we have resources on our website for background on each case, the landmark cases companion book, and the landmark cases podcast at c-span.org/landmarkcases. now president trump's former chief of staff reince priebus joins with journalist bob woodward and carl bernstein for a discussion on the american presidency and leadership. former clinton white house chief of staff leon panetta moderates the 90-minute discussion. good evening, everybody. what a treat to see all of you here. what a wonderful turnout. we're very, very pleased that you are here with us and that you will be hearing, seeing a wonderful program tonight. this is the third event in this year's leon panetta lecture series. this season we've been

discussing, as you know, the american dream. tonight our speakers will focus on the presidency and the role of leadership and how that influences the american dream. our greatest presidents were dedicated to giving all americans the opportunity for a better life. from franklin roosevelt's new deal to ronald reagan's shining city on a hill, presidents have struggled to make sure that all americans have a chance to achieve the american dream. a president's leadership on issues from war to the economy, from education to jobs, from health care to conservation and others determines whether we have the opportunity to succeed. at the same time, we also understand that presidents are human and make mistakes, and we've paid for those mistakes. the strength of the modern

presidency is challenged as never before in our history with deep partisan divide and dysfunction that makes it difficult to govern. the failure of washington to deal with critical issues facing americans is what in part led to the election of president trump. he has brought a very different style of leadership to the presidency. he has challenged many of the traditional norms of that office. he's criticized our system of checks and balances and taken executive action to reverse past policies. and he communicates his views to the american people by tweeting. his supporters believe that he's doing exactly what he was elected to do, change washington. his opponents believe he governs by chaos. who is right, and how will all of this affect the american

dream? the presidency is one of the most powerful institutions in the world, but so is our constitution and so is our system of checks and balances. tonight we the people have the opportunity to freely debate and discuss all those issues. the freedom to do that in our democratic society gives us the impetus to know that we as citizens are responsible for protecting the american dream. tonight leon will discuss these issues with our guests, two who have spent their careers observing the presidency and one who served president trump as his first chief of staff. our first guest is one of the most famous political investigative reporters in america. a two-time pulitzer prize winner, he is a keen observer of

the inner workings of government, of politics, and the role of leadership. he's an associate editor of "the washington post," where he has worked since 1971. he has shared in two pulitzer prizes, first for the coverage of the watergate scandal with carl bernstein, and second as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. called the best pure reporter of his generation, perhaps ever, by the weekly standard, he has authored or co-authored more national best-selling, nonfiction books than any other contemporary american writer. his best seller, "the price of politics", released in 2012. published in 2015, his most recent book "the last of the

president's men" provides the last pieces of the complex story of the nixon administration and its legacy. he received his b.a. please welcome bob woodward. [ applause ] welcome. our second guest is also one of the most influential journalists in american history. he has spent 40 years reporting on the inner workings of government and politics and the hidden stories of washington and its leaders. he began his journalism career at age 16 as a copy boy for "the

washington evening star" and then became a reporter at 19. in the early '70s, he broke the watergate story for "the washington post" and was awarded the pulitzer prize in recognition. since then, he has continued to investigate and write about the use and abuse of political, media, financial, cultural, and spiritual power. the author of five best-selling books, his recent work is the national best seller, "a woman in charge: the life of hillary rodham clinton." acclaimed as the definitive biography of its subject that was published in 2007. his next book, a memoir of his family's experience in the mccarthy era, is titled "loyalties: a son's memoir." he attended the university of

maryland. please welcome carl bernstein. [ applause ] welcome. our final guest is a former white house chief of staff to president trump and the longest serving chairman of the republican national committee in recent history. he worked his way up through the ranks of the republican party of wisconsin as first congressional district chairman, state party treasurer, first vice chair, and was eventually named state party chairman in 2007. in 2009, he served as general counsel to the republican national committee. he assumed the chairmanship of the rnc in 2011 and oversaw a

dramatic turnaround of the gop. he left the rnc as one of the most successful chairman of either political party in american history. he was named white house chief of staff shortly after president trump's historic 2016 victory and left the administration in the summer of 2017. he has a b.a. from the university of wisconsin and a jd from the university of miami. please welcome reince priebus. [ applause ] and of course moderating our discussion is the man who created this lecture series more than 20 years ago. he has served in public life under nine american presidents,

