she wants another chapter. and so literally what we did was we were on the phone with each other, and i said on what, and it was a chapter on -- no, it was on covid policy. and we talked about covid a lot in the book in the first part, my e experience with covid -- im sure we'll get to that -- but this is on what should our policy be going forward on how to deal -- she said i really think you need to do a chapter on that. so, okay. and, by the way, and i need it in two days. so ellis, i said to ellis, all right, turn on your tape recorder, we don't have time to get together, let's turn it on and let's go. and we just rt started to go,

and within the the two days we hadou that last chapter done. and the last thing you do is you write the dead indication and the if acknowledgment. -- can dedication and the acknowledgment. dedication at the front of the book is to our four children, and the acknowledgments in the back are a whole lot of people who contributed to helping me with the book or just contributed to helping me in this part of my life and career. so that's the way you write a book. and believe me, when you're finally done with the acknowledgments and you hit send and they acknowledge they're received it, you don't want to see it again. [laughter] you don't want to see the book until it looks like that. and when it does, all you really do is look at the cover and the title page which you sign. i have not looked at the text since late august when i sent it back out. >> yeah. and you also, crystals did an audio -- chris also did an audio book, so that was a painful, like, 25-hour experience, i believe. and the other thing, some of us

who read it and edited it, i'm just going to tell a little inside story. the cover, the elephant with the life preserver, it originally had a red cross on it, but the red cross opposed it -- >> yeah. it was holding a red cross flag, and the red cross wouldn't give us permission to use it on the cover, so we had to go to thed red and white life preserver. >> which i think is great can. but on the final copy, the little elephant on the side had the red flag, and i flagged it. >> she did, mary pat caught it. she said, wait a second, the el e pant on the side has the flag. >> we don'tel want to piss off e red cross. >> that will tell you how little i want to look at this anymore. it was g a good catch, because e probably would have gotten sued by the red cross. good miss on that. so that's the process of the way at least i've written this book, and pretty much the same process the last time for "let me

finish" is as well. >> that that's great. well, chris is a student of history, he loves history. and a part of this book, there's a lot of history in it, actually. talk to the audience about the fact that we go over conspiracy theories and why it's so important to review history and in particular thela john birch society, and i think they might find that interesting, that background. >> sure. you know, when i started talking about the idea of -- and making the argument for why engaging andened spending any more time on these different conspiracy theories that have been out there, qanon, pizzagate, birtherrism and the election stuff, i thought i had to place it in a historical context. this is not the first time we've gone are through this as a country or as a party. so i write extensively a pretty large chapter on the john birch society which in the late '50s and early '60s became a force

insidede the republican party, very much one that had an anti-semitic strain to it. it ran in through i a number of conspiracy theories in that regard. and and it became a real force inside the republican party. and is william f. buckley, who was the founder of national review magazine and a thought leader in the conservative movement, was horribly disturbed by these developments and by the development of seeing how prominent the john bear. society was becoming -- john birch society was becoming in republican party politics. so he a approached barry goldwater and knowing that goldwater was considering running for president in 1964 said to goldwater, look, we should do this together and push back on these people. if if we do so together, think we could have a real impact on the party. so let's -- i'll write the first

editorial in the national review, andna then you write a letter to the ed editor to the national review supporting the editorial.wa goldwater agrees. and buckley writes a 4,000-word itorial --at editorial in the national review about why the john birch society is so bad for america and so bad for the republican party, talked in depth about the anti-semitism and why that's so bad. goldwater wusses out, no other way to put it. he starts to get pressure back from john birchers inside the republican party. east worried that if he does this -- he's worried that if he does this, he won't win the nomination in 1964. and so he writes pack a very, very -- back a very, very short, weak letter to buckley which is nothing like whatin they had agreed upon. so buckley decides that he's not going to publish it at first, and he goes to somebody else to see who has credibility in the

conservative movement to see if he'll back buckley up on this. he went to ronald reagan. at thatt time, he was not even n elected official. he had given a speech in 1964 on behalf of goldwater early on called, it was a speech that was entitlednd a rendezvous with deaths theny. and reagan had become -- destiny, can and reagan had become a very popular figure inside the key movement because of this speech. he would be elected two years later, 1966, as governor of california. but reagan stood up and wrote a long, impassioned letter as a former democrat as to why he thought the birchers were not somebody that we should be embracing or empowering inside the republican party. and it absolutely did the trick. goldwater ran, and you may remember goldwater's speech at the convention was one of the

most famous lines was extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. that that's directly john birch language. and he lost monouniterally -- monumentally. in fact, a little morris county historical note, barry goldwater was the last republican the lose morris county for president until donald trumpmp this 2020. from '64 to -- 2020, morris countyve voted for every republican presidential candidate. theyte rejected goldwater and ty rejected trump in 2020. and i i think there's an interesting -- i didn't put it in the book because no one would really care about that historical comparison, but this audience will. and i think it says something about historical comparisons that we're making. so i think it's an interesting chapter that place the chapters that follow into context which i' where you're talking about

birtherrism or qanon or pizzagate or the election conspiracy, that we're not in a unique time i hate when i hear commentators say we are inre the most dangerous time in the history of this country. we're more divided than we've ever been in our history. now, i had someone say that on abc one day, and then george came to me and i said, i don't know, seems to me the civil war was probably a time when we were more divided -- [laughter] you know, than we are, than we are now. a random thought, but, you know, maybe we could inject a little common sense into a the hyperbo. and the reason for the historical context is to tell you we've been here before, and remember what happened after that. after that we won the presidency five of the next six times between 1968 and 1992. so the republican party recovered, they became once again a national force at the

