subcommittee will hold a hearing on the national security strategy in space. live coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. eastern right here on c-span3. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. joining us next from new york city is princeton university history professor julian zelzer who has written "the presidency of barack obama, a first historical assessment." joining us this morning to talk about his brand-new book he

edited along with a number of other writers has just come out and we're welcoming the professor this morning. thanks for being with us. i want to ask you about the project that as we noted the first historical assessment of the obama administration, the eight years of the obama presidency. what initially got you going on the book and how did you bring together the various writers who were involved in it? >> i had done a book like this about george w. bush, his presidency when it came it an end, and i wanted to continue doing this and basically the idea was to move beyond the presidential rankings that we always have when a presidency ends and instead bring some of the brightest minds together. historians were not obama specialists, but they specialized on other issues, immigration, liberalism in america, foreign policy and have them write a chapter that puts this presidency in perspective. so they all wrote their first drafts and presented it at a little meeting we had in

princeton the week after the november election took place and that was -- that was the idea to really generate a first discussion about how this fits in the long history of our presidents and to open a conversation. >> your book is broken down into a dozen or so chapters. you not only edited, but wrote a couple of those chapters. tell us how you came upon how to divide up the topic areas. >> well, that's always difficult to do. inevitably you will leave some issues out, but i just took a look back at some of the major themes that move beyond the day to day politics of the obama administration, the themes that shaped all eight years and problems that the administration continued to go back to. one example is immigration which is on the table from day one and there's many attempts to deal

with that issue right through the end of his presidency. i wrote a chapter about his relationship with the conservative movement from congress, republicans in congress to the conservative madia which again, is not a theme that was important one day or two days of his presidency, but really i think impacted everything he could or could not do and another is his counter terrorism and how did he fit compared to what had happened under president bush. so all of them are really themes that occurred and that shaped the entirety of the eight years and rather than just a short wend o window of his presidency. >> you mentioned the book on george w. bush and another eight-year presidency, what were the takeaways from that in terms of what you should and shouldn't do in this new effort to -- to analyze, to write about the obama administration? >> well, it was useful when the

bush book was finished, there were a lot of very heated feelings in the country and in the room of contributors about the president, so i learned how to push back against the immediate feelings historians have simply as citizens and to get them to see the presidency in relation to the work they do on american history and that was difficult, but i think we were able to do it and that was very helpful with this one. this one was a little different in that there was a certain amount of shock and awe at the outcome of the election. most people weren't predicting that president trump would be the victor and even many of trump supporters. this was interesting in that the authors had written first drafts and then the context, the ending really changed dramatically and it forced the authors to rethink some of the assumptions they'd made and some of the storylines. >> we are joined by julian

zelzer, history professor and the assessment of president barack obama, brand new, the first historical assessment of the obama administration. we welcome you to the conversation. the lines to use for democrats 202-748-8000, and republican, 202-748-8001 and all others, 202-748-8002. how did you pull together the writers for this and avoid the pitfalls of talking about the obama administration legacy or getting into analyzing what that, quote, legacy may be? >> i think it's partly how i pick people. so when i pick authors i pick the brightest people i know. i also pick people who i know will produce their chapters, but i also want historians who don't necessarily think about the presidency that way, meaning primarily focused on what the

legacy will be or primarily focused on what's unprecedented or precedented, but really they come at the presidency through the lens of a bigger issue and as soon as a historian does that, i think it gets you out of that context. there is a great chapter, for example, by panil joseph, a historian of race relations and black power and how racism works and he tackles the question of what the obama administration tried to do and was able to accomplish and not able to accomplish during these years on the issue of institutional racism, and a historian like that won't necessarily come to it with the first question being what's the legacy and so that, i think, was the trick. >> you mentioned the challenges of the obama administration and a conservative congress and in the chapter tea partied about

congressional party and the book reads that obama could never figure out a way around the conservative forces in congress. the legislative branch had been the base of power for conservative republicans since the 1994 elections when the gop led by george and newt gingrich won control of the majority for the first time in 40 years. he could not figure out a way around it. do you think -- how do you think obama's efforts, and president trump's efforts in having relations with republicans in congress, how does that compare to, say, george w. bush who you wrote about? yeah, well, george w. bush obviously was a republican. so we live in an era of polarization where both parties have very little ability to work with the other side, but that also means that within a party there's often pretty good coherance and consistency in