was chief of staff to one president and cia director and secretary of defense to another. he knows the importance of good leadership, so please welcome secretary leon panetta. [ applause ] >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. got a hell of a crowd. you're in for a great show. we welcome you to the third forum of the panetta lecture series. our theme, as you know, is the american dream alive and well. we've talked in past forums about the economy. we've talked about national security. and in our last forum, we'll talk about technology. but tonight we focus on the

presidency. why? because the presidency happens to affect the fate of our country and whether or not people in this country are going to be able to succeed and enjoy the american dream. presidents make the decisions about whether or not we go to war, whether young men and women are put in harm's way. presidents make the decision about how to deal with economic crisis. presidents make the decision about whether or not they're going to support security for american citizens. that's how social security came into existence and medicare. funds for education, housing issues, issues related to jobs, a highway program to develop

those jobs. all of that is impacted by the presidency. at the same time, presidents are human and they make mistakes. and we paid the price for those mistakes. and so it's important for us this evening to look at what are the qualities of the president who succeeds, who's good, who's good for the country. what about those that are not so good. what about our system of checks and balances. can it deal with checking the power of the presidency? these and so many other questions we will discuss tonight with this very distinguished panel. and let me begin with the panel with a question that i think is important to establish a baseline on the presidency. putting president trump aside for the moment, we've all either

observed presidents, talked to presidents, or as reince and i did, we were chiefs of staff to the president. i want you to comment on in your lifetime who was the best president and who was the worst and why. bob? >> no problem, leon. >> it's a simple question. >> easy. the surprise, i think, for a president that i really thought did a great job in our lifetime was gerald ford. nixon's successor. i learned that it began really 30 days after nixon resigned. ford had been vice president.

he was president, and ford went on television on a sunday morning announcing he was giving nixon a full pardon for watergate. i really think ford hoped he could go on early on that sunday morning and no one would notice. but it was widely noticed. but not by me. i was asleep. and carl called me, and carl truly has the ability to say what occurred in the fewest words with the most drama. have you heard? no, i was asleep. he said, well, the son of a bitch pardoned the son of a bitch. [ laughter ] well, i had my decoder ring on, and i was able to figure out what had happened.

instantly, i thought -- and carl agreed -- this is perfect. this is the final corrupt act of watergate. that nixon gets a free run and a pardon, 40 people go to jail, and thought that for a long time, particularly two years later when ford ran against jimmy carter and lost essentially because of the suspicions of the pardon, that there was some sort of deal. 25 years later, and one my books shadows the legacy of watergate and five presidents. i went back to re-examine the pardon. called jerry ford up, had never met him, never interviewed him, and said i want to relook at the pardon and thought he would say no. gerald ford turned out to be one of the most open, honest, direct people i'd ever encountered.

so i had the luxury of time, two full-time assistants. i read every, all the memoirs, interviewed everyone who was alive and went to see ford many times. he had a home in colorado, a main home in rancho mirage in california. well, what happened? and i remember the last interview with ford in his little house in rancho mirage right off a golf course. i just said, why did you pardon nixon? he said, you keep asking that question. i said, well, i don't think you've answered it fully. and then he said, you're right, i have not answered it fully. i'll tell you what happened. i haven't even told betty. and so he goes through and he said, let me take you to the

moment. i've been president 30 days. my god, it was awful. there was so much distrust. no one would believe anything. all the news was about what's going to happen to nixon. the cold war was on. the economy was in trouble. the special prosecutor had sent him a letter saying nixon is a private citizen, is going to be investigated because of the tapes, no doubt indicted, convicted, will maybe go to jail. so ford said, we're going to have two or three more years of watergate. i will never forget him saying i needed my own presidency. we had to move beyond nixon. so i pre-empted the process. and then al hague came to me and offered a deal the week before. >> al hague meaning chief of staff. >> for nixon. and he said, i rejected that deal because it would have been

corrupt because hague said, okay, you guarantee you'll pardon nixon, and he will resign. you get the presidency. ford said, you know, look, i knew i was going to be president anyways. i know that's coming anyway. and i'm supposed to pardon nixon. he said i rejected that. that was corrupt. i said, but you did pardon nixon. he said, but here's why. because of this situation for the country, i had to think about, i was in charge. this is a job of stewardship. and i realized that, you know, this idea, he needed his own -- the country had to move on. he could do one thing. so he said this is how i

assessed the national interests. and he did it. so in the book, i said, you know, instead of this being corrupt, it was gutsy. they awarded him the kennedy prize, profiles in courage, from jfk's book. and i remember watching that. i mean, my god, here i was sure ford had done the most corrupt thing in the world and then he had under examination 25 years later what looks to be corrupt turns out to be courage. >> yeah, interesting. >> and i mean, what a humiliating, humbling experience to be so sure. so we sit now and we talk about your former boss, trump, and everyone's sure where this is going and what it means and so forth. as a reporter, i look at this and say we do not know.

