which dishonest politics agents and politics unconsciously but inevitably corrupts political and language more broadly. yes. and one of his best essays, politic in the english language, goes into idea the way that the types of illusions and intentional misrepresentation ends that political language is invariably deploys. so example collateral damage, right? i mean, collateral damage. what do you think about it actually means the loss of significant innocent civilian usually life. right. but it becomes a word that is that in political speak used to say, oh, the mission was achieved. there was some collateral damage and there's an erasure or oftentimes in terms of social programs, the way we talk about welfare queens to diminish the humanity of people who are receiving welfare. right. and to sort of impute something sinister in them that elides the the nuance of that situation in

those lives. and orwell was very conscious of how in his own political time and of course, he's writing when nazi germany, when britain is fighting a war against nazi germany, he's writing during stalin's reign in the soviet union and he's very conscious of how political is manipulated in those regimes, but also how it's manipulated at his own home in britain, the context of the british empire. i mean, he worked in the british empire. he served in the imperial, and he felt that there that censorship, you know, in the british empire was astringent, stringent as it was in many ways in the soviet union. how would you describe his politics? as we understand politics, politics today? well, he termed himself democratic socialist throughout his life. he was identified strongly in his time. the political left, though, ironically, once he passed away because his novels became iconic text of the war, he was reappropriated frequently by the political right in a cold war context and continues to seen by many on the right, a kind of icon of free speech and an

opponent of censorship. but his own politics were very firmly leftist. two more passages from your book it's 150 page, 150 and 153 two sentences. once you start, look for signs of misogyny and in orwell's writing, they become hard to escape. orwell's views on reproductive rights, demeaning manner and writing about women and his seeming casual acceptance of sexual violence cannot simply be dismissed as products of his time. that's a fair statement. i stand by it. i mean orwell's orwell's political writing i have a lot of sympathy for and his, you know, critiques of, you know, of doublethink, of thought policing of, you know, the problems with political discourse. our modern era, i think, continue to have salience and value. but the way that he wrote about women and gender relations does not stand the test of time. well. i mean, he was despite the fact

that he married not one, but two, very accomplished women, both of whom, unlike him, had gone on and had a university education. he stopped schooling after leaving eton is one of the top prep schools in britain. and then joined the the indian police service. but despite the fact that he was married to these accomplished women, he clearly respected and they respected him. he had a default kind of assumption that patriarchy was the natural order society. and you see that in his domestic relations, both of his wives themselves over to furthering his career, but also particularly in his writing where female characters are marginalized as they're not offered a kind of full sense of agency and humanity. one of the most famous lines from, orwell's 1984, is his smith the hero's dismissal of his lover, julia, as only a rebel. the waist down and feminist, you know, have read that against the grain and said, well, this is actually a recognition of the power of sexual politics and the that the personal is political but. i don't think orwell intended it that way. i mean, the body evidence really

suggests that he wasn't someone who accorded women the agency that he to men. i know you teach a class on this but animal farm is a book that's often taught in a middle school in 1984 and in high school. do you think that the misogyny in, his writing gets the attention in how it's taught in america today and in recent decades? well, i mean, as someone i, i went to an all girls high school, which i read 1984. i can tell you that is there is a passage in that book of such startling sexual where winston smith, before he begins his relationship with julia imagines raping and murdering in this kind of violent fantasy during the ritualized two minute hate that takes place every day in oceania. and that was not a passage that we discussed reading it in high school. i we talked about this idea of what it meant to culturally rebel from the waist down. but we didn't get into all these other. you know, he also fantasize as

winston smith about killing his first wife and pushing her off a cliff to her death. that's again, not something we really unpacked and i think it's an awkward i mean for i went to an all girls high school with a male teacher. i mean, there was that inherently problematic dynamic. but i think even when that is not the situation at play kind of unpacking this extent of the misogyny in some of orwell's works. and it's very even in animal farm. i mean, molly, the show pony is kind of the villain of the piece in many ways an animal farm in that she's vain, narcissistic and willing to sell out the revolution from the get go for her own personal gain. but it's it was not something i remember being discussed when i was at school and in terms of my conversations with my students coming into my university level classes. it's not really an angle on orwell's writing. that's that's being approached today either. one more line from orwell's ghost. you write orwell's novels never end happily ever after. why do you think that is? i think orwell himself know he didn't end happily ever after.

died at age 46 of tuberculosis as he has moments of optimism in his writing and his personal life. but i think he was someone who fundamentally was quite pessimistic about society. and i think he had there's a real tension. you see all of orwell's work between a for a kind of better social revolution and social change will improve society and real pessimism about whether human beings are really capable of the type of self-sacrifice and abdication of the will to power that's necessary, secure that kind of social change. i mean you see that writ large throughout 84. and i think that his general pessimism about, human nature sort of shows through in all these novels where the heroine always a kind of gangly, awkward male like himself comes to a bad end, may come back to the students that you teach george orwell to what's their biggest missing understanding of george orwell when they walk into your classroom? i think there the biggest misunderstanding is very people

come in believing they're studying a writer of the political left right. however, orwell is taught today, he's not taught as a socialist writer, but he very much saw himself as a committed socialist revolutionary. and his obituaries, particularly in the united kingdom when he died know talked about his social conscience, talks about and he was described as the wintry of a generation as, someone who was really committed and had integrity, his belief in the need for social. and that's something i think that's been embraced largely from the narrative about orwell in the 21st century. do you have a favorite orwell novel writing or nonfiction wrote nonfiction as well, correct? well, i mean, based on i had to count up all of my quotation from orwell for the publishers and based just on that back of the envelope, i clearly have a soft spot for the to wigan pier, which is more than anything else. and what's that about the road

to wigan pier is a book that he writes. he researches in 1936 when he travels up to the northwest of england to look at coal mining communities and also the lives of the long term unemployed. and the economy in britain and to slump even before the great depression in 1929. so you had people 1936 who'd been out of a job for over years. and he's writing the corrosive impact of lack of opportunity, social inequality on english society, and arguing for the need for dramatic social. and it's just a very moving piece of social investigation and very different from orwell's other writing. you mentioned he died young eric arthur blair is george orwell what appears on his tombstone. david don't know. i mean, it says it says eric blair on his tombstone. but i there's a there was a time when i knew the epithet and i can't remember it he did have he was atheist but he was an atheist who had a christian. he was he had a fondness for the

church of england and for the king james bible. he was a lover of the english language and a lover of the forms of, you know, the social of the church. despite his his own kind of atheist and socialist politics. eric arthur blair is george. the book is orwell's ghost wisdom and for the 21st century. laura beres is the author. thanks to the time on book. thanks for having me on. and we'll return to our live of the national book festival just a moment. but first, here's a look at last night's opening ceremony held at the library of congress. yes, my pants are unreasonably long. that is the title of my next book. i, i used that bit of humor to stall to. be honest with you.

i've done. 900 episodes of my talk show and i am more in this moment than i've ever been in my life. thank you for this honor. thank for this opportunity, dr. hayden. thank you clay. thank you for that green suit and and dr. hayden, you for sharing your mother with me. when i came in earlier, you said my mother in her nineties. and that is a lie. told me that i wants to meet you. i immediately called my own mom and mom. turn it on c-span on tv, as if i'm not on tv. day. but having our parents celebrate our work and celebrate what we do and look at us and say, i'm proud i saw your mother when we

gave you the ovation, she clapped. you said, mom, stop. i'm an investigator. i see everything. it brought me to this moment. my novel watch where they hide is a character manning inspired by my 30 years of being a journalist. and when i went into the publisher and said, i want to write this character, inspired also by the dusty nancy drew books under my bed as a kid, the box set that my 20 year old single mom gave me to build my confidence and to develop my unreasonable curiosity that had all of the nuns at my catholic ready to have me exit the building like elvis. it was an escape. so when i created jordan manning and i went to publishers and they said, listen, there is not a black female protagonist written by a black female

journalist. that's been published. i said, oh, she exists, but sometimes we're not led in the room. so jordan gets to come in this room via me, and she is afforded this opportunity to inspire young women and young people, young journalists. curiosity wins day. that curiosity will take you to places you never imagined. which brings me to my current book a confident cook. in 2008, the man who became my dad. the dad god meant for me to have left this planet. i knew that i would miss so many things about master sergeant clarence senior, but his sweet potato pie. because it was the last that we talked about before he, became ill. i just started at msnbc.

doris and i was the lone person. you might say, and i couldn't go home for holidays. and my dad and i talked over his sweet potato pie. he said, do a dash of this and a little of that. and i'm going, i'm trying for some reason, whatever i pulled out, the oven did not look like anything he'd ever created. when i went to temple university, they i told people i didn't know women could cook. all of my meals were prepared by my military dad. my dad would scurry often to my school to bring me lunch because i said that this doesn't look like what we eat at home. and he would rush in. he retired from the army after nearly 30 years, so i. i would miss his courage. i knew i would miss his fortitude, knew i would miss his encouraging words. i could do anything and i could be anything in this world. but i never imagined walking into a and saying, dad, where are you? i need you right now.