presidential level because we got back to basics. and that's part of what the book's all about. >> that's great. along those same lines as history repeats itself, i love when you were doing debate prep with the president, and you went into debate prep with reams of example whats of articles from previous presidents, incumbent presidents. tell the audience who you told president trump and why your advice was prescient. [laughter] >> president -- i did debate prep -- [inaudible] i watched all the close -- i want you all to close your eyes andla pick -- picture this for a moment. i played hillary clinton. [laughter] in debate prep in 2016. and i didn't do the first debate in 2016. he had, like, the cast of ben h, r, you know, prepping him for that first debate, and his performance kind of reflected that. if after the first debate he

called me and said, look, will you do debate prep for the second debate. and i said only if i'm in charge of it and only if i get to decide who's in the room. because if we're going to have every tom, dick and harry in the room, i don't care to play. and he saiding you're in charge. so we did debate prep for him in 2016 for the second and third debate, and just one quick aside is, i didn't go to the second debate. we went to the first one, but we didn't go to t the second one. we watched the second debate at home, and seven or eight minutes after -- [audio difficulty] it was donald trump. and he said to me, oh, my god. chris, you're so great. that was so easy. he goes, it was so easy compared to debating you. it was great. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> he said, he said you're a better hillary than she is. [laughter] he said, so you're going to do

debate three, right? yeah, mr. president -- donald. yes. so 2020 comes and and his staff, his chief of staff at the time was mark meadows and jared kushner, his son-in-law, who if you've head the -- read the first book is a dear friend of mine -- [laughter] came to me and said we want you back in charge of debate prep again, so does the president. this was now in july. and they go we want to start this weekend. the first debate was in late september. and i said to them he's not goingt to like this. it's too early. they go, no, no, no, he needs a lot of work. i go i know he needs a lot of work, but he's not going to hike this. and they t insisted that they hd spoken to him and that he was fine with it. and 3:00 on saturday at bedminster. okay. so president of the united states wants you to come, you go. so i show up, we're sitting in the conference room on the first floor of the clubhouse in

bedminster, and in walks the president from his round of golf. he sits down and i'm sitting in the chair across from him. he sits down, he looks at me and goes, what the helling are you doing here? and i said, debate prep. he goes, are you kidding me? he said, debate prep in july? for the end of september? how stupid do you think i am? [laughter] i'm looking now at jared and at meadows who were both in the room like, thanks. i just knew that this was a setup. i knew they hadn't spoken to him because they didn't have the guts to talk to him, and they just figured, you know, i'd charm him. so i had prepared for this, and i went back. and since the modern era of presidential debates restarted in 1976, you had the debate between kennedy and nixon in 1960, and then there were no debates in '64, '68 or '72.

then in '76 gerald ford was way behind jimmy carter in the race coming out of the conventions, so he agreed to debates. so that started the modern era now ever since there have been presidential debates every four years. but what i brought him were articles that i'd printed out from '76, from '80, '84, '99 2 -- 92, '96, 2004 and 20 the. -- 2012. those were the elections where there was an incumbent president seeking re-election. or election in gerald ford's case. and in every one of them, the president, the incumbent president, lost the first evdebate. every time. and i went back and spoke to some of thes folks who prepped

those presidents for the debates. called them, they all knew i was doing trump, soth i called them. and they t all told me the same suspected which was presidents don't want to prep because they're president. they're, like, you know, i'm the president. what the hell do i need to prepare for a debate for? i am the president. this guy or woman over here, they don't know the presidency, i know the presidency. i'm the president. so when i sat down with him, i said we need to start now, mr. president. and he said, i mean, no joke, he goes i don't have to prepare for it, i'm president. [laughter] i'm, like, this is so great. i go into my briefcase, take out the stack of articles, toss them across the table to him, and i said i want -- i said, debate prep is over. we're not doing anything else today.t all i want you to do is go back tonight and read those articles. and then i'll see you next time you want to see me. and i got up.

and jared and meadows, well, maybe we should just talk in general about kind of biden's style. and ian said you guys can talk about bind's style. i said, read the articles, mr. president. he said, what are they about? and i said, how every incumbent president lost who said they didn't need need the prepare because they were president. ..

he said those other guys are so ãã[laughter] i can't believe how bad all of them were unlucky to be like that i'm gonna be really good. okay mr. president. >> he must not have been a boy scout being prepared was not his forte. >> we could go into the preparation for the rights but 16 was difficult because in the midst right at the end of the prep for the second debate access hollywood happened. i'm in the middle of prepping him on the friday afternoon before the sunday debate and in can his press secretary with the transcript of the access hollywood tape that kind of

derails us for a little while. was very perceptive to preparation even though he admits he lost the first debate he didn't want to lose again it was very receptive he was much less receptive in 2020. m >> moving on to different topic but something biblically talks a lot about his own conspiracy theories but talked to this audience in the way you do so well about where the pool says that obviously donald trump lost the election but get to the specifics about the suburban women and where he lost the vote and how we gain the vote in the cities. >> if you listen to the president talk about this he has a number of different theories. about why the election was stolen. what you will learn after reading, the way i try to approach it in the book is in

my two jobs are going out my last job i try not to write like the governor try to write like the united states attorney. take the approach if i had to prove this in court what what i do? i'm trying to if you have any doubts about this i want to address those issues, lay out the facts and let you draw your own conclusion obviously i'm taking it from the perspective the evidence supports bringing a case i think obviously the evidence supports the case and bringing. so a few things, one of the theories is that the n,election was stolen from him in pennsylvania and philadelphia and was stolen from him in michigan and detroit. you heard him say this, the boxes and ballot to shut up in the middle of the night in detroit philadelphia they were filling out ballots, no one was accounted for.