>> so like mr. secretary here, most of my family isn't from the united states. so if you ever wonder how i get a anytime reince prebus, like who names their kid reince, it's what happens when a greek and a german get married. cultural disaster. if you've ever seen "my big fat greek wedding," that's my life. the fighting starts at 7:00 in the morning and ends at midnight and everyone's in everyone's business. but my upbringing, like all of our upbringing, is a huge part of our life. so the person i looked up to the most in my life and the person that i would follow around the house everywhere and everything he said was my grandfather from greece, would come to wisconsin. it wasn't like when our relatives come from a long weekend. when the greeks come, it's a couple months.

and they're living there. but i remember him taking the letter "p" off the shelf from the world books. remember those? and he'd sit there all day and read these world books and i would sit next to him. now, he had a little johnny walker next to him while he was reading, but he'd read for presidents from the letter "p." it didn't matter who he was talking about. it could be fdr. it could be kennedy. it could be, you know, andrew jackson, jimmy carter. every single one of these guys was great. oh, he was great. reagan was the best. and what i took from that is that the person i looked up to the most in my life loved everything about this country, but he wasn't from here. every little crumb about what i love is what you have and i don't. and so i don't -- i haven't sat

through -- no offense -- as many american presidents as you all have. >> you have the advantage of being younger. >> somebody asked us once, what was calvin coolidge like. >> i was thinking more abraham lincoln. but all right. but when i look at presidents and the former chief of staff gave me a reprieve because he took president trump off the table, i look at who's inspiring this country and i look at ronald reagan and the feeling he gave americans across this country. republicans, democrats -- not all, but a lot of people inspired by the american dream, about something bigger and beyond legislation but how we feel as americans and making people proud again. i think that was ronald reagan. you know, i don't remember a lot o abo about jimmy carter other than

what i read. obviously i would put him more at the bottom of the list. he seems like a good man. but ronald reagan captures the upbringing of a person that lived in the place that i lived and was looking for something to be inspired by. that's really what got me involved in politics. >> so we've got ford and nixon. you didn't mention it, but i assume nixon was at the bottom. >> you got something right. >> all right. we've got reagan and carter. carl, it's up to you. >> again, nixon is at the bottom because he was a criminal president. he was a criminal president from the day he took office until the day he left. and he's unique in our history in that regard. and what your question goes to, really, is a commitment by the president of the united states to the common good, to the national interest. and so the first president i covered was kennedy.

and all presidents have their successes, their failures, but the two that stand out in retrospect in terms of a commitment to the common good, putting the interests of the country over their own interests without huge character flaws that have brought them low, i go to gerald ford for the reasons that bob has enumerated. he did that pardon knowing it would probably cost him the presidency when he ran for re-election. he was willing to put the national interests above his own interests and being re-elected to the presidency, knowing he probably would lose as a result of this. but also, i think we have to look at barack obama. [ applause ] one, in terms of personal

rectitude, which he displayed throughout his presidency. whatever his failings in terms of policy, of putting this act of health care before something else, partisanship, whatever we look at, though, i think the idea, the common good and the national interests, and we have to look at obama in terms of really saving american capitalism, saving us from a depression in the first months and days of his presidency. when the republican opposition, rather than looking toward the common good, was committed to really undermining the incoming president of the united states. not a single republican went to the same solution and embraced obama's solution of dealing with the financial crisis. obama was advised by republicans who he inherited from the

previous administration, but those acts -- you might disagree with the bailout, the size of the bailout, what one company was given, that this bank should have been put into receivership or maybe it shouldn't, but he really saved our system and probably saved the world from a real depression that would have been ongoing. he did it despite the fact that he was being accused of all kind of things and that the other way would have been a kind of austerity approach that failed elsewhere in the world. and i think his steadfastness there in i'm going to do the right thing. i think that's the basic question. which presidents go, what is the right thing for the people of this country, for the greatest good, the national interest. so i think those are two examples.