i've never shared this story publicly. after we lost my dad, i came back to visit my mom in burleson, texas and i walked in the kitchen and i prayed that if it was possible for us to see someone after they'd gone that he would stand next to me in the kitchen. that didn't happen. i returned back to new york, where i, the host of the today show, and do the magic an amazing curious journey that we are all able to if we allow ourselves. i said, wait a minute, my dressing room is next. the kitchen at the today show. there's food and there must be people there can cook. so i walked into the at the today show and i met this lovely woman. she had a radish tattooed on one arm and a carrot on another.

and said, dad, are you kidding? because a person with a radish and a carrot means business. these are root vegetables, you understand? most people would you know if hot for sunday. that's what i pick. and so began this incredible journey we detail in a confident cook. i met my friend list styling from wisconsin and she not tamron hall from the today she met tamron and we quickly became like sisters and we currently are only cookbook with a black woman and a white woman on the cover. the only cookbook for the woman who's lgbt and her ally to the very end. so while we have 79 amazing recipes that will make anyone fall in love with you. we have the incredible journeys. in fact, our book list grew up

in wisconsin. as i said, i grew up in texas. i'm a tad bit older than her. and now that i'm approaching 54, we have the exact same haircut and stand up. we have the exact same haircut. now. so through lish, i found my confidence in the kitchen. i found the ability to walk in and smell and discover flavors. and while this is a journey to become more, it is about finding. it's about expressing grief. but finding new friends. friends who are like family. food is our common thread. we look at our history and we wonder and we discuss the divisiveness. until you take a nice slice of

someone's delicious as pie and suddenly you say, that was your grandma mom's recipe. tell about her. food is a common thread. my trip to mexico. the common thread of food and family changed my life as a 12 year old. food is a universal language and through our book i'm so proud that we were able. meet one another and share journey. my hands are shaking, but my is full. i am grateful for the journey of food, of confidence of family and i hope that as books build us, we recognize that sitting at the table and looking someone in the eye and saying a prayer.

a thank you. grace whatever it is, absorbing that moment it brought a kid from wisconsin and a kid from texas together. underdogs. it can change, transform so many. books build us up. food brings us together. lastly will tell you my grandfather was born in 1901. he could not. he was a sharecropper in luling, texas. and now his granddaughter is making her living with words. he could read. and i am so grateful and love you all. and thank you. and we'll return to our live of

the national book festival just a moment. but first, here's a look at last night's opening ceremony held at the library of congress. i trying to look up a word that would describe or best describe my presence on the stage this evening. and i generously found the word implausible. i watched this event last and the computer and david used so beautifully. you love to ask questions in the beginning when you're speaking to the audience and last year. david looked at the audience and he said, who here has read five books in the year and most everybody raised their hand. and then he said, well, who here has read ten books in the year? at which point i said, oh, no, he's counting up. david dr. hayden, thank you so

much from the bottom of my for inviting me here this week. and i'm clearly you did no. don't panic. look, it's not that i don't love books. i do. i very much. i love i love them more than anything. inspire me. i just it's i have such the process of reading them. i have found to be very. more specifically these types of challenges were that i had wish that had been and defied much earlier my life. but that's a different story. one that i'm working on on my own. and that's not. it's not what tonight is about. i do love books, though i love books because they can tell any story they can be about anything. they can tell anyone story. they can be about anything, even not always wanting to read them.

my three picture books appropriately titled i don't want to read this. this book is not a present and i don't want to read this book. all center. the fears attached to reading, the fears of learning differently, the fears of reading a book aloud. you know, are the books that i wish that i had, when i was a kid. and look, if you take them at face value, you might react to them in the same way one gentleman did when i was a reading. and afterwards he said to me, it seems like books are about not wanting read. to which i said, maybe you should read it again. clearly this man did not get the joke. but to be fair, he looked like the kind of guy that doesn't get any jokes.

but that's again that's not what tonight's about. what he failed to recognize, though, is that a picture book is just meant to be read a good picture book. my opinion is to be a bridge to a conversation. thank you. i think about think about who just reacted to what. i just said. this is my audience and who understand me. speaking of those conversations, my son is nine. that's not him. the this is how most of our conversation go. how was your day? i don't know. we started our our summer as our conversations go. how was your day? i don't know. what do you mean?

you know? no. well, what did you do. good. are you now answering the first question? i would say, how can we expect a child articulate their fears around? learning and around reading that same child can't recall the events of the day that just happened. and furthermore, how we expect them to open up to and talk about the anxieties or the anxieties that they may have that exists beyond, reading the thoughts that keep them up at night. this is the conversation we are trying to initiate with night thoughts. my new book that is so beautifully illustrated by james serafino, the inspiration for this book from my dear friend jordan, who many of you may remember, he wrote, thank. leslie was on this stage not too long ago at this festival, his

own book. and he was a dear friend, and the two of us would often talk about our fears and we would list them. and leslie as lists were always far more entertaining than mine. he would say bumblebees, electrical tape, straight man man. maybe this book just got banned. florida. i sure hope so. you, leslie, would love that. but we would openly discuss our fears only to realize that very few of them were things that we were faced with in that moment. you know, leslie didn't count as a straight man, which i always took as a compliment. but here is an excerpt from book. but then i closed eyes again. i that my brain can be noisy and

my thoughts are sometimes. and then i that all that noise and all those thoughts are just in my head. i'm not being eaten by. a robot shark. my toilet isn't overflowing with. and thank goodness there isn't a dentist in sight as far as i can tell, the world hasn't popped into a piece. popcorn. my friend is still here and i'm not falling from cloud right now. everything is okay. and so am i. good night. thoughts? good night. what are the fears that our children carry around them? what? the thoughts that keep them up at night. it's the books that we as parents as educators as librarians read to them, that

initiate these essential conversations. i'm so to be here this weekend, celebrate the possibility those conversations and to celebrate the incredible work of so many and to celebrate all of it with all you. thank you so much for having me. and book tv's of the 2024 national book festival continues. good afternoon and welcome to the 24th annual library of congress national festival, a place where books build us up. i am beatriz haspel, head of logistics of the library of national library services for

the blind and disabled. it is a pleasure to welcome all of you here today. and at this time, we ask you that you turn off or silence your devices and cell phones if you need to leave the premises before the end of the session. the right the door on the right is the exit. so are the nearest restrooms. we want also to notify you that this event will be recorded and. your entry in presence at program constitutes consent to be filmed, otherwise recorded. there will be time at the end for questions and the microphones are here upfront. and then let's move on to our program. it is a pleasure and i'm very happy to introduce max both a historian, bestselling author and foreign policy analyst. he's the jean j.

kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the council on foreign relations and a weekly columnist at the washington post. his new biography is titled reagan his life and legend. he will be in conversation with david rubenstein, who is the of the national book festival and an original signer, the giving pledge. is also a recipient of carnegie medal of philanthropy and the museum of modern david rockefeller award. his latest book, the highest calling conversate on the american presidency, is featured at this year's festival. i hope you enjoyed the festival and let us welcome them to. our stage. so i enjoyed reading your book. how long did it take you to write the book? ten years. the reagan administration?

eight years. so it took you two years longer to write the book than the reagan administration? alas, as i write, it was not a fly by night project. i think you can say that for sure. so it was it was family cooperating with you in any way. yeah. i mean, primarily patty and ron, two of the kids were very cooperative and very helpful. and actually read the book already and and gave it a thumbs up. i was very happy to see. really. okay. so ronald reagan is somebody that was very worried, his own legacy in some respects, or maybe his family was. and so had a biographer, edmund, who for the last year and a half or so was embedded into the reagan white house and administration. right. most to write a biography of reagan, whatever happened to that. why did that not work? well, edmund morris had on had access to reagan administration. and i think you can say he basically blew it and produced a

volume that was had some interesting research in it and was well written in. but it was basically to the word of the hour, it was kind of weird because he inserted into reagan's life as a fictional and that kind of compromised historical integrity of the entire project. so what is the biggest surprise to you about ronald that you learned as a result of doing all the research? i think the biggest surprise was that reagan was actually more pragmatic than people and it was his reputation as being that of a conservative firebrand, an ideologue. and he was very ideological. and i show in the book that in some ways he was actually probably more ideological than lot of people realized, repeating conspiracy theories and some outlandish rhetoric, especially in the early sixties. but the surprise about reagan that he didn't act on that sometimes extreme campaign when he became governor of california in 1967 or when he became