what the president and the party members will do. obviously, the current presidency has turned out a little bit different, but certainly obama was dealing with division after 2010, first in the house and then in the senate, and i think he was dealing with a republican party that was not going to find much common ground, the kind of common ground that obama dreamt about in some ways in 2004 was just not going to happen so he was dealing with a pretty big institutional problem. he being play golf as much as he wanted with speaker boehner. he could schmooze if he wanted to, but it really wasn't going to move the congress. a lot of his presidency in 2010 forward is taking place in the context of very weak and tense executive congressional relations. >> we are talking with julian zelzer, the editor of the new

book "the presidency of barack obama." lots of calls are waiting and let's go to michigan to hear from brian on the independent line. >> yeah, hi. can you hear me? >> you are on the air. go ahead, brian. >> okay. anyway, i've been trying to find out some information going back to the term period 2009 and i'm hoping you can be helpful. we have the fbi and the uranium deal supposedly going down and for the first time in our history president obama did not appoint an inspector general at the state department you in that is alarming to me to know he had hillary in place with all these conflicts between the clinton foundation, hillary and it's really appalling when you have a state department when you have 300 under the inspector general's purview, and you have mueller in charge of the fbi and

then they have the board and none of this makes sense, sir. and i can't find any information through the computer system so i'm hoping you can help us out and find out why there was no inspector general at the state department that was confirmed under the obama administration for the first time in history and it was over four years and that's just alarming to me and what's alarming with all of the information that we can get through. the only information you can find is if you go into the archives of the channel meaning c-span. >> we'll get a response from professor zelzer. >> i think this is part of a kind of story that played very frequently while president trump was president and hillary clinton and the various scandals that surrounded her were front and center. i think there is plenty you can

read about the uranium deal which is discredited and many of the accusations that have been made and the basic storyline that has been made about it, so i would urge you to kind of do more reading, but this is not really a scandal that has many legs and a lot of the original stories about the clinton foundation and what was happening in the state department were coming from a particular, political perspective, and funneled off or supported by conservative outlets. so i just don't think that's really kind of central to what happened? >> let's hear from don next up, kalamazoo, michigan. >> good morning. i just have a couple of short things. i think that if you read the book that obama wrote before he ran for president dreams of my father, i think that will tell you as much about obama as anything you could read and i

was wondering about this guy, does he think that bush could have got the okay to go to iraq with troops, if clinton would have forced obama -- if they would have forced saddam to follow the weapons inspection program? i'm not quite sure on the question there, and i don't know if there was an alternative to the bush presidency in the use of force in terms of getting more authorization for the inspections program and i think they would agree with the inspection sanctions were working and the oefdz after the war is not one where there were huge caches of weapons of mass destruction. that was the issue that defined the 2008 election and very much

at the heart of why there was so much support for president or barack obama at the time, candidate obama because he had the greatest clarity about that issue where his secretary -- future secretary hillary clinton when she was senator was one of the democrats with presidential aspirations who was too supportive of the president. she wanted weapons inspections and she didn't want force as a first resort and she became part of the political moment when the war was launched. she and obama have this very interesting political relationship that unfolds rate through the 2008 roomaries and yes on his book, it's worth reading and it gives you a flavor of a global citizen, who again, was part of this attraction of this precedence ney 2008. >> what's your becomeook's asset

of the wars that he inherited from the bush administration and our presence in iraq and the afghanistan wars that he initially opposed by the end of his second term, where was the administration? >> it's mixed and one of the things in the book that i like is not everyone agrees on these issues. there's one chapter by a historian named jeremy surrey who while admitting mistakes that the president made overall has a pretty positive assessment of how both he was able to draw down the wars even with the surge in afghanistan and certainly the withdrawal in iraq and at the same time he re-established some of the basic tenets of internationalism, and the rule of international law and diplomacy and not using force and he was pretty successful at both drawing down the wars, but each more

importantly, re-creating support for this basic idea from the early cold war that had been lost. on the other hand, there is another historian a katherine homestead who looks at counter terrorism policy, not the wars, but where were we after eight years with the war on terrorism, and she finds that there's more continuity than break, and a lot of the programs put into place under president bush remain intact. president obama in some ways accelerates some of the wars, the drone warfare and she's more critical of what he did despite the promises of 2008. so there are differences in the book just on that issue. >> let's go to the independent line. >> good morning both of you. i am sort of confused, during the obama administration i was always told well, he went to coharvard and he's a constitution scholar and all this and that, but at the same