>> so reince, you can't avoid this. we have to now look at trump. you know the president better than i think all of us by virtue of having served him in the campaign and then served him as chief of staff. you're quoted as saying about your time in the white house, you can take everything you've heard and multiply it by 50. you can take that either way. what was it like? identify for us what his strengths are and what his weaknesses are that you saw. >> well, what i was describing was the job of chief of staff. you know, obviously when a four-star combat marine in john kelly says it's the hardest job i've ever had in my life, that goes to tell you that being chief of staff is not easy. and you know that. you've been there. but also, you know, president

trump is different. he's more complicated. he's someone who's never run for office before. he wants to be perfect. he wants to be perfect on little things, middle things, big things. he's like many successful people, impatient. but i would say to people who i think get a misread in the media -- and take it from me. listen, i had resigned the day before, had a great talk with the president multiple times, but i too walked on those step, read a tweet that i was being replaced by john kelly. so i'm coming to you as someone who is not here to spin. i think that this is a president who made it very clear who he was and how he was going to govern when he campaigned. people in this country, in most of the country, were tired of being lied to. they were tired of all the phoney promises. they were tired of plastic. they wanted someone that was

going to be the biggest middle finger they could find to tell people in washington to go take a hike. and the president has fulfilled. what i would say -- and if you're a republican, and i know that i'm in a part of the country where maybe there's not a lot of them here, maybe there is -- >> no, there are four of them in the back. >> we have some affirmative action. >> yeah, the lottery for like one row. >> if you're a republican, you love the results of what this president has done. you like the fact that isis is on the run. you love the fact that for every new regulation, 22 have been eliminated. you like the fact that this president is on his way of appointing more conservative judges, any judges than any president in modern history.

tax cut from 35 down to 21 on the corporate business side. my point is this. we'll probably spend some time tonight talking about what the media talks about, which is what they say is the drama and the chaos. what i would suggest to you is to avoid concentrating on meaningless drama and focus in on the results. you know, look, i got rolled up in some of that. people say, well, how do you have such a good attitude? that drama doesn't matter to american history. what matters to american history is the success or failures of this president. and if you're democrat, you hate it, if you're republican, you love it. but the fact is on nuts and bolts promises that he made to the american people, he's delivering. >> let me talk about the modern presidency. there's a great article in "the atlantic" by john dickerson that talks about the modern presidency is an impossible job.

this is a quote. no man or woman can possibly represent the varied and competing interests of 327 million citizens, perform the ever-expanding duties of the office. the most powerful man in the world is powerless to achieve many of his goals, thwarted by congress, the courts, and enormous bureaucracy. is the modern presidency broken, and is trump in some ways a consequence of that? >> no, i think that's the wrong way to look at it. i think a president can succeed. ic i think it's all about leadership. if you go for a job interview and say, okay, you're here for this job, what's the definition of the job? well, what's the definition of the job of president? having thought about it through eight presidents, now working on a book on trump, for me the job

of the president is that role of stewardship, but it's also figuring out what the next stage of good is for a majority of people in the country. real majority, not just a base, not just one party, not just a bunch of interest groups. because things can be done through the presidency and by the president that really make a difference in people's lives. then the president has to say this is what it is. okay, what's the strategy to get there? it may take years to get there, but that's the job of the president. and it is a shame when it gets misdirected or, you know, whether things seem trivial and so forth. what i find missing in the trump

presidency, there was the campaign and he's going to do this, he's going to do that. where are we going? in the 1960s, i served in the navy, and i was on a ship. the executive officer, number two. i spent a lot of time in his office because i was a troublemaker and renegade. he had -- >> i've never heard you called a renegade in all the years i've known you. >> thank you for defending me. and he had a plaque glued to his desk. i never will forget it because i saw it many times. and it was, "he who does not know to which port he is sailing has no favorable wind. kwp and that's true. there are winds out there favorable, unfavorable, and they can get you, but you need to know the port to which you are

sailing. and i do not find enough evidence in the public discourse from the president or out of washington from democrats, where are we going? what's this all about? what are we trying to accomplish? i think the lack of clarity hurts the president, hurts the country, and hurts all of us. i think it is a tragedy that there's not some mechanism. i mean, did you ever try to figure out to which port donald trump was sailing? >> i guess i respectfully disagree. i mean, i think if you look at the first year, you have -- you have the appointment and the nomination of neil gorsuch, which had a profound effect on the supreme court. at the same time, we tackled the health care bill unsuccessfully. and then we moved into tax