president of the united states in 1981, he actually veered to the center, as you know, signing more tax increases and tax cuts. governor of california, he signed most liberal abortion law in the country, one of the toughest gun control bills, the country. and as he was able work with democrats whether it was jesse unruh, the powerful speaker, the california assembly or tip o'neill the powerful speaker of the house, and then at the end of his, he was able to work with mikhail, which in some ways was the biggest surprise of all, because here was ronald reagan, who had spent his entire political as a staunch anti-communist as a critic of detente, calling out the, quote, evil empire. and yet he decided that gorbachev was somebody he could do business with and became very friendly with. and together they worked together to end the cold war. that is not something i think anybody ought to expected of a hard line conservative like ronald reagan. now, many people who come to

power in washington are obsessed with it as young men or women. he doesn't seem to be particularly obsessed with washington political life. how did he go from being a radio announcer in iowa to, an actor, and why was he considered b actor? why wasn't he an actor or in some ways, the key event of ronald reagan's life occurred in 1932, when a new ward was opening up in dixon, illinois, his home town, and they were for somebody to run their sporting goods for 1250 a week and, you know, 1250 a week at the height of the depression, ronald had just graduated from eureka college, didn't have job prospects. so he actually for that job and as a former school athlete, he might have gotten it. and if he gotten that job in 1932, that's probably the last anybody would ever heard of ronald reagan. he probably was when his whole life in dixon. but look, you know, unluckily for him or luckily for he didn't get that job some another guy got it. and so ronald reagan had to look elsewhere for a job in the midst of the great depression.

and he got into radio and probably in davenport, iowa, and in des moines. and he became. a very successful sportscaster, well known throughout the midwest for calling chicago cubs games among. and then in 1930. but you know he always had that desire at the back of his mind to get into acting because he had been an actor in high school and in college. it was something enjoyed. it was he was with that love of acting by his mother who was kind of a failed and frustrated. and so in 1937, he convinced his bosses at the radio station in moines to send him off the cubs on spring training to catalina island, off the coast of southern california. and while he was at, you know, he did one of his stands with the cubs doing spring training. he went to to hollywood and got a screen with warner brothers and. then he thought nothing was going to come of it. and, you know, they didn't say that we were going to hire you. and so he went back to des moines, assuming that nothing would ever happen. and then he got telegram saying, you're hired. and so 1937, he picks up and

moves from the midwest to the hollywood and he becomes, you know, fairly star top as a b-movie actor. one of many minor. you know role players on the warner stable. but by the eve of world war one, he world war two, rather, he was becoming, you know, a pretty, pretty good star for them, you know, only, you know, a notch two below earl flynn. and he in those days, he became the head of the screen guild and he was known as a fdr liberal democrat. what converted him from being an fdr liberal democrat to being a conservative republican? well, that's a great question. and that's another one of these myths that i think the book punctures the myth, which he created himself he often said this a million times, i didn't desert my party my party deserted me to suggest the democratic party had gone far off to the left. and so he had to become a republican. but the reality is he became he went to the right in the 1950s and early sixties when the

democratic party was pretty centrist. there was the party of sam rayburn, lyndon johnson, john f kennedy. guys were not some crazy left wingers. they were, you know, standing up to the soviets in the cuban missile crisis, troops to vietnam. they were actually pretty hawkish, pretty centrist. so it wasn't the democratic party. it was really ronald reagan. and moving to the right. and there a variety of reasons for that, including, you know, his battles with what he thought was a in resisting what he thought was a communist takeover of hollywood in the late forties, which i think was vastly exaggerated. but that's what his fbi contacts others were telling him. he was also aggrieved because he had to pay such high during world war two. and, you know top rates are up to 90% or something. and was making a lot of money. he didn't like that. he didn't like he didn't like that the federal government filed an antitrust decree which broke up the studio system so studios no longer own movie theaters. and as a result of that, became an unemployed actor. he was out of warner brothers and then finally, i think the

final piece of the puzzle was that he went to for general electric, and that was really he revived his career as pitchman for general electric in the 1950s. and ge, actually a very right wing corporation. its executives compared it to theology to that of the john birch society, and they actively proselytize their employees. and so as an employee of ge, he got this conservative literature to read and he had a lot of to read it because he hated to fly. so he would take the cross-country train from l.a. to new york, and he would be reading these right wing books and periodicals. and he basically converted himself through that, through that process. and so his career kind of came a dormant phase. he wasn't really getting that acting roles. and i think his agent him a job in as a emcee or less in las vegas to introduce some acts and so forth. but what led to run for governor of of california? where did he get that idea of. well, he was developing ambitions as he became more

political and as his acting career waned. and then he assumed a pretty high profile role in 1964 as a leading spokesman for barry goldwater. and in fact towards the end of the campaign, he gave this speech that was televised nationally, a time for choosing speech, which was this electrifying debut, the national stage. and a lot of republican ends when they were listening to ronald and barry goldwater speak on the same platform and they said, gosh, i wish goldwater spoke as well as because, you know, goldwater was, as i'm sure you remember, was very hard edged. he was not warm and cuddly guy. he knew what he believed. and he was going to shove it down your throat, whereas reagan, as a journalist said in the mid 1960s, his personality was like warm bath water. it was soothing. he could repeat the same as goldwater, but could deliver with a smile. he can make people like him and not feel threatened by him. and so after, you know, the goldwater campaign he started, you know, at running himself and

he thought that in 1966, pat brown, father of jerry brown, who was the two term governor of california, thought pat brown's popularity was waning and that pat brown would be vulnerable to a challenge. and in fact, that turned to be very accurate because he beat pat brown by a million votes. so he won 1966. and in 68, he makes a short campaign for president trying to beat the presumed nominee, richard nixon. was he really was that a half hearted effort? did he really think he could be president after two years as governor? it was somewhat halfhearted, for sure. but he did declare himself. he did try to he he did go around the country trying to stump up votes. but then when he and he didn't even come close, he basically pretended it had never happened he kind of went down the memory hole and he ever having really run for president in 1968 and said it was just like a few over fervent supporters. and i talked to one of his aides and he said i was shocked i mean, reagan and i were on the campaign together with going around the country to get votes.

how could you forget that this happened? but he tended to rewrite history the way he it to be, not the way it actually happened. so he serves two terms as governor and then he decides to run president again in 1976 against the incumbent republican, gerald ford. and he came very to beating him. that he expected he would actually have a chance to beat. ford and how come he didn't actually the nomination, though he came close, he did expect to beat ford. i mean, what was what was really in reagan's mind was he thought that in 1976, richard nixon would be completing a second term of office and leaving office. and he thought that he, ronald reagan, would be the natural to -- nixon and. so he didn't he was a staunch supporter, never imagined that nixon would be forced to resign because watergate. and so he was shocked ford became president. and he did not have a lot of respect for jerry ford. he viewed as kind of an accidental president. he thought the job should really be his.

and of course jerry ford didn't have a lot of respect for ronald reagan either. and so that set up this bruising primary battle which went on almost the way to the convention. and reagan came pretty close. but you know, he also came close to a very humiliating defeat. and he if he had lost the carolina primary, he probably have been out of the race early on and may have been able to run again in 1980. but he was and in the south carolina primary, jesse helms and his political north carolina north carolina sorry, by jesse helms and, his political machine and so as a result of that, he did very well in the south and came very close to ford. so he said the ford at the convention in 1976. i support you i'm going to campaign for you in ford a lot of support from reagan in that campaign he got some i say a lot ford was kind of aggrieved afterwards that he thought that reagan didn't do enough for him. right. so carter's president and reagan, he deciding he's going to run for president again

regardless of how carter performs or he he didn't like how carter was doing any energized his campaign and a 78, 80, 79, i think he he was looking to run. i don't, i probably had not made a decision right away. that was kind of surprising because know, he was getting into his seventies at that point. not a lot of you know, not a lot of people thought that he would be running, you know, at an advanced age. but he was convinced could do it. and then, of course, once carter, you know, ran into all of his problems with the iran hostage crisis, with the economic woes that created a massive opening. and so a lot of republicans were lining up to run against reagan was 69 when he was running an age that was then considered old. now be young to be president. right. he'd be heavyweight young to be president. he's going to be president. so when he was running 1980 against carter, it was widely thought that reagan was a nice guy, not that substantive. and was thought that maybe if he had ford as, vice president ford

could give him some experience. and whose idea was that? and was that ford pushing that idea? was it reagan's idea, and why did it not actually happen? i think it was a lot of republicans pushing that idea who were kind of nervous reagan and didn't think that he was really up to job. and so it was really people like henry kissinger and alan greenspan who were close to ford, who i think are the primary movers and shakers behind that. and it actually came pretty close to happening. but then it kind of fell at the last minute. one on the floor of the convention walter cronkite was interviewing gerald ford. and cronkite said, well, so if you're the running, this would be kind of a co-presidency, right and ford sort of agreed with that. and reagan was watching us in his in his hotel suite. he was shocked because he wasn't signing for a co-presidency. and so that pretty much the end of that. then why did he call george herbert walker bush, who called his economic program voodoo economics? why didn't he offer him the vice presidency? well, because reagan was the ultimate pragmatist and he wanted to do what was necessary to successful.