we look at philadelphia, philadelphia donald trump actually got 3% more of the vote in 2020 that he did in 2016 and the city of philadelphia. joe biden got 1% less of the vote in philadelphia than hillary clinton. i would argue it's a very unsuccessful steel job when you let the guy you are trying to steal from 3% more than the guy you're trying to steal for get 1% less. the other thing you hear about pennsylvania is wait a second, when i went to bed donald trump was winning pennsylvania by 700,000 vote then i wake up and

he's losing by 80,000. they stole it. no. we had a very unusual election in 2020 because we have the most mail-in ballots are used in the history of our presidential election each state decided differently how they were going to come back and order. so for instance, in ohio when he went to bed and looked at ohio joe biden was winning ohio. when he woke up donald trump won by nine points. by the same pennsylvania theory trumps stroll ohio. here's what happens. in ohio they counted the mail-in ballots first the mail-in ballots were overwhelmingly across the country and in some places 70

to 75% democrat. republican anvoters listened to the leader of the party and they didn't vote by mail they voted at the machines that day in ohio unthey counted all the alien ballots first biden was up by seven points we are watching at abc because we didn't know which way they were doing it until we started to ask the question. then they counted machine votes in ohio there was a 16 point swing. trump women from ãã

pennsylvania was the exact opposite. pennsylvania didn't decide to count the machine vote then they counted the mail-in vote and he lost to 80 very similar swing in terms of numbers and percentages on ohio that go in trump's favor. lastly something was in stark onrelief that happened all acro the country i would suggest to you is why donald trump is the first republican presidential candidate to lose morris county. collier county's outside philadelphia, suburban counties outside philadelphia, chester county delaware county, montgomery county, outside the ããin 2020 donald trump lost

the four counties and by 104,000 boat then he lost a hillary clinton.ou he lost both times but he lost by 104,000 vote for and those for suburban counties than he dated in 2016. he lost the entire state by 80. so if you need to know why donald trump lost pennsylvania he lost t pennsylvania for the same reason he lost mars county. white educated suburban voters who gave him a chance in 2016 largely abandon him in 2020. i'm sure in this town and your friends across county and the greater percentage by women than men are both both women and men suburban white educated voted far less for trump in 2020 than 2016 but i could apply yourself, friends he spoke to there is no question that that's what happened to

him, that's where he lost to michigan. that's where he lost in wisconsin. over and over again it was the suburbs outside milwaukee outside detroit outside philadelphia who had voted for him in 2016 and did not a woman who shall remain name that she lives in this town who had been a volunteer for both gubernatorial campaign she saw me in kings the day before the election she said governor, what could happen tomorrow? i said i think it's good to be a lot closer than people think but i think it's ãi think biden is going to win. she was a strong republican i said i know you're disappointed i'm sorry she said no i voted

for biden. i looked at her and i said, you voted for biden? why? she said, governor, i couldn't listen to that voice for another four years. part of what we need to understand this is why it's difficult for donald trump to accept this because it was not a rejection of his policies, it was a rejection of him personally. by a group of voters who had been with him four years earlier. losing is intensely personal. politics different than sports sports you can have a good day or a bad tiday, sometimes you w sometimes the other person is better, they have a better day, it doesn't mean that you are trejected it just means that da the other guy was better. the other woman was better.

politics they look that you and they look at the other person and went know i will pick them. i don't want you. it as i can tell you is intensely personal. so when people wonder why donald trump is having such a hard time accepting this in part not in whole or in part, it's because he knows where i just said is absolutely true. it's a personal rejection and we go through all the other, there's a number of other arizona, although different, georgia, different places. >> that's a good segue what will be my last question then we will take questions from the audience. tell us your view right now there's an effort in the legislature to federalize voting rights and voting

systems. can you tell us your view on federalize end and voting laws. in congress they want to federalize all the rules of voting. each state is different how we could ever think that voting rolls that would be good e for wyoming would be good for new jersey when wyoming is the least densely populated state in america and the most densely ããthe challenges we face in voting these ãare significantly different, second, the constitution i think is pretty clear on this that these decisions are supposed to be made by each of the visual state and i go back to third, the federal government is running it, what could possibly go wrong?

[laughter] imagine the federal government could be in charge of counting all the vote present imagine all those people get replaced and federal employees come in. what we need to do is look at what happened in morris county. is why usually have 10 or 12,000 paper ballots and every other time it's all in the machines. this time we had they could get

ready that quickly. one of the things i think all those in the state in particular, given the number of orders we have, all across the country to do is not assume we are going to go back in 2022 or 2024 to a very small amount of mail-in ballots. i think some people have gotten used to that they like it it's convenient for them and i think we'll have a lot more mail-in voting over time. we better get more machines to get out the vote because the other reason we have so many conspiracy theories is the longer it takes for us to tell you who won, the more you are wondering what the hell are they up to? who's messing around with this? it's just i talk about that a little bit in the book is a natural american thing because

only back to the founding of the country. there's conspiracy theories about politics going on throughout our findings that's what happens in a free society where people get to express their opinions they don't have to be right. they just have to be opinions. they get to express them. i will always remember what brandon berg used to say i had a lot of fun with governor burn he was one of the funniest people i ever met and one of the lines used to use all the times i made my wife iwith the promise that when i die she will bury me in hudson county so i can remain active in politics. [laughter] i want to make clear to you, i say this in the book, i'm not saying irregularities did not happen on election day this year, they did. they happened in new jersey when i ran into thousand nine and 13, it happens all the

time, the question is, is there enough irregularities to change the results of the election in anyone's let alone the five states that would've been necessary to change the result of the election? that i think we prove in the book is just not possible. that is an important thing to remember if you think you don't trust the county clerk in morris county to count the vote wait until some federal bureaucrat is coming your vote. >> if anybody has questions we can move to the audience.