reform, eventually passing the first tax reform since 1986. and obviously moving into matters related to north korea, isis, syria. i think that there is clarity, but -- >> i'm sorry, but in matters involving north korea, there was all this fire and fury, trump saying he has a big nuclear button. >> and it turned out the critics have the -- not going to say for sure, but the critics have to be -- they're on the short end of that stick. the fact is many people who are used to the conventional method of washington decision making, and people like me too, are people that were uncomfortable with how the president approached north korea. but like so many issues that he pushes back on, immediately right off the bat, whether it be

trade, whether it be afghanistan, whether it be syria, on north korea he pushed in and put all his chips on the table. people all cried about it. it turns out that unlike all the predecessors before trump, here we are, potentially, on the verge of something dramatic and world changing when it comes to north korea. i'll take this agenda for another 2 1/2 years and run on it in 2020. >> reince, you and i talked about this earlier, but -- and i think there's a lot of truth to it. this president operates with chaos and taking these b kinds of steps he takes. but then i think he uses the chaos as leverage. >> a hundred percent right. president trump made it very clear in "the art of the deal" when he talked about his style

of management. his style of management is not the same old process we're used to. what he said in "the art of the deal" is he likes to keep things loose. he doesn't want to be overbooked. and he wants to come to the office and see what develops. what the president does is he puts people around him that don't agree with each other on a whole lot, and you read about it every day. if we're talking about trade, he'll have the guy from goldman sachs, wilbur ross, reince priebus, steve bannon, all these people that are of different species, i mean, natural predators almost. they'll stand there in front of the aptly named resolute desk in front of the president, and they'll have it out. the president, like a law school professor, will sit back and watch and the press will talk about the fact this guy said reince was this and this guy was over here and he's thrown out of the office and these people were

arguing. they'll have the camera in the oval office with people screaming at each other, but the president uses that information and makes a decision. i would challenge people, people who don't even like the president, focus on the results and forget about the process because it's a different process. >> i'm sorry abo, about north k, i thought last year we were on the verge of war. part of that came from what the president said. >> the guy was launching a missile every 2 1/2 hours. >> yes. >> over japan. >> exactly. but now we're on the peace track. >> see, here's the problem. you want to have it both ways. you don't want north korea to make provocative moves. you want the president to be a leader, but then he is a leader. then we get to to a place where north korea and south korea are shaking hands and hugging and now we're critical of the president. >> no, not critical. i'm just saying, where's the

port? >> hang on a second. >> may i try something? >> yeah, carl, answer the question. >> something disturbs me. >> oh, here we go. >> about this discussion. first of all, donald trump, a, is the legitimate president of the united states, period. end of paragraph. second of all, he had a much better reading of the country than his democratic opponent did. he read the country brilliantly and ran a campaign with a kind of brilliance that was unlike anything we've ever seen. and through his own kind of smarts, he won the presidency, and i think we need to accept that. thirdly, the consistent hallmark of donald trump in public life and of his presidency is lying. we never had a president of the united states who has lied with the kind of consistency, with it

being a basic methodology of his approach to the american people, of his approach to governance, and it is essential to who he is from every evidence we have. i'm not talking about being an opinionated editorial writer. it is demonstrable fact that we are looking at a body of lies told by the president of the united states with a kind of regularity that is so troublesome that everybody, republican, democrat, whether they agree with the results or not, needs to be concerned about. because we need real leadership. that includes a degree of moral leadership, a degree of ethical leadership. [ applause ] and indeed when other presidents

have gone to lying in terms of really being essential to some of their acts, nixon who was a criminal president from day one until the day he left office, he didn't lie every day. but when he did lie in watergate, it was the end of him. but nonetheless, this is something new in the history of the presidency, and it's something i believe that has to be part of our discussion here, both in terms of journalism, in terms of the office, in terms of the president. >> let me -- >> leon is going to have to take that one. >> i just want to say one thing. on the issues that he promised the american people, i feel like he's fulfilling these promises. he said he was going to knock the hell out of isis, and he is. he said he was going to take his justices and judges from a list of these conservative judges, and he is. he said he's going to pass tax reform and he did. i mean, i think the president is a l

a litigator. i think he takes the facts from scenario and uses those facts to his advantage. i do think that. >> all >> i think you're all hissing and booing or immaterial garbage. enjoy your tax cuts in monterrey. t >> the bully pulpit, presidents have used fire side chats, have used oval office addresses in order to speak to the american people. these are usually prepared, they're well coordinated, and they're talking points. we are in the era of social media, and he basically wants to

communicate the way he wants to communicate. is this what future presidents are going to be doing north in to communicate with the american people? >> i have no idea. i think the use of unconventional media, i think it's very likely that presidents will continue to do that. i am really very happy with the way trump tweets the way he does. but i think the tweets are trump at his most truthful. we see in the tweets where his mind really is. and if you go back and you sort through the tweets, it really is a road map of the president's mind. it tells us a lot about what concerns him, about where his abilities lie and don't lie.