and his aides were telling him that after ford, bush was by far the best choice to unify the party and reassure people about reagan, bush had, you know, washington that reagan liked. so he was he was you know, he was willing to put ideology and litmus tests aside and do what he thought made, give him the best of winning. and that was it. so runs against he gets the nomination he brings bush in as his vice president has one debate for carter with carter, the week before the election. and he is seen as having won that debate. there you go again. now, the famous. there you go again. what he was saying, as i recall, was something carter had said. but what carter had said, it turns out, was actually factually accurate. that's not it was i mean, i write about this in the book was it's it's kind of amazing. there you go again. was one of these killer lines because it fed into this popular conception at the time that the media was feeding that carter was kind of mean because carter had this reputation for being kind of a goody goody. but the media was trying to get across that. no, he was actually others mean

streak and reagan was kind of playing off of that because on the debate stage, carter said, you know, governor opposed medicare, which was he did oppose medicare. not only did he medicare and medicaid, he said that were socialized medicine and and passing medicare and medicaid would lead to the total loss of all freedom in, the united states. i mean that is a documented that he said all of that but what you know reagan's killer reply was there you go again then he denied that he had opposed medicaid, saying that he had supported an alternative bill that was just as good, which was not true because the bill would have covered about one or 2% of seniors in this country. not all of them. so it was completely false. and yet he got away with it. it was a it was a great line. it was a killer line that that is a remember today. so reagan won overwhelmingly overwhelming election and why did he pick jim baker who had not been part of his club close supporters in? california was not really that

well known to reagan. did he pick reagan? why did he pick jim to be his chief of staff? well, in some ways picking jim baker, i would argue, was the most important decision his entire presidency. and it was a sign again, why picking baker's best friend, george bush as vice again, it was a sign of how reagan was, because as you said, baker had no relationship. reagan and far from having a relationship with them, he had worked against reagan twice in 76 and 80 to try to deny him the nomination. and normally presidents do not. their opponents campaign manager as white house chief of staff. and so the assumption was he was going to appoint ed, who was his chief of staff in sacramento. but mike deaver and stu spencer, to reagan aides realize that meese was not organized enough, didn't understand enough, was not effective enough to be effective. white house chief of staff and they went to nancy reagan and. they went to ronald reagan and said, no, you know, i think you really should pick, see, see how you like this jim baker guy.

and reagan got along with baker and the world by creating this troika of officials with baker as white house chief of staff. very quickly, he became by the most powerful official and in some ways the prime minister of the united states. and he was really responsible for a lot of the success of the first term. i would argue what was the nature of the ronald reagan nancy reagan relationship? an intense early close marriage and she did he rely on her for personnel advice and things like that? it was a wonderful love story. and, you know, sitting at the reagan library could go through box after of of of letters and of holiday cards that that ronald reagan sent to reagan. you know, every every valentine's day, every birthday, every thanksgiving, every christmas, every new year. how much loved her. very, very sweet to read. and you know what? he was a wife. she was away for even a few days. he would be writing in his diary how desperately he missed her. and so had a very close bond. but it wasn't.

and and, of course, their marriage was primarily about love. and in a way that almost made even their kids like they were left out because she really his top priority but she was also a very effective political partner for him although she did not and want to again this is another myth. some suggest that she pushed him to the or she pushed him into politics. neither of that is true, as far as i can tell. nancy didn't really have any political belief. she didn't really have much political ambition. but what she wanted was whatever was the best for her, ronnie, and she understood that her husband wanted to be in politics. so she was going to be make that as successful as possible. and she was you know, she was kind of one of his aides described her to me as of the chief personnel officer of reagan inc. she would hire and fire. she very suspicious. she would look out for interest where he was so optimistic sunny, almost pollyannish that he never imagined anybody could be doing anything wrong. she always assumed that somebody was doing wrong and would ferret out. so what would you say is the biggest accomplishment he had in his first four years as

president? well, i think the accomplishment in his first four years was probably, you know, reviving the economy, although and the armed forces, although on economy side, i think you have to say that paul volcker probably deserved more credit than reagan because. it was volcker who, you know, took inflation out of the economy and that the economic rebound in 1984. but, you know, i think that reagan did play an important role in kind of reviving people's spirit and reviving their faith in america after all the turmoil and troubles of the 1970s. so reagan was going to run for reelection. he's running for reelection at the age of i guess he was 73 or four when he running for reelection. so he's running against mondale. he thought he was going to run against mondale mondale, got the nomination after beating off gary hart. why did that election turn to be such a landslide? well because reagan could plausibly proclaim it was morning in america because he got very lucky that the very severe recession hit the country

from 81 to 83 was over and we were entering a very strong period of economic recovery. i think the economic growth rate in 84 was something like 7%. and of course it declined in the next few years. but it hit this post-recession and he was basically able to advantage of that. and, you know, he pulled u.s. troops out of lebanon after disastrous bombing in the marine in beirut. and in 1983. so we weren't involved in any wars anywhere. and he could plausibly argue that he had brought back peace and prosperity. and he has a debate with mondale in that campaign where he has another famous line which also you could say is a little disingenuous us in some respects. and what was that famous line? well, there were two you know, he had these debates with mondale on the first one. he really screwed up not as badly as, you know, biden up, but he screwed up. and there was a lot talk that he was too old and he out of it and he couldn't be president. and all that kind of stuff. and so that was in the second debate. he got a question age where the baltimore sun correspondent

tried to ask they tried to approach the age issue delicately by saying, you know, during the cuban missile crisis, president had to go without sleep for 20 hours at a time. could you that at your age, mr. president. and, you know, reagan got a little smile on his face and said, you know, i will not use for political purposes my opponent's age and inexperience against him. and that was brought down the house. and even walter mondale to laugh. and he was later admitted that, even as he was laughing, he was understanding that the was over and that very instant, so many second terms have problems. the principal problem in the second term of reagan was iran-contra what was that and how did reagan manage escape that problem? well, i think the real problem in the second term began when jim baker, the white house chief of staff, and don regan, the treasury, decided it would be a good idea for them to switch jobs. and they presented as almost a fait accompli to reagan, a half an hour oval office meeting. he said, okay, sure, whatever. and so they did. and this turned out to be a disaster. don regan was, a horrible white

house chief of staff, as jim baker said to me, you know, don, like chief part of the title, but he didn't understand he was staff. you wanted to be the ceo of the united states because he had been ceo of merrill lynch before. so and he didn't have good political instincts. and as a result of things kind of went haywire in the iran-contra affair, which was an initiative started by reagan's national security advisor, bud mcfarlane, and to try to get hostages held by the iranians free. and this something the hostages, their fate of the hostages was something that really anguished reagan. he really was desperately worried. he wanted them home. and so but mcfarlane got, this bright idea of selling weapons, iran to get the hostages released and it worked for little bit, but then the iranians kept taking more hostages. so at the end of the day, it wasn't actually working. but then mcfarlane successor as his national security adviser, john poindexter and his aide, all of our north got another bright idea, which was to divert the profits from the sale of arms to iran to support the nicaraguan contras.

the the guerrilla fighters, even congress had forbidden the government from supporting the contras. and so this was inviolate of what was known as the boland amendment. and that is something that cut potentially gotten reagan impeached, except that poindexter said he never reagan. and so that was basically what saved reagan's presidency, because could plead ignorance of the diversion funds to the contras. when reagan was generally thought not to be paying as much attention to details. so you can credibly say, i didn't really exactly. you know, you could argue that he got into the iran-contra. i mean, think big picture. ronald reagan, great leader, but a poor manager, hands off manager, often didn't know what his aides doing. and so you could argue that the reason he got into the iran-contra affair in the first place was because he was a very poor, hands off manager. but the reason he survived the iran-contra affair was also because he was a very poor, hands off manager, because, you know, if -- nixon had said, i had no idea about the diversion nobody would have believed him. but when ronald reagan said it,

it was plausible so towards the end of the administration, there's a decision about who's going to be the next president. and his vice president, george herbert walker bush, is running for the nomination. it wasn't given to him. and why did reagan not endorse him right away? he has been serving loyally for years. why did he not endorse him? he had some reservations. well, first off, i would say that they they were not particularly close. you know, the bushes were never invited to the family quarters and eight years of the reagan presidency. barbara bush and nancy reagan really loads another, you know, george and ron got along better, but they were not certainly close personal friends. and i think, you know, reagan harbored some doubts as to whether bush was a skillful enough politician, whether he was tough enough to actually win the presidency. and so he was not going to short circuit the primary process. he did not endorse bush until it was apparent he was going to be the nominee. it is said that when they first got together and were going to

run in the 1980 convention, that mrs. reagan said to mrs. bush, you know, you should lose some weight and dye your hair. any truth to that. it's it's i don't know, but it's plausible they they didn't they sent to not get along. okay. it was kind of interesting because again, nancy was was a very different personality type from her husband. and her husband got along with pretty much everybody, including george bush, including mikhail gorbachev. and nancy had these famous feuds with bush as well as with rice, gorbachev. so was there any evidence that there was that reagan had alzheimer's was towards the end of his administration or that come subsequent? well, the diagnosis certainly came subsequently. the hard question to answer is, did he have alzheimer's when he was already in office? and i actually asked one of his alzheimer's doctors that very question. and the answer i got was that he certainly the precursors of of alzheimer's, the plaques in the walls that cause alzheimer's, those were certainly present in his brain when he was president.