>> if the biden administration could be used to have headwind, do you think mainstream media will turn against them? >> not completely against them because the mainstream media in this country is slanted toward the left. there can't be any question about that anymore. in fact, they are almost playing it out. watch ãon sundays it's almost never not 3 to . i say to

folks all the time, you should watch a little bit of reboth ju so you realize there are really two different worlds we are living in right now two different ways to look at issues and most of the time you're going to come back to the way you think about things. we still get actual newspapers are kids i like are you kidding? twhen you get a newspaper for just go on your phone but we still get them. look at the bottom of our driveway on cory lane there's three newspapers every day. the wall street journal, to

give us the conservative side of things, the new york times to see what the enemy is thinking. and the new york post just to have fun. i think you should get a taste and same thing with mainstream media to be as well i painfully watch i don't watch it every night but when i do watch i go back and forth between ããi can't watch msnbc, i have to be honest, it's too much for me but i will go back and forth between cnn and fox. wherever the big stories of the day are how they cover them differently and what you'll find is they cover them completely differently. and the emphasize which stories. there will be a day where let's say there's a big story on wall street and the big story in washington dc. cnn will cover the washington

dc story and they will cover it with nothing but democratic members of the house and senate and democratic pendants commenting on it. fox news will cover the washington story unless it's big, they will cover immigration. there will be stories about immigration on the border and then everybody's taking a different approach i think it's really educational to watch all of it. as much of it is you can put up with. and helps to inform me when i'm talking to people on the other side as to why they think some of the things they think and they think that because that's what they're hearing in the news they are watching. so i don't know if we have hope of them playing it on the middle i think those days are over. >> i happen to think one of the biggest failings if not the biggest failing of the country is this state of inner city

public schools written generation of failure. i know where the democratic party can't get there but when you see the lines of people desperate to get their kids into charter schools and anything do not go to the public school they are at why hasn't taken hold in the population to live there to get behind school choice, school vouchers, charter schools because the party that they are voting for is entrenched and absolutely not supporting that and then the cycle is perpetuated and never gets better. i can't understand why that population hasn't moved to the school choice argument. the charter school argument which is can't be supported by the other party. >> i would say there's two reasons. the first is folks in the inner cities have gotten into the habit of voting democrat they have a hard time breaking the

habit. republicans aggressively campaign there and make the argument i would tell you i think has done a lousy job. if you look at what happened with me in 2013 after four years of arguing hard arguing why authorizing charter schools and government has what happens? we got more vote in newark, and irvington and jersey city we won biome, union city we got

62% of the vote in union city new jersey in 2013. what i try to argue with ãã you got to go to places you're comfortable in and go to those places to make arguments that you know that that group of voters needs to hear. to me you are right education issue and virginia show this the education issue cuts across party parents care most about their children. i will tell you the biggest supporters i have in 2013 in the cities where the pastors of most of the major churches. in places like newark and camden and trenton and patterson. of all denominations including places like patterson and camden. because they say to me when i was governor, we are tired of

seeing the children who sit in their pews every sunday constantly be found by the public school system. for some kids he's a democrat supposed to be the one who cares more about the underprivileged. yet he won't say one word about the failure in urban schools use alternate rant against the 0teacher union they beat me

senseless the money they spent was extraordinary. i won decide to end it on a more upbeat funny note in 2010 fall 2010 we were in the midst of the first big fight the teachers union. mary patton all four children were in one of the suvs with troopers going someplace i don't remember where but we were on the turnpike we had gotten through out the exit going to the tall and up to the left was one of those big turnpike billboards it said chris christie hates children. [laughter] at that time our son patrick for those of you who know our family our son patrick was

definitely the strongest serves the drink in our house he was 10-year-old at the time i saw it i was hoping they didn't see it. patrick goes, hey dad, your people have to get better pictures of you. [laughter] patrick, did you read billboards said those are not my people i don't know dad, it was a really bad picture. that's another reason it happened as well. >> hi, governor christie, you brought up governor burnet and hudson county so i'm compelled to tell a story that goes back to 1985 when brendan byrne and ed broderick here at morristown was supporting a credit candidate for senator he happen to have a fundraiser in princeton new jersey at the time he gets up he looked at

ravi and he says you know, i don't understand why you happen to be running as a democrat because most of the democrats i know from hudson county follow the same pattern they get elected, they get indicted, and they get sentenced. [laughter] >> i have a similar experience at my old job. [laughter] on another note, i wanted to ask you about october 22 2020 at an event you happen to be there which was the garden party preceding the right between biden and trump. i think we all know what happened subsequent to that garden party trump tested positive for the covid. there were all sorts of supporters of trump sitting in those chairs yourself and how

do you feel at the time which he knew he had the coronavirus how do you feel about trump now, a gentleman who you supported for president, in terms of his loyalty to his closest associates and putting them essentially wimperil as a result of the subsequent test he had for testing positive. >> i will say a few things about that kind of gently correct the record a little bit. my understanding is he tested positive the next day it doesn't change the thesis of your question except it changes it for what happened the day before. got covid that were not

involved in the debate fprep. one was father jenkins of notre dame there were two of his i'm absolutely convinced we all got covid seven of us in six of us got covid. it's disturbing to me to have heard for the first time a day or two ago and is president tested positive for covid prior to him sitting closer than i am to you for four days and preparing debates there's a story in the book after i got put in the hospital he was in the hospital as well. this story makes much more sense to me than it did anytime up to two days ago.