i think it's the best barometer we have as to how to view him as a president, what he believes in, what he's contemptuous of, and we're lucky that that is his way of communicating, because otherwise we would know damned near nothing. >> but there's contradictions in the tweets. but in terms of listening to reince's point, i am trying to think thisthrough, there may be some strategy in this, and costa

and i said, well, he's going to win the republican nomination, but he probably won't be president, so let's think about the things we can ask him that will address what's inside, what's driving him. we said -- president obama is still president at this point, had talked about power and the presidency ultimately is about power, and obama had said in his first inaugural that power comes to the united states from its restraint and humility. and you can just see trump, those words, i wish there was a video because he was kind of -- and then obama just said, real

power, quoting obama to trump, real power comes from not using violence. it was almost shakespearean. it's like hamlet turning to the audience to say here's what really think. trump said, real power is, i don't even like to use the word, but real power is fear. >> huh. >> i didn't know that. >> and going back and thought about that in the context of, you know, what he does, he scares people. he scared the hell out of kim jong-un. and you look at it, and you follow this, and the north korean leader is now going to meet.

now whether that's a strategy -- >> well, there's all kinds of pieces on the chess board that are moving, he also has an incredible ability, and you have talked about this before, of engaging in people in one-on-one settings that you can't fully appreciate watching the news every night. he is incredibly gracious with people. there are some people who have the ability to meet people one-on-one and become instantaneously tight. i saw that with president abe,

and i saw that with president x ooirksz. without that relationship, if it was phony and bologna --. >> it's scary team over there. you're a wisconsin fan, you look out for north dakota, if that relationship wasn't real with president xi, we just wouldn't be here right now. so there is a genuine, god-given skill there, that i don't think the media -- will you shut up for a second? >> let me ask, you're a chief of

staff and you've got a president who's tweeting at 5:00 in the morning, if i served a president that did that, it would drive me crazy. >> i would be the one calling the soon to be president, and i would be sayi ing do this, don' do that. and he didn't do it and now he e's president. he is a billionaire. he is president of the united states. he's got more money than we all do.

he is president of the united states, and apparently some people don't agree with you, and he's done it while people like me were telling him, don't do this, and don't do that, and it turns out that he did it and he won, and on election day he was at 37% and he won. so it's harder to get to your question when your chief of staff six months later to say don't do this, don't do that, when he's heard it all before, and those people in his mind were wrong and he was right and he was affirmed by the american people. >> we're at the halfway point, but i really want you to address this issue before we go into the questions, which is the role of the press. since both of you are in the press, both of you really use the press to check the power of the presidency, and yet -- you know, presidents have always had

rough relationships with the press. but its pretty bad, over the weekend, at the correspondents dinner, a comedian got up and attacked trump, while the trump was in michigan, attacking his crowd. so what is the role of the press today? has the press lost its credibility, or is it still an effective check in our system? >> i think we're in danger of losing credibility, and we have lost correct with many people, and the criticism trump has offered very aggressively, 45 years ago in covering watergate, we, carl was 11 years olds, i was 12. at the time. we were kids.

and there was the leader of the free world or the spokesman, zig zigler up there saying our stories are full of lies, character assassins, something trump has not quite yet called our editors. our the message was keep doing the work, don't get consumed with trying to fight this. and so we -- i looked at some of the coverage, i think the coverage by the "new york times," and the post, and the wall street journal, you aggregate it, i think it's been very good, some mistakes and so forth. but trump has such an ability to set people off. and he's done this to the press.