but that doesn't mean that he had dementia. i would say he the the evidence suggests he did not. i mean if you look at the handwriting, for example, in his diary, it was pretty clear and legible from the beginning to the end of his presidency. but there was you know, you could tell there was a natural slowing down in the second term as he was getting up well into his seventies and his aides noticed that he was not as involved in his second term and doing things like rewriting speeches, other things that he had done much more of in his first term. he was slowing down, but it's it's almost impossible to distinguish the impact of that at a very early of the impact of alzheimer's from, just the normal aging process of somebody who's in their late seventies, who almost died in 1981, was shot, lost a lot of blood. so he'd been through a lot of talk or i to go through that and march of his first year in office, he's shot by john hinckley. and at the time people said, well, he wasn't coming close to death. it okay, not a big problem. but now we know he came very close to death. is that right? he but it was really i titled chapter on the shooting finest hour because was really his

finest hour. and that was when he really cemented his bond with the american people because he showed unbelievable grace in the most adverse as he was literally at death's door. he was joking around, he was telling nancy reagan. honey, i forgot to duck. he telling his doctors as they were about to operate on him. i hope you're all republicans. you know, when when when people heard that, i think it established kind of a personal bond between the president and the public that had not been there before. now, when he left office was criticized for making too much money, some speeches and so forth. but we were million dollars in speeches in japan, which seemed like a lot of money at the time, was a lot today. what would you say is the main thing he post president was to get his library off the ground and now the popular presidential library. what would you say he accomplished, if anything, post president? well, he didn't have a lot of time post-presidency because he left the presidency in 1989. he was diagnosed with

alzheimer's in 1994. and i think, you know, his real accomplishment post-presidency, anything he did, it was what happened in the world? because, you know, the berlin fell, the soviet union collapsed. then a lot of people gave him a lot of credit for that. so his historical record, you know, went up dramatically. he left office. so he considered very conservative when he came on the political scene. but today in the republican, would he be considered a moderate or a centrist or not conservative enough? i think today he would probably be considered a rino. republican name only. i mean, remember, this was guy who, you know, in 1986 signed the simpson-mazzoli act which legalized millions of undocumented immigrants there was what would today be called an amnesty bill. and that was something he signed. he also advocate hated eliminating the border between the us and mexico and creating what became as the north american free trade agreement. these are all things that are anathema, i think to most republicans today. reagan had four children with his first wife, jane wyman. he had a daughter, then he had

an adopted son with jane wyman, and then he had two children with nancy. right. what was his relationship with those four children? it pretty distant because he really had a distant relationship with almost everybody except for nancy. i mean. i talked to his kids about that and their view is he was they liked him and they still like him. he was a very genial, likable guy, just he was on the campaign trail, but they didn't see a lot of him because, you know, a lot of the time, the fifties and early sixties, he was out touring the country on behalf of ge. so then he would come home for a weekend. they would go out to his ranch, which in those days was located in malibu, and they would really enjoy hanging out with their dad. but then he leave again. it would really be nancy, who was them. and he was also, by the way, very conflict averse. he didn't want to dig deep into into personality conflicts. he wanted to avoid them as much as possible. and so he often didn't know what was really going on with. and he kind of wanted to avoid hard conversations. i guess i would say.

so he often didn't really know what was going on with his kids, even when, you know, maureen had, an abusive first husband or patty was struggling with some addiction issues or. you know, michael, as he later revealed, had been as a as a boy. these are all things that ronald reagan didn't learn until many decades after the fact. so reagan had, a better situation than you or i with respect to hair. he had a lot of dark hair was that dark hair that was that died or was that just natural? well, always denied a dye job. but i think there was some suspicion that he wasn't being entirely forthcoming there that could. kitty kelley certainly argued that nancy reagan's stylist had been secretly touching up his his hair. but i think he did have pretty naturally, you know, dark hair. so what would you like most people to remember about ronald reagan? well, i think that i would like them to remember he was a complicated personality that, you know, he was often accused

of simplistic views, but he certainly was not a simple man. and was there was a lot more to him than it appeared to be on the surface, including things like i just pointed out, the fact that he was so conflict averse and person which you would not expect from somebody who said, mr. gorbachev tear down this wall so he could be very confrontational politically, but not very confrontational at all in his personal. and that's you know, he was actually in many ways kind of a shy introvert, a person who he was a shy introvert person whose idea of good time was sitting inin front of the tv watching bonanza. he didn't want to hobnob with people.nt he would have made a good hermit which you would not expect from someone who is so seemingly so gregarious and outgoing.wa i think there's lot more to ronald reagan than meets the eye. >> we discovered your entire book in 30 minutes. >> an amazing achievement. where great interviewer. >> why should someone want to

buy r this book and why don't yu give isll that reason before you have questions from the audience. >> although you've done an amazing job of covering a lot of ground in 30 minutes i can attest there's a lot more in this book is a pretty interesting story. >> i read the book and i read every major reagan biography. and there were lot of things americans now. i'd highly recommend it for anyone who wants to knowow more about the president. who has questions quick standup here and ask a question hopefully not a statement. >> you pointed out sandra day o'connor on the supreme court. was that a legacy or history what was the thinking behind that process?hink >> in 1980 he was doing better with men than women and stu spencer suggested one way to rectify that would be to appoint

a woman to the supreme court which he did in some right-wing opposition to sandra day o'connor and some hard-core antiabortion activists who were opposed to her nomination because they thought rightly she wouldn't overturn roe v. wade. that was in his. he cared about having a justice that would not release criminals. he met sandra day o'connor and love talking to her growing up on a ranch in writing books and her passions. it was a done deal once he met sandra day o'connor. >> reagan is a communicator wrote a time for choosing an part of it was his public voice in his presence so how much of that was him and how much was

him as a writer? ronald reagan was an expert speech giver long before he had in a speechwriters in the 50s and 60s when he was writing his own speeches and he had theseno index cord -- index cars in his school of politics is working for general electric. he went from plantla to plant across the country and he would give a stump speech and speak not just about the company issues but also political issues and he was always writing down facts and he would shuffle his cart around and give speeches. again stu spencer he was one of my best interviews and somebody who knew reagan better than anybody going back to the 1960s. he was one of the great political consultants of history even though he hasn't written a book but he said to me reagan was one of the best speechwriters he ever met and not just the best speech giver

but the best speechwriter. having grown up working in radio he understood how to write the people for thee way they hear . he was brilliant at communicating orally whether speeches radio or television he was good at all of them. >> what license for reagan's presidency should americans take from it? >> gosh their a lot of them. oneig big lesson is he was inspirational enough and a large part of his success was the way he saw america as a shining city on the hill and inspired americans after the disasters of the 1970s. the so he shows why it's so important for the presidency to be an inspirational communicator but also as we were discussing the reagan presidency offers a

cautionary tale about what happened to the president. there were lot of scandals that he was completely unaware of and he got the big things right especially the relations with a soviet units but there were othersotne in at 11 and things t did not work out so well because he wasn't attuned to those issues and wasn't involved in the nitty-gritty. there was an lot of personality conflict with the administration of caspar weinberger and secretary of state shultz couldn't stand one another and they were constantly goingso att and he would not sort out their disagreements. he was often a policy model -- a policy model. the cautionary tale is the president needs to be able to manage the government.