he said how are you doing i said not well. eche goes into his normal, can you believe two tough guys like us got this thing? we are so tough, how could this have gotten us? we are like the two toughest guys in america. i said i don't know. he then got to the point of the call he said so how do you think you got it? i said i don't know mr. president i said and pretty confident i got up at the white house but since six of the seven of us got it, who knows who patient zero was. i obviously got it in the white house. he then says to me, you are not going to blame it on me are you? i said why would i blame it on you? i don't know you are the one that gave it to me it happened in that iroom but you are sick too.

he goes, you're not that i told the press that i gave it to you? i said i wouldn't say that because i don't know that it's true. up until two days ago my thought process on that was that that was just donald trump's paranoia that he didn't want to be blamed. i was always a little bit suspicious because every one of us beside him got tested every day before we went in so like the process was during that time you went to the gate of the white house he got admitted, somebody escorted you to the eisenhower building next door and that's where the medical unit is. you set for 15 minutes results of the test if you are negative you are authorized to go to the west wing. was always a little bit suspicious as to whether one of us got a false positive, false-negative or whether it was him. he was the only one didn't know

whether he was getting tested every day or not we wouldn't know he's the president. especially how bad my experience with covid was in the intensive care unit for seven days a couple moments really feeling like it was going to go the wrong way. finding that out couple days ago if in fact what meadows says is true because he tried to head a little bit he says that he got a negative test after that and they weren't sure but at a minimum what we were owed everybody in that room it was me, they'll still be in, kellyanne conway, stephen miller, whole pigs and the other miller.

the rest of us were all owed to be told that. because i will tell you this, we all would've worn masks if we were we didn't when asked he said, we are getting tested every day. that's why i wasn't wearing a mask at that event because every person sitting at the amy coney barrett event all had been tested before they were allowed to come in. and all tested negative. what i said afterwards and whatever .the president did he' gotta live with his own conscience. i'm not to be able to impose guilt onto him. he's either an affiliate or not about what he did if he in fact was positive to all of us. but what i will tell you is that, for me, i said this after i got out of the hospital it was a mistake for me to not wear the mask. i became convinced that i was

in a safe zone because all of us had been tested and i was wrong. now i probably know why i was but g i didn't know that regardless i probably have worn the mask the whole time it would've been an extra layer of safety for me and that's why i said the stuff i said afterwards but as you mamight imagine when mary patent and i both saw it pop up on our phones earlier this week, early in the morning, we had an interesting reaction. >> thank you. >> the irregularities in the direction don't you believe the democratic party double up the system and that they are implementing it for the town the control and then mailing batted using the system somehow

we definitely have to be concerned about the same with donald trump the same to ãkã certain areas that are highly controlled by the people they use machines and do all the things to ininfluence male in balance. doing that also using the machine school system to teach our kids when they graduate they become 90% democratic. new jersey has been having you got elected you did great in two terms but you see the assembly and the senate they

know how to when it they have that recipe. >> let me respond to a few things to unpack that. i don't disagree with most of what you just said except that they didn't seal the presidential election. it's just too hard. think about this, do you really think joe biden masterminded a nationwide conspiracy to steal vote in six different states? joe biden masterminded one part funeral let alone mastermind that type of operation and have the unfound. yes our liberals are using the educational system in a way to try to indoctrinate our children into a certain thought process, absolutely. that's a different site. it's a fight we should have. mailing ballots, i support the georgia election law i support the texas election law because

i will tell you a quick story, this whole idea about not having to show id when you go to vote, that somehow being asked to show id is discriminatory. i went to new york city eight or nine weeks ago and i walk into an office building in new york city to go to a meeting and walk up to the security guard, governor it's amazing to see you on such a big fan, i said thank you, he said can i come around and take a picture. sure. he prints out my visitor pass, can you sign the visitor pass for me can i have your autograph? absolutely. he said can i see your id. [laughter] i said all right. you are convinced enough that i am me that you took a picture with me and you have me give

you an autograph, but you still want to see my id. i'm sorry, it's the rules. okay. i went in my wallet i got my drivers license i gave it to him. if i have to do that to enter office building in manhattan to go to a meeting, why should i have to show the people in the firehouse my drivers license when i come to: i'm a bad example because i walk in here and if they don't know me, it's a problem but i think everybody should have to show i think one of the things i did when i was governor is which is why he should be less concerned about the broader roles of the state mandated to have the attorney general mandate to have the counties update voter rolls we knocked a lot of dead people off the voter rolls a lot of people who moved off the voter

rolls. the voter rolls in new jersey are in much better shape than they were before. mailing ballots i think they are going to continue to be a factor and i don't want republicans complaining about it anymore. we've got to get as good at it as they are. you know what they do. they send out the ballot then they sent a piece of mail saying you got ballot, here's how you return it then they called four or five times and say did you fill it out yet? did you fill out your ballot yet? then they text you then they email you it's not turnout anymore it's dried out. they drag those votes out of those houses. there is no reason we can't do that. there's no reason we have the