time several instances during his administration he violated the constitution. when obamacare came out he made changes himself. he is not the legislature. he is the executive branch. he has done things that either -- i'm confused, is he ignorant or is he just lawless? you know, one of the two has to be the answer. both of you have a great day. thank you. >> go ahead with your response, yeah. >> i don't think either is the answer and he was challenged in court repeatedly including on aca and the court did not ever reach that conclusion. both the aca program and other programs were constitutionally sound and what you see with him is what you see with many presidents in this era that there is an aggressive use of executive power and this was particularly important when he found trouble finding any kind

of response from a republican congress that was dead set against him. with aca it's a very important story. usually after legislation passes congress there is a period where it's fixed and congress will often amend the program to make sure everything is working. president obama did not have that. congress was not going to do anything other than challenge the program. so he does employ executive power, but it's not in unconstitutional ways nor is it out of ignorance. he knows what he's doing and he's working within the constraints that he faces to try to make this program work. >> in the chapter by meg jacobs on global warming, the fight against global warming on the paris climate agreement and the keystone pipeline, and one of the sub paragraphs and the subchapters is seizing the mantel, obama's use of executive action and she writes in truth obama was preparing to unsheath

his most powerful weapon and a dramatic use of executive action in his 20 then state of the union address the president revealed his intention to have the epa move forward on regulating climate change including carbon. it was overturned by executive decision and epa action in the trump administration. >> that's absolutely right. her chapter starts with the cap and trade legislation and like with health care, obama tries to employ conservative ideas which is where cap and trade started, but can't get legislation through congress and in the senate the bill is stifled. so by the second term he turns to executive power and he uses executive action in those final years both with coal as well as entering into this paris accord and one of the arguments that

she makes is this made some of his legacy very vulnerable. exec of it power, as you see with the climate, is very effective. it allows the president to move forward even with this kind of congressional opposition that you saw on climate change, but it's vulnerable. if that president, using executive power is not succeeded by a sympathetic president, and if that president doesn't create a coalition, a political coalition that will outlast him, those executive actions are vulnerable. they can easily be taken apart and that's exactly what she argues and what we're seeing happen under president trump. it's been one of his most aggressive and most successful areas of policy. he has systematically dismantled much of what the president achieved on climate change. >> let's hear next from peggy who is in lynchburg, virginia. republican lane. >> hello? >> you're on the air. go ahead. i would like for him to tell me

the part valerie jaret played in the administration since she got him into office with her money. i'm talking about with her influence and all with the legislation and all. >> did you hear that, her question? >> yeah. i heard most of it. valerie jaret was a very important adviser and had the president's ear on a lot of strategy both in terms of how he should position himself, thinking about what issues to move on first and which issues to wait and simply the broader political strategy. he didn't win because of her or her money. that's simply not the case, and he won in large part because of the sheer frustration that was

built with the gop and the status quo toward the end of the bush presidency and the excitement he generated from many, many democrats and independence who saw him as a new voice, a different kind of voice in american politics. he raised a lot of money like all our presidential candidates. it didn't come from her nor is she response imfor obtaining it, and i think that's the reason his presidency took place, but she was a very important adviser to him. part of small circle that all presidents bring to the white house. people they trust, people they work worked for before he became president and people wo tho try guide them through the difficulties of washington. >> john, hello? >> i'm confused. i vote democrat all the time, but i'm confused on this district 18 in pennsylvania

where you, basically to me, and i may be wrongwhere, we have this young fellow who is basically a republican as far as i can see with a "d" next to his name and i understand they want to fill seats in congress, but you know, if you're against -- here we have the parkland movement where we have young children against assault weapons and bump stocks and all of this and school shootings and then one minute on the morning shows, morning joe, chris matthews and whatever and they're behind us and they switch gears and the fellow when pulled off this upset, but basically, as far as i can see, he's a -- he voted republican. he's a young republican fellow. so i'm confused and i'm an independent and i generally vote democrat, but i'm confused on the message that they're

sending. >> let me ask you about an article in "the washington post," tying in the obama administration headline, and this is a paul kaine piece in the washington post. the obama history lesson that trump may be doomed to repeat. he says barack obama and donald trump have at least one thing in common. they both built unique coalitions that are proven difficult to replicate when they aren't on the ballot and obama won two presidential campaigns by relatively comfortable margins and helping boost democrats those years and he watched helplessly as they sustained big losses in 2010 and the midterm elections and our caller talking about the loss yesterday in the republican seat in pennsylvania. it's something that actually is quite important throughout this book and part of what the bookends up talking about and this cam through in many chapters is this discrepancy.