>> at the risk over going overstep the youth gone over a lot i want to goar into the labr drift through the 60s from a person who is not only a democrat but a union person he must have had somead fairly strg democratic leaning beliefs in thoseha years and had to get rid of themme somehow mentioned the huge influence of the ge times. he was also somewhat beholden i guess to them so are there any other sources of information or influenced that would help them explain that and did he get mostly an economic view of conservatism from ge versus a

social political view or an oath? >> probably some of both but more on the economic side. he became a staunch anti-communist in the years after world warea ii when he was in the screen actors guild. he battled what he felt was the communist takeover hollywood but in fact he was just a standard labor dispute with one that was embedded with the studios and the other there was more radical and was as a quote unquote red union. he believed that was something the fbi and others were telling him so he became an ardent anti-communist in the early 40s and late 50's. he became more of an economic conservative in the 1950s as a result of his work for ge where he was reading the national view and national events and high activities authors recommended by ge. by the early 1960s he was part

of the right who described himself a 1930s as a deal to her whose hero is franklin delano roosevelt. >> on the nixon tapes reagan was causing conversation with president nixon using derogatory words language. and correct me if i'm wrong he was opposed to the 1964 civil rights i act. whatwhat do you have on ronald reagan's views on race relations? >> ronald reagan said i'm a capable of inside the fact that his parents taught him not to be and i think there's a lot of truth that and it's certainly true when you talk to his kid they will tell you he raised them to avoid. i think it's also true he yet along political record of utilizing backlash politics for his own political advantage. he became governor in 1966 in

part by running on the backlash against the riots which terrified people and deposing the fair housing act which was along california prohibiting discrimination in rental housing and as you rightly said he opposed the 1964 civil rights act and opposed the 1965 voting rights act. he regularly played to backlash politics talking about law and order in talking about welfare queens and in 1980 and famously went to a state fair in mississippi and talked about states rights near site where 1964 the civil rights word -- and the slur you referred to on the nixon library was probably an aberration. i have asked people who knew him very well and theyt were honest and i asked if he uses language in private and they said no. he may have just been playing up

to richard nixon but it was disturbing to hear that and it's an indication he was not as colorblind as hehe claimed to b. whatever he said in private he had the political record of catering to spheres of civil rights and certainly one of the things that half the weighton ad balance under his presidency. time for one more question here and there and then we are done. >> he a decade writing this book and its two months before you go to the polls. [inaudible] >> it wasn't written to be released in thei poke political season but i started up more than 10 years ago and the only thing anybody knew about called trump is that he hosted a show called the apprentice so wasn't designed to have the potable impact and it's still not.

it's providing a balance and objective of ronnell reagan's life. ronald reagan was a different republican president from donald trump and the differences are pretty evident and apparent. it's a reminder of how the republican party has changed in our lifetime. it's maybe perhaps an idea that politics might change in the future. when ronald reagan came along peoplewa said reagan was moving the republican party to the right and that's how things have changed over the course of the last 40 years. >> i'mwi british and is it right that reagan played a role in the evangelical christian --

>> yes he certainly appeal to evangelical christians and worked with the majority that the groups that were a political force in the u.s. in late 70s and early 80s. reagan himself although he was certainly religious personally he would not ostentatiously religious. he didn't wearar his religion on his sleep and didn't go to church often but he made an active outreach to evangelicals and that was a big part of his base. he came out after having signed a liberal abortion laww in california he came out as an opponent of abortion but it was always kind of support for social issues is carefully balanced. he said to reagan when they were walking out one day he said mr. president i know know you

feel strongly about abortion. why don't you do more about that and make it more finishing reagan's reply was well you know the president has the pick and choose his battles and they are other issues i'm more focused on. he nevere prioritized social issues but that was part of his coalition. let me givecl you one reagan sty to conclude the ronald reagan issue now was an actor but not a leading actor. toward the end of his acting career they were trying to get other things for him to do in the las vegas at the mentioned earlier. anyway he got into politics and so forth and when he became president and i think there was an issue that all of the hollywood studios were against something called the fins and rule. the studios were upset with what the federal committee occasions commission chairman mark fowler was trying to do. it was a rule that was favorable to studios. one-day reagan is out in the

studio headsrg organized the meeting and they came into the oval office and they were waiting for reagan to come back. i think there were eight studio heads all of the most important people in hollywood are there and reagan comes in the oval office and he sees the money says wow if i would have gotten a meeting with any of you i would have still been in the motion picture business. he was one of the wittiest president's, that's for sure. >> thank you very much for this book and thank you for being here and thank you all. [applause] ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ and earlier today at the national book festival we sat down with author catherine ruth mccullough to talk about her book. here's that interview. we welcome to the tv author of the book. >> people aren'tn having enough to keep up the population. >> you and your receipt colleagues for this book interviewed 55 different women. who were they? these were women from all over the country most of the belong to churches and from the provo

valley texas. women who have had five or m moe children and did so because they thought it was a great way to live.u how did you find these women? >> we followed normal procedures for qualitative research and went to places where families go and we said we are looking for people who had large families intentionally and with if you'd like to tell us why he did so and what it means to you. the goal was to figure out who still having kids because all around the country birthratesbi are falling so we'd like to know isis that something that is part of the future or are there parts of the community and why are people me and? study?his a scientific >> absolutely. it's a scientific study and it's a representative study. statistical terms it's not useful for describing the kind of people and is statistically

precise term but we are now allowed about the kinds of people who have many children. we know they are more likely to be religious and more likely to come from communities that support families but what we wanted to do was to dive into the motive that people can have happen when does it look like for women who make those trade-offs given the cost reputationalat he. what we didn't want to do -- what we wanted to do was to understand. i have 10 children. cindy came down to a story of a fixed belief in the goodness of children in the goodness of children and an intrinsic sense that each child is h worth havig even ass conditions change towards more difficult. typically speaking that looks like a l kind of maybe an

old-fashioned biblical belief that children are blessing. to make you wrote 91 of mothers believe the character of the nation had suffered from this birth dearth. >> that n was not part of the gl ofud the study but some of that came out over time after after interviewing women. they reflected on a life that was completely devoted devoted devoted to having children. if you have five or six or 10 children you've been in it for 10, 15 or 20 years and they had all kinds of stories about how their children were affected by having several siblings so they easily talked about those things like what does it mean to always share a bedroom and always share your things and always share a meal because they thought we thinkwe their children are eager to share.

>> the book hannah's children the women quietly defying the birth dearth. who is hannah from the title of the book? >> this is the biblical hannah. after talking with almost 60 women in searching for a model allow the people suggested the title of the book having large families but what emerged from the data was much more picture of women who view children as blessing so theyey didn't demand children as a consumer good. these are people collecting kids that way so i thought what the right phrase that honors what i heard that calls to mind the sense of the blessings of the biblical hannah who is fair and and. at the temple for a child and of course you know the story today. it's quite the scandal. said she had children.

>> and many more after that. >> i went back and read the story and i thought she was a great image. >> the title of the book are you saying religion is the key factor in deciding whether they have zero or two or eight or 10 children? >> its importants factor. if you look around the world today you say where's the country that still have the stable populations that aren't shrinking you'd want to look at modern israel as a place where you have the greater -- modern israel as a secular state that you have a greater percentage of religious communities in israel so their birthrate is about three per woman. am i saying it's the only thing goingg forward? it kind of looks like that. >> how did the women you interviewed feel about birth control and also ivf and other procedures? >> this is a really interesting

feature of the data. i expected to find and i think many people would that these traditional religious communities a lot of people rejected birth control and in fact i found the majority of women i interviewed didn't reject birth control. in fact they use birth control to space their children when they needed to. their choice to have lots of children was much more of an intentional because i wanted to have lots of children rather than to use modern reproductive technology. >> what kinds of questions do women get wheny they let people know how many children they have? >> this is an amazing thing and it turns out a lot of times you get shocked questions in one of the most memorable ones until the book is the woman in thewa grocery store and a stranger came up to her sing her family and she said to her husband you should be -- most of the time

they told stories about questions. are these all yours and then why, why would she do this? they get these kinds of questions why did you do it and sometimes they say don't you know where babies come from? >> in you have your own story about questions that youen got. >> that's right. that was the origin of this book really was riding on a commuter rail i had my child with me on my chest and he was a newborn and a group of commuters asked if it was my first baby and it was common that people asked is it your first and i would say no he is sick and there was kind of annoys and she shot back and

said i guess her husband still wants you. i didn't know what to make of that. was this a tragic comment or was it a compliment of sorts? i wasn't sure but it got me thinking what does that mean and relationship between children and marital equality. >> of what you think of that comment now? >> i would say what they make of it is that we probably need to be asking the question about how children relate to marital equality. you can find so many articles that say havingth kids will be e death knell of your marriage. of course not all marriages work out well but whated i learned ad i intentionally asked everybody that having kids were in your marriage? what i heard was a lot of hopefulness. >> what about families who don't

have children? what iss your reaction to j.d. vance's comment about some calling some women childless. >> it was really unfortunate, yeah. titling this book. biblical hannah the difficulty is to describe the mindset in which children are wanted in this desired but not bought like a consumer good. we know that children, they don't come at our bidding so many people can't have children. the biblical hannah was and then blessed with children. i think the job here and what i discovered talking to women with a background of no faith at all some of them was it's possible

to describe a mindset which children are treasured and valued as a positive cool as good rather than to denigrate not having children. for everybody that i talk to is a positive way of live in the versus -- furthest thing from anybody's mind would be to denigrate people who made a different choice. >> on the childless witty comment and cr did a story following a centuries old story during the victorian era. why do you think that has such a long history x. >> about childhood -- about childless cat lady's? i think i think we might want to think about the history of how we think about human life and

for a long time we thought about the norm of human life of being of what adults were families. this was true in early america. a sociologist at johns hopkins explains in early america there were rules againstlo living aloe particularly single men were not supposed to live alone. is there something wrong with you? we know today that's not the norm so we are looking at a society where i think about half of adults are married with children as opposed to when i was a kid it would have been 70 or 80%. they think maybe part of what is goingg on there as we are tappig into this fear that t people hae that society won't be structured around that.