availability of the same technology all the rest, only thing that makes it a little bit harder is the door-to-door portion of it because door-to-door in ãis a little arharder than jersey city have done both and that it is much harder. but part of it we will always be a disadvantage because our voters tend to be a more suburban and rural areas but i was at an event a week before the election this year first senator now senator john brandon, a fundraising event for john and a woman raised her hand and asked a question about bill spady 11.5 what are we going to do to combat him? i looked at her and i said, nobody's worrying habout bill spady on 11.5 he's not can determine any election i said to her but if jack loses because we don't know how to do mail balloting and they do it six days later as i was exactly right on the machines jack ciattarelli was elected

governor and you have the mail and bookmark loses by 75,000 vote do i i think election was stolen from jack i don't and neither is jack. but, the bigger point on your point is, we got a bunch of things we have to do is talk about it in the book for us to continue to be competitive bible party. moaning and complaining and looking in the rearview mirror at past elections never helps you when the next one ever. voters don't want to hear about that stuff. that's not why they vote for you. when i was running for reelection in 2013 after sandy rebuilt the boardwalk at asbury park we rebuilt it in five months i'm down there taking a victory drive, a guy comes up

to me he says governor, you're running for election i said yes, he said why should i vote for you? i said look at the boardwalk to think we will get this he said that's what i got for voting for you last time will i get for voting for you this time? voters in the main think about tomorrow yesterday. and that's good. that shows we are hopeful comfort don't contributing tomorrow can be better than yesterday we don't want to dwell on yesterday we want to look for tomorrow so are parties have to stop doing that.not the grievance politics moaning and complaining like to do better on mailing ballots. take those things out of play them our adls versus their ideas i feel like will do okay. in an election where we lost at the top of the ticket by three points we pick up 60 in the assembly and a seat in the senate. and a lot of local 6. except for the top of the ticket

election day was very good for republicans across the state and i think it sends a very clear message to phil murphy but legislative democrats you watch going to be much more oreluctant to do what he wants them to do they are all back up for election in 23 three. when i got reelected and 2013 i got 60% of the statewide but we didn't pick up one seat in the legislature. if that's not a gerrymandered map i don't know what is on the top of the ticket 60% of the vote we don't when one seat underneath that will tell you everything you need. hopefully they are negotiating new maps now we get a better map. >> thank you.

>>. >> just to show people that you don't rush everything. >> i definitely don't. >> every once in a while. >> two guys there. >> two short answers. esthese three guys i will make them short answers. >> nice to see you governor. looking forward like we've been talking about tonight, especially the midterms next year even o24. how do you think the republican party best unites itself nationally where you still have a section of the party that obviously would like to see a new face and 24 and sooner than another section very much likes president trump is the glenn young can model a good model for everywhere? what are your thoughts on that?

>>. >> never forget the other side unites us like we could never unite ourselves. same with the democrats. donald trump united democrats more remember, part of this process is what are they doing? we have to stop them. and republicans are willing to put down some other differences in order to stop. the second piece is that we've got to start talking about the things that voters care about. 'elections aren't about what th candidate is important. about what the voters think is important and what the candidate thinks about what the voters think is important. part of what we need to do is to get ourselves back into the mode of thinking and we haven't

been. we been yelling and complaining and screaming about things. most voters didn't care about it and they said it's a very clear message not once but twice in 18 and 20. we need to listen. >> thank you. >> i will try to make it fairly quick. needless to say, having been a public figure i think everyone was long aware of president trump's personality quirks and whatnot. one thing i think has made ctpeople loyal to him is the fa that he came in saying i will do certain things and by and large he did them. i would say that as someone who's generally voted republican i've often been disappointed by my party in terms of failure to keep promises made during the campaign. too often we are we will talk

to and do this and then nothing is done. if you look at trump he fixed a skating rink in new york after six years of nonsense. he built a golf club in a short period of time. he started building a wall window wall was overbuilt he will the embassy in israel to the capital of israel when it had been sent this will happen this will l happen. something is good or acceptable alternative we don't want somebody who is he says wired party has often disappointed us

there are some things where we differ not hugely significant things. sealed the president of the united states in the east room of the white house 2:30 a.m. election night to tell the american people election was stolen and not have anything to support that. the words of the president of the united states matter. he continues to talk like he was new york real estate developer when he was the president of the united states. the american people want to believe what the president tells them. you want to believe what he said it would've been like barack obama standing up at night in april of 2012 and

saying osama bin laden is dead. and then he wasn't. what would we have thought of that moment? that is something of enormous gravity for the american people like an election. saying him election was stolen not presenting evidence to back it up here we are 13 months later still saying the same thing. to me that creates a huge credibility problem that diminishes what you just talk about. i said this to the president the saturday after the election if you don't either present the evidence that was stolen now or conceivably election you are going to diminish her legacy in

a way that will damage you personally and damage the party for a long time. i agree with you there many things he said he would do that ehe got done there were a numbe of things he said he would do that he didn't get done you could say that about anybody who gets elected to office but election night was to me a line that made it impossible for me to say that's okay. it's just not. we all get into this business knowing we can win or lose sometimes you think it is fair i've lost elections i thought were fair but that's the deal. you stand up like an adult and say i don't think was fair but votes are counted people have spoken and i live to fight another day that's where i think the divide is now and