on the one hand, president obama was extraordinarily successful making po will see and achieving success on major policy areas that had really been pretty dormant or deadlocked for years which was health care and financial regulation and politically, his party really suffers politically during his presidency, culminating in the 2016 election, and there are a lot of moments in the presidency where he isn't able to transfer his own coalition to the rest of the party and even moments where that's not his primary concern and many congressional democrats are often worried about this. they're saying that he's not doing enough to help them with e-mail lists and with potential contributors or campaigning while he was handing them very controversial issues. and so in the end, you know, there's one story the obama

presidency where a lot of public policy is remade and you have a two-term president and you also have 2016 with the republican congressor a republican president and president trump wo for many is pretty extreme to have him in the white house. so you're seeing a little bit of this -- of this today. i mean, i do think president obama was still more sympathetic to the idea of trying to build a stronger party than president trump is who i'm not sure is really concerned with that, but i think it's an important story. on the other hand, the flip side is there is a positive argument about conor lamb and what the republicans have in office is they go local. they focus local races and they focus on state races and they try to rebuild the party from the bottom -- from the bottom up and they're very successful as

we see with the tea party and that's what democrats are doing now. they're trying to find out what candidates will work in different areas, but i think the attention the caller is talking about will be there especially as you actually have to talk about votes on issues like gun control. >> all right. let's hear from bob next up from baldwinville, massachusetts. good morning. >> good morning. how are you guys doing today? >> doing fine. thank you. >> good morning. >> to me it sounds as if you're writing a book that's, like, a cnn interview. it's a softball. it doesn't handle any of the miscalculations and the very poor judgment that president obama had over his eight years, benghazi. he pulled out of the troops out of iraq and millions of people got murdered by these people in isis. he doesn't take any responsibility for that. none. if he had left a group of soldiers there that group would

never have been born and would not have been run down the streets. i watched it on youtube and it was horrific and how they murdered babies and driving down the road in the cars. it's incredible. everything he did was a disaster. he knocked our race relations back 50 years. he was the divider in chief. how anybody can call him the greatest thing since coffee i have no idea. the chinese didn't even roll out the carpet for him he had to get off the back of the airplane. he was the most disrespected president i've ever seen. everyone hates donald trump. i don't think he's the greatest human being on the planet either, but he's a heck of a lot better than the presidents we've had recently. he was not the deporter in chief. no other president counted those numbers that way. >> lots to address there, professor. pick up on his comments about race relations and where were they when the president came in, first african-american president, in your book, where do you find it?

>> well, race relations don't improve during his presidency. i think we moved backward. there was a lot of excitement when he was elected and the fact the country had elected an african-american was a sign of progress. it wasn't the defining issue about him either which in many ways was great that that was not how we saw politics. it wasn't the prism and that was what some hoped and over the next eight years the author showed those hopes vanished and part of what the story is about is the limits about what president obama can make on this issue and he makes some important moves through the department of justice, for example, with juvenile prisoners and having a better policy toward them, toward indo incorporating ex-offenders and dealing with some of the prison

sentencing policies that were really punitive toward african-americans, but in the end, you know, his press dniden ends with americans watching and all of these confrontations with police and african-americans and great frustration over how race was often built into our criminal justice institutions and there were limits to what he could do and another essay by gary gersal talks about the verocity of the backlash and to say that president obama was responsible for the deterioration in race relations doesn't get the story right. i do think we see a pretty ferocious white backlash toward the end of his presidency which shapes the 2016 election, but you know, i think this is an area he'll be faulted not simply from the right, but the left, as well. there are many civil rights

activists who thought he should do more and thought he should use the bully pulpit even more aggressively and the president's response was he did what he could in the and i'd say, there's many authors who are quite critical of the president including on foreign policy in areas like syria, on his response to the russian intervention in the 2016 election, so this is not a book of softball authors. they're pretty hard-hitting and, again, from different political perspective. >> catherine omstead's chapter, her piece, titleded "terror tuesd tuesd tuesdays." what were terror tuesdays? >> well, this is a very important chapter that looks at the different pillars of counterterrorism policy. and argues, you know, the irony is here, you have a president who ran in 2008 trying to argue, we had to either overturn or

substantially reform a lot of how the counterterrorism program worked, and, yet, he actually does the opposite. he gives it bipartisan legitimacy by the end -- by the end of his term. and so she really captures that element and argues by 2016, the war on terrorism circa george bush is officially entrenched as policy and she's one of the authors who sees these continuities. >> a collection of historical essays on the presidency of barack obama. a first historical assessment. eddited by our guest from princeton university, julian zelzer. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thanks for having me. and a live picture from capitol hill where house armed services subcommittee is set to meet to discuss the pentagon's national security strategy in space. this was expected to get u