>> on the flipside of that coming back to the women you interviewed and within this country who have more than two children would did angela made when you interviewed her and she said children are the nature of the society we put all of our society and evil on something. how is it in this culture that we have chosen to have a child? >> what did she mean by that? maybe i can reach back a little bit to say we have this constant concern that economists have had for a long time concerned about overpopulation. when t people look and they say what about all these kids? we are going to ruin the planet and there'll be waves of destruction. britney spears are often placed on those that are not yet born.

in reality though we haven't come to a state of perilous overpopulation and i think to angela's point new children coming into the world haven't been the harbinger of destruction and as a matter fact children are sorts of hope. and a blessing. i think that's what she was getting a. but it's easy to worry. >> on that topic how much whatever families you talk to how much that was there about the cost of children and how much it will cost for seven, eight, 9, 10 children? >> ile talk to people of all income levels and that i think about it biblical outlook some

people think of children as a blessing and they think about it and i'm not going to say they don't think about it. i'veor heard stories about the t of women say they don't buy everything new for each child. their marginal cost. your house is set up for children so they think about it and talk about it and on the other hand generally speaking they haven't outlook of using old-fashioned language. it provides a reckless sense unexpected blessings the old each child arrives with a loaf of bread under the arm. if you weree to push the button and say how do you really know, there's not any answer to that question. you don't really know. it's an act of faith and it's an act of faith.

who hasn't said how is this going to work? there's an attitude towards risk so it's not that it isn't risky to have a third child. what rationalize that risk in the women i talk to was a firm sense of faith. >> who is carrying the book? >> she is someone i interviewed and she lives in the denvere area. she's expecting her 10th child. she grew up in a big family and knew she wanted the lot of children and not everybody interviewed grew up in the big family and some growth in small families but she wanted a big family so much she married her husband because he wanted a big family i even though they didn't have the same faith. when i talk to her she was about to have her 10th baby and she had gotten to the place where memorably she said after my

ninth baby i looked at my husband and i said how many more can we have? she highlighted. >> why was she asking that? >> was an expression of joy. the moment the baby was born i held her in my arms and i looked at my husband and i said how many more can we have? she describes something i heard from a lot limited who had these childrench which was a sense tht when you push through eight or nine kids the fears and anxieties aren't thereme anymor. if you are still having kids after six or seven it's working out well. in fact the adjustment to your lifestyle disappears and all the blessings takeover. when i had my first i worried about everything he was my

second i still regret everything and by the time i had my third eye was not as worried anymore. for her at this point wasn't just her and her husband that would enjoy the next baby but all of her other children in this whole community was expecting thisan baby. she was overwhelmed with the gift of that. it's a bit of a paradox. the ninth baby had to be harder to have. you are older. after nine she wanted to run out and have more. fromme of these women came smaller families and some came from larger families and was there anything demographically that you found? >> yeah demographically the only thing that united them was i call it the religious community. i'm using it because i don't have a lack of a better word.

the were traditionalists and some had full-time jobs. one work full-time in the other stayedt home. >> and not one specific t type f religion. >> not one specific type lds but they all belong to churches that were growing that were active in many of them went to church more than once a week. that was demographically the thing. there's an important job to be done given the falling birthrate. one of the things we need to do is we need to launch representative surveys looking at the question that who still having children but to my knowledge there is no large-scale number of people above the norm for the two child

norm is turning into onee child norm. >> did you end up figuring out the answers to the questions that you set up with going back to the mode on the train when you are asked about your six child was at? do you feel after hannah's children did assault the questions you have? >> yeah i do. i have a friend who has seven kids and he keeps asking me what did you learn? yorty had kids so you didn't learn anything i said well gosh i learned everything in this book. and you can do something you believe is good and you don't have worries for it. i didn't have words for it. i thought it was great. if you would have asked me when i had my six i would have said it was the best thing i was doing. i learned it's possible to

imagine a live in which you have more than the normal number for children because children sarin expression. children are a blessing. i didn't have words for that. so i think that's what i learned i've heard that from so many people. people say i have four or five kids and i never know what to say. and that the book is hannah's children at the women quietly defying the birth dearth and the author is catherine ruth pakaluk professor at the kastelic university of america. thank you for giving us the time to visit. good evening everyone.

how joyful it is to be together at the national book festival. we are going to celebrate the powerbooks to stir the imagination to foster empathy to propel action and to carry us lands away. having been in love with the libraries to the schoolgirl it's awesome to be in this building the mostfi magnificent buildingf libraries that i've ever seen. i love affair -- yea. [applause] my love affair with libraries began when my mother took me to a small public library in my hometown of rockville centre, new york a place that she told me would who pay a place that she could go to go to lands that she could never reach. with dramatic a child that left her with a severelyy damaged heart and her illness bounded to the houses and lipid shared books in every moment she defined in the middle of the night when she had trouble breathing the mornings after her

household chores were done in theer afternoon as she waded for my father to come home from work. her world was enriched. every night she would read to me as long as i could stay awake. the only joyat that surpasses hr reading a book to me was hearing stories about her childhood. i somehow became obsessed with the idea if i could keep her talking about the days when she was young and healthy her mind would control her body and her premature aging would be stopped in itspp tracks. through her stories i couldri imagine her as a younger playing hopscotch taking stairs to the time so i constantly said to her mom tell me a story about you when you were my m age. not realizinger how peculiar it was until i have my own three sons who said that. when i was 14 my mother suffered a stroke and after much rehabilitation she regained the use of her arms and legs with her speech remains hard for the

adopters said it would help if she could read about. finally there was something i could do that david copperfield from the library one of the favorite book she read to me as a child and i suggested we read alternatingap paragraphs. she hesitated at first embarrassed by her swearing. gradually she looked forward to their team as we settled down to read aloud for few f hours every day after school bringing us closer together than ever before but the toll of her illness proved too much of the following year she suffered a massive heart attack and died in her sleep. it's hard to realize she was part of my life for less than a decade and a half and the love of books and the love of libraries that she instilled in me has become the anthem of my life. the years that followed as is that on my vocation as a presidential historian i countless hours running around the country to all sorts s of libraries in the quest to bring to light the poor presence that i've studied more closely abrahan lincoln teddy roosevelt franklin roosevelt and lbj and

so manywi years with them waking up in the morning thinking about them when i go to bed i at night that i finally referred to them as my pals and my guys. it may seem an profession to spend time with presence were no longer live but i would change these adventures of the past for anything in the world. my only fear is my afterlife will be a panel of the studies and everything in the first person to speak up will be lind- johnson. why was that book twice as long as what you rowe about my the adventures that i have taken with my presidents, none compare with the great adventure i shared with my late husband, -- goodwin. when he finally decided to open the three boxes he had schlepped around with us for 40 years. boxes that proved to be a spectacular time capsule of the 1960s, a decade -- seemed to be a zelig like figure present at defining moments with all the major characters jfk, jack and kennedy, lbj, senator eugene

mccarthy and robert kennedy. for 40 years, -- had been wary opening these boxes because the violence at the end of the decade had cast a dark curtain on the era. he wanted only to look not to go backward, but when he turned 80, he finally realized, he said, coming down the steps one day that if i had any wisdom to dispense, i better start dispensing quickly. so we resolved to spend every weekend together going through the boxes in chronological order, reliving the sixties week by week, year by year, suspending knowledge of what was coming next, knowing only what the people at the time knew something the historian barbara tuchman taught me when i was a young historian. and as we relived the heady days of jfk his 1960 campaign, the inauguration, the birth of the peace corps, the civil rights movement and the march on washington before jfk assassination, and then the explosion of great legislation under lbj, civil rights, voting rights, fair housing, medicare, medicaid, aid to education, npr,

pbs, and much, much more. before the escalation of the vietnam war, -- finally began to realize that the defining mark of the decade was not the violence and the assassinations, but rather the power of the citizens and having the conviction that they did, they could make a difference. this was the belief that inspired tens of thousands to join the peace corps, to participate sit ins, freedom rides, marches against segregation and the denial of the vote to launch the women's movement and the gay rights movement movements that fired conscience of the country and brought longest systems of discrimination. tumbling down in the middle of our project. -- was diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life a year later. one day, as he looked wistfully at the train of boxes that were still left. he asked, who would you bet on me or the boxes? who will be finished? but throughout that final year, the prospect of a book based on the boxes gave him a sense of purpose. it made him excited to wake up

every day and work as long as he could. i realize now that we were both in the grip of a fantasy, maintaining the enchanting thought that so long as we were still working on the project, learning, laughing and, exploring the boxes. his life, my life, our lives together would continue. if a talisman is an object thought to have magical powers and to bring luck or potential book was our talisman. and so it has remained for even after -- died. as i started once more the project we had together. i found myself talking with him every day, asking him questions, even though he no longer answered. and here i am at 81 years old, having just completed a three month book tour in 30 cities where i talked about him for hours. every single day. oh, how happy that would have him. and happy this made me for it has kept him alive. that is the power of history. that is the power of books. and how inspired -- would feel as i do today, that there is in

the air right now a renewed optimism reminiscent of the 1960s. the spirit ignited the conscience of our country for if the conscience of our people can be ignited once more than, a better future, a more compassionate, a more just future for our troubled country, will once be within our grasp. i am so glad i was having the chance. give these thoughts to you tonight. thank you. thank you. and we'll return to our live coverage of the national book festival in [applause] here's a look at last night's opening ceremony held at the library of congress. >> i want to make sure i brought my own little clock okay?