that was something that was not necessary to do. not welcoming the bite into the white house inaugural morning not going to the inoculation you think hillary clinton wanted to be sitting there january 2017 in donald trump's inaugural? do think al gore wanted to be sitting there in 2000 george west bush's inaugural? george bush 41 wanted to be sitting there bill clinton's inaugural. i am confident they would've rather have had elective root canal. then be sitting there but then went and not only did they go they welcomed the victor to the white house and said this is the way we do it in this country. it's a peaceful transfer of power where the vanquished can don't congratulate the victor and we leave with grace and

dignity. he didn't do any of that. i think it diminished him and diminished our country in the process. you can still say i don't it's fair, al gore fought like crazy against george west bush for 34 days in court all the way to the u.s. supreme court but on the u.s. supreme court ruled even though al gore walked by before he didn't say not moving out of the observatory and still vice president he conceded went out he welcomed bush to the observatory they met and they show the country that this is the way we operate that's the way we've operated in the name for the last 250 years i think that's one the president should've done much differently. >> big support of my wife and i drove up from the shore just to be here we are glad we did. we would love to see you as our candidate in 2024 but going

back to your point a little while ago about how your own constituents felt about trump and not wanting to hear that i work for a company that's based in the midwest i spend a lot of time up there there's a lot of good right-thinking people out there but when it comes to new yorkers or anybody from the northeast, they are like we don't really get them we don't want to ããwe talk too fast we'll get a chance to hear what we are saying to them they took a chance on trump and they feel they got burnt. how would somebody like you overcome what's become a bias against the northeast thanks to donald? >> i would say to you that they did pick in some parts of the midwest and other places they didn't. when i was in you to come up hello little bit.

and follow your name. for any of us her own authenticity has to be what we rely upon there's plenty of people who don't like me that's okay. that's their right. for people who don't like me most of them don't call me a phony. they've gotten to know me and don't like they don't like me. that's okay. [laughter] we can't back away from authenticity. i think quite frankly one of the reasons trump got elected was because people said he may not say everything the way i like to say it but i think he

means that and i think that's who he is as a result people were owilling to take a chance on you. based upon authenticity. i still think the single most important thing in a candidate is authenticity. you could tell when they are not. you look at certain candidates i ran to get some boxes on the 2016 you look at them and go i have no chance. they are sitting there trying to think of the answer should be try to figure out what it is you want to hear them give it back to you the american people have proven themselves to be a lot smarter than that. the only way to overcome any bias northeastern bias against southern county no doubt that exists. there's always the certain candidates overcome met with

their approach to personality and activity. that's all we can i know i said only three but then this gentleman stood heup. >> i'm so glad c-span is here to see this.

i feel the question to you is, you i think at this point represent minority to some extent of your party. someone standing up to the election i'm ondering if donald trump and his minions so to speak start going fter. >> they have. >> how are you going to react? i would much rather see you on the ballot. >> thank you. you all have watched me for a long time morris county even longer than new jersey certainly new jersey longer than the country. ...... left. he made it worse. he lied about it to make it worse. like i thought to myself why didn't you just tell the truth? he was really bad when i left so you could have just used the the

real number and it would have been terrible. and and my response to him was well, i don't know. >> and my response to him was, well, i don't know, donald. when i ran for re-election, i got 60% of the vote. when you ran, you lost to joe biden. [laughter] that's what i'llwh do. donald trump has never gotten in a fight with me, i believe because he knows i know how to fight back. he fights in the main with people who can't fight back. and you'll notice if you remember back in the '16 race, i was like one of the only guys or women on stage that didn't get a nickname. whether it was jeb, little march eco, lying ted, crazy john, you know? [laughter] wunsch -- one. and i'm susceptible to any number of nicknames. [laughter] so so he clearly could have thought of them. and manager that you said about

your -- something that you said about your vote for biden, i saidhe this to trump in 2017. we went for lunch with the president on valentine's 2017. he'd been in office three weeks, and he called and invited us to come and have lunch with him. it wasn't exactly my idea of valentine's day, but i got to bringe you, so it was okay. that. [laughter] and he said to me, look around. ca' you believe i'm here? you know? and he was showing me the oval e,office. and i was like, yeah, sure, you won. and we sat down to talk about it atg. lunch. id -- i said, remember something. you didn't win this election, she lost it. now, mr. president, it doesn't matter because your hand was on the bible on january 20th. you're sleeping upstairs. you're sitting in this office. it doesn't matter. but now you need to make the four years about you so that you, because you'll be the one being judged four years from

now. and i said same thing happened to me. and when i won in '0 # 9, i didn't win, jon corzine lost. i'm not a big enough i go maniac to think, oh, my god, everybody went what i really want is chris christie. they went, oh, my god, i don't want jon corzine anymore, is this guy reasonable. and i, like biden, looked ooh like the reasonable alternative to someone they had already rejected. is so i understand exactly what mean. and by the way, that's how trump got elected in '16. hillary clinton, and this is demonstrated by the polling data on election day, was is tingle -- single most unpopular presidential candidate on election day in american history. by the way, the second most unpopular presidential candidate on election day in american donald trump. but a little better than her.