thank you so much doris. i want to begin with two names. it's such an emotional trip for me to be here a trajectory that goes back to the two individuals who were pushed out of mexico during the mexicanin civil war. they were farmworkers to work the land with wasn't there and they had to leave because of the violence that was happening in the state where i now live 100 kilometers from my hamlet that they fled to never turn to. every time i come to this library i think of josé cordero and philippe my ancestors who could not be here. if i had stayed in mexico and they have not braved the journey that took him across texas to

arizona and kansas and settling here i would not be here today. and i want to begin by thanking them. i live in mexico and i know girls from the countryside when they get to be m my age this is their library. and a little cloth to rap the tortillas and would be my library if they hadn't had the courage as many immigrants during violent times to arrive and to not learn how to read until they were elders. so it's very emotional for me to bebe here. libraries are sacred churches to me and places for worshiping thoughts and imagination. this morning i met a hard-working uber driver who delivered me to logan airport so i could get here but they talked

about the difficult times especially for immigrants today. he was filled with hope and his hope inspires me. he said that good outnumber the bad. i met christina at a pizza counter at logan airport he treated me with kindness and care and convince me that it's true. i want to thank the library and library and for being good. their courage especially now in thisecy era fear in so many bos are being asked to be removed from libraries including my own the house on mango street because of citizens who are afraid to hear voices unlike their own. i was once an 11-year-old girl

who never spoke in class. i never raised my hand. i'm still that 11-year-old girl underneath the 69 years that i am today. i wonder about other little girls who are not given permission to speak because they can imagine anyone would want to hear from them. they can imagine that their lives count. the house on mango street is in its 40th year publication of the summer i on the premiere of the opera adaptation with composer and with a book taught me is this, whatever we create with love on the half of those we love, whatever we create with no personal agenda on behalf of those we love you will always turn out well. this is the law of the universe that i'm convinced that so tonight i want to thank people that allowed me to make that

journey from ancestors to bee here today with so much emotion. it makes me feel like crying when i come in here but i think after carla hayden and david and rubenstein and clay smith [applause] and my mother who love libraries and taught her children to love them too by taking us to the library every saturday where she took out opera records and that instilled in me a love of opera. also my father an immigrant and honest labor and a world war iid vet. my publisher and literary mentor with great gwendolyn brooks, the great literary mentor in my literary agent susan burkle and

bernstein. andpa maria for the journey thas brought me here today but i believe human beings are capable ofof atrocities beyond imaginatn but they are equally capable of extraordinary acts as well. i believe there's enough in the world but also humanity, just a bit more i believe. they believe in the power of the thought the word to change the world and i believe in libraries. i believe in human b.. the good outnumber the bad. thank you so much. [applause] the tvs coverage of the 2024 national book festival continues now.

>> good evening and welcome to the 24th annual library of congress national book festival and thank you for being here. it's wonderful. [applause] it's a place for books. i'm head of the logistics of the library of congress. it is a pleasure to welcome all of you here today but at this time to ask you to turn off her silence your cellphones to if you need to leave the door on the right is the exit. went want to notify you that ths event is recorded and it will be

filmed or other is reported. there'll be time for the microphones to appear in the aisles. here and here, and also c-span. now they have a wonderful team. our program, our last event of the evening is words matter politicians on, the page. jeff broten and lozano from is the president and ceo of the constitution center and a professor of law at george washington university law

school. previous include the seller conversation, rpg, justice ruth bader ginsburg on life law library and law. and today we'll talk about his new book, the pursuit of happiness how classical writers on virtue the lives of poets and find america. other an opinion columnist at the new york times has won pulitzer prize and the national critics circle citation excellence and reviewing his new book is the washington book how to politics and politicians. maureen, discussion is not sotomayor who covered the joe biden 2020 campaign and congress for abc news and is currently covering the u.s. of

representatives for the washington post. i hope a session and let's walk them them or stage. good evening. thank you so much for being here this a great turnout to talk about such an topic. i mean i can't even begin to explain how grateful i am to be sitting here writing this. your know your work for a long time and reading these books together. i recommend doing so because you just learn so much from the earliest days. i to the politician that we have come to learn a lot about. i want to to ask both of you, what inspired you to write this, jack? there are many words in the constitution and you chose the pursuit of happiness. what made you want to know what those words honor to be?

first of all, what an inspiring event. and be here with. honor. so was a series of unexpected synchronicities led me to try to read the classical moral philosophy that inspired the founders when they wrote that famous phrase, the pursuit of happiness. it was during covid, and i it was during covid's and i noticed both president franklin and thomas jefferson had chosen as the core definition of happiness above by cicero i'd never heard of called the tusk u.n. dissertation when jefferson was old and asked him what was the meaning of happiness he'd offer this book in the definition from cicero of happiness had to do with virtue. cicero said he achieved the tranquility of the mind either unduly exuberant or unusually despondent. he achieved a virtue ande th a m tranquility of the soul of a

happy man. i saw franklin when he came up withlihe the list 13 virtues for daily living also chose this cicero book and a mop up the set without virtue happiness cannot be. i thought i had to read this cicero book and then i found this golden reading was that jefferson was sent to anyone who asked him when he was old how to be an educated person. it's a marvelous list of literature and political philosophy and history and law. jefferson includes not only what to read that the time of day you to read it in you to get up early before sunrise and read moral philosophy for two hours and then you can read political philosophy have lunch in science and astronomy and then dinner and then your love of shakespeare and poetry and up the next morning before dawn seven days a week, 12 hours a2 day. i saw the list of the philosophy of the books and it was cicero's

dissertations are and marks enlightenment philosophers. basically i felt i had to read the books because there's a gap in my education. there is a marvel -- marvelous teachers who inspired me to learn about political philosophy history in the i missed these books. so during covid's i got up every morning before don and i read for two hours i watched the sunrisene which is the most beautiful thing anyone can ever experience and people who are looking up to do that, separating these -- writing the sonnets to some of the wisdom that i've learned and i know it sounds incredibly. it turned a people and the founding area that wrote sonnets after reading this great literature including phillis wheatley the great poet and john quincy adams who as president would wake up in the white house read cicero.

and he would ride the sonnets. i did that for year and the whole project change my life. change what i thought about how to be good person how to be a good citizen and how to be a lifelong learner and what i've discovered for the founders happiness meant not only feeling good but the pursuit of long-term virtue. it's clarifying to see your task every day not as doing whatever feels good in the moment. self-improvement character proven to be your best self being a lifelong learner. that's what happened with all these great wisdom authorities from the east and the west and cut to the chase of these takeaways, it changed the way reed. i had gotten on behalf at the

reading outside of immediate deadline for the project i had to do and now i'm not always catching the event that i have a rule which is i'm not about to browse or surf until i've done my reading every day. it's amazing it will change your life. even a half-hour of reading books every day you learn and you grow as a journey of discovery. every, morning i want to go rit to the browsing of newspapers and jefferson said i have given up newspapers and i feel much better. newspapers are important and necessary for democracy and we'll talk about them. after read books before you do the newspapers a half-hour or an hour. i became an evangelist with a transformative power of deep breathing and it's meaningful to be here at the national book festival at our last event. here's to a life of reading.

[applause] and i think you for saying newspapers are important. they are crucial for democracy. >> you have read i don't even know how many pages of biker phase and you have read more congressional investigations reports and i will admit is ' hill reporter you have digested them why more than i have but what inspired you to ride back this book and i'm sure you publish so much. why did she choose the columns you have written? >> and a sauna in my books are completelyta accidental. that was so inspiring. this is done such a wonderful day. i have run into college friends here former students here and even the former swim coach of mine here. they are all here right now. so thank you and thank you do the book festival. i've been coming forea