and so he won. now, when i told him that, mary pat will say it, he got so pissed -- [laughter] i won, i won in a landslide. that's outrageous, that's -- she didn't lose, i beat her i'm like, look, you can think that, but it's just not true. and you shouldn't be upset about it. don't get upset. i felt the same way. i know that corzine lost, i didn't win. but what i did, mr. president, was every day i went to my campaign manager the day after the election in '0 # 9, because we won with 48.5% of the vote in a three-way race. i looked at him and i said, every day from here on out your job is to figure out how we build that coalition, what i need to do to convince as many of thehe 5.5% of the people -- 51.5% of the people who didn't vote for me to vote for me next time. if donald trump had done that, he'd still be in the white house

today. instead whaty he did was decidd to just to play to the base with. and when that happens in a close reaction, you wind up going down. and you're right, again, it's exactly what's happening to joe biden right b now. joe biden promised to be a uniter and to wring the country together -- bring the country together and return it to normalcy. and hen -- then he comes in, and he goes way left to the base of his party, the exact same mistake thatde trump made. and doesn't try to bring the country together or bring more people in. remember in 2013 when i got reelected, i got 51% of the latino vote, i got 292% of the african-american -- 29% of the african-american vote. four years earlier i'd gotten 111% of the african-american vote it and -- 11% of the african-american vote and 33% la tee know. that didn't -- latino.

that didn't happen by miracle, because we worked every day to reach out to those folks who didn't vote for us, asked them why and tried to deal with the issues they were concern about. so i absolutely agree with you, independents have abandoned biden for the moment because biden abandon them first. they didn't leave him, he left them. they're standing in the middle of theth country going where the hellr did joe biden go? he's all the way over there. we have elizabeth warren and bernie sanders e, the democratic party rejected elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. and cm ca harris because -- kamala harris because they were too liberal. they nominated the 78-year-old guy for two reasons. he was inas the middle, and they wanteded to beat trump. can and they knew those other ones couldn't. enter right. >> so i don't understand why this is so complicated. i really don't. and maybe i'm just getting too old. and i've seen too much.

but it's pretty simple on how to try to govern and win this country. and winning is the hardest part. but once you get there whether it's the power of the governorship or the power of the presidency, you have the ability to be able to bring people together. you havee to decide to do it. and i'm disappointed that trump didn't, i'm disappointed that biden didn't, and i think the american people sent att a prety clear signal in 2020, but they're probably going to have to seven it again in 2024 -- seven itan again in 2024, that e want someone who's going to bring the country together. we're tired of being divided, we're tired of not being able to go too a cocktail party without having a conversation about politics, tired of people yelling at as because we have a bumper sticker on our car, we're tired of people giving us a hard

time because of what we believe. when i grew up in politics, that wasn't the way it was. and i think we can bring it back. and this book is an effort to start with my own party. it's always easy for me to lecture democrats, right? >> what if you run as an independent? honestly, you could probably win. let's decide to go to the side -- the middle candidate is goingg to win. >> right. what you need to do is as a are republican start with your own party. and startab talking to them abot these truths. and look, either i'll convince people or i won't, but that's what this business iss all abou. ies used to say it all the time when the press would say to me, well,m the polls say. this i'd say to them, well, my job is to change polls, not to follow polls. if you are a persuasive leader, your job is to change polls, not to follow them. so, you know, i hope that that's

what the book starts to doment i know this much -- to do. i know this much, rue puerto murdoch gave -- rue permit murdoch gave a speech and said donald trump is wrong, the election wasn't stolen, we have to stop talking about it. we're going to fight for the future, we have to stop worrying about the past. if trump doesn't stop talking about it, then he can't be a part of theet future. if the head of fox news is starting to say that, we're getting someplace. that's why i did the book, and that's why we start the conversation. and i thinka that's a great ple for it to end. i want to say one thing besides thanking my wife not only for tonight, but for putting up with me for the last 35 years, is that this place is really special to us. we've been here 30 years, and we've been made to feel welcome heree for all 30 years that we'e been here. when we were brand new, you

know, residents with no children and nobody knew who we were, there from being a freeholder and then being the governor that had the suv idling outside of every place for eight years all around town, the guys with the wires in their ears. at least for that time of this was the safest town in new jersey, guarantee you that. [laughter] no problem there. you definitely lived in the safest place. but through all those ups and downs, you know, there were times that were difficult can. and when they had the difficult times inn public life and you come home, you want to not have to worry about going out at home. and i can tell you that when things were great, everybody here was great too. but when things weren't great, everybodyyb here was great too. edeven when they disagreed with me, they did it in a way that was respectful of the fact that we're one of you. and so, you know, we thank you for that.

because you providedded us a community to raise all four of our children in a way that we wanted to. and when they were in the public spotlight, you made it better not worse. you didn't make them feel different. and that on the soccer field, the little league field or on the football field, you guys made them feel like they were just four more kids and meant it. that made our lives a hot easier. so thank you for coming tonight and thank you for all of that. [applause] >> thank you, governor. thank you, governor. thank you, mary pat. another beautiful evening. >> campaign 2024 coverage is your front row seat to the election. watch our coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail

with announcements, meet and greets, speeches and events. to make up your own mind. campaign 2024 on the c-span network, c-span now our free mobile video app, or anytime online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> this fall watch c-span's new series books that shaped america. join us as we embark on a captivating journey in partnership with the library of congress which first created a books that shaped america list to explore key works of literature from american history. the ten books featured have provoked thought, won awards, led to significant societal changes and are still talked about today. hear from featured, renowned experts who will shed light on these iconic works and virtual journeys to significant

locations intricately tied to these celebrated authors and their unforgettable books. among our featured books, common sense by thomas paine, huckleberry finn by mark twain, their eyes were watching god by zora neale hurston and free to choose by milton friedman. watch our 10-part series, books that shaped america, starting monday, september 18th at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now -- our free mobile video app -- or online at c-span.org. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's stories. and on sundays, booktv brings youhe latest in nonfiction books and authors. nding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more, including cox. ♪ >> this disease is e