and people have taken the bait. and there is too much, people have become -- they have lost their equilibrium in the media, and i think you have to take the ben bradley rule, you know, he always said, here's what you do. nose down, ass up, moving slowly forward. >> just a quick comment on the role of the press, where are we today? >> well, trump has tried to make the issue of his presidency, and nixon tried to do the same as bob has indicated, the conduct of the press, instead of the conduct of the president of the united states. and he's had even more success and nixon was successful at it for a good while in the early stages of watergate. people were believing nixon, not what we were writing in the "washington post" for a long

time. this is a different time in america. we're really in a kind of cold war today, donald trump didn't cause it, he's evolutionary, in terms of, it was perhaps inevitab inevitable, that weste were goi to be in a place like this with a president who appeals to part of that cold civil war and indeed tries to stoke the cold civil war by appealing to a base, rather than trying to appeal to a united vision of the country, that most citizens can appreciate. that that's his methodology. and he wants us to be -- he's called us, the enemy of the people, as josef stalin once used the phrase.

it's extraordinary. and we are faced, and bob is really right here. the reporting by the "new york times," washington post, "wall street journal," some of cnn's reporting, i believe is the best reporting on the american presidency on a daily basis that i have seen since i went to work in 1960. there also is the fact that we need, as ben bradley appreciated, we need a kind of story that we take two months, three months, and look at the presidency with that kind soft distance and care, and you're not on a day by deadline. but also that we have ventured sometimes too far into the pejorative. and it comes partly because the,

quote, press, does something now that it didn't traditionally at the time of watergate and we e increasingly in the last four years, bob on television, we go on and talk beyond about what we write in the paper or tv or even in our books. that's something new. and in the process of that, i think we have invited some trouble for ourselves, by being sometimes too pejorative, but it's particularly difficult and this is not san excuse, because there is so much lying by this president in the united states, so much of what the press has been doing is to repertoirely point out those lies, those untruths. to parse what the president -- and it didn't start incidentally

with this president. but to parse what is truthful and what is not. and what it has led to is some undermining of our credibility and has been perhaps interpreted or mistakenly interpreted or not, as adversarial without any relationship to trying to get to the truth, when i would say the purpose of it is to try to get to the truth. chelsea odami, fran gabor, who's our veteran question review team manager. and doug mcknight who's a

reporter of kazu radio, if you would thank them for the work that they do. we had over 600 people at the session. and some great questions, it was a wonderful turnout. we could not do it see our board of directors are very grateful for the sponsorship that allows students, high schools, colleges, universities from throughout the central coast to be able to participate. so please thank those sponsors.

>> i was just going to say, i think these guys -- what i dealt with for six years at the rnc, was many times reporting based on anonymous sources, reporting based on that this person said that the president was an idiot and we're running with it and what do you think about it. i do think if there's

troublemakers or nefarious people, you can make a website and you can get a lot of clicks, what i think is missing a lot of times in the press is the discernment to decide whether a story is worth the time and the information it creates. i don't see discernment, i see massive competition, i see head lamps that don't match the stories beneath. and that's where most of the fights occur. and the press's pooling with the public is below congress right now. so obviously something's wrong. and the american people feel that the press is not being honest with them. when they do things like they did on saturday night, they just make president trump the winner again.

there needs to be examination and introspection on the part of the press. we need to produce a better product. how do we produce a better

product? faa didn't mean federal aviation administration. it means focused accurate and aggressive. go tell people who have been in businesses where they have had a product that's not selling very well and they're not in business anymore.

can i tell this story? >> no. >> woodward and burnstein, you were involved with watergate, what are the differences and similarities between watergate and the russian investigation and will it end the same way. what i do know is that the president has appeared to attempt to cover up what we have seen and reported. he has tried at various turns to undermine lawful investigations. that doesn't mean he's committed legal obstruction of justice. there's a big story that the "new york times" has put out about an hour ago, with the 48 questions that mueller wants to ask the president of the united

states. it's an interesting list, that gives some indication that mueller is very much looking into questions of quote, collusion. that that matter has not by any means been put to rest. but we don't know where it's going to go. watergate, was about a series of crimes that there was evidence from the beginning of that was quite clear about the criminal acts. and then it was a question of who committed these criminal acts, then it came out, step by step that richard nixon, the president of the united states had presided over this web of criminality and the cover-up of the criminality.

watergate was an attempt by the president of the united states and those around him to undermine the most important part of our democracy, and that is our democratic process. nixon and those around him wanted to determine to a large extent who the democratic party president of the united states would be through a huge campaign of political espionage and sabotage of which the watergate bugging and break in was a small part. and the object of this was to undermine the strongest candidate for president in the democratic party, who nixon thought would be senator musky of maine and to see if the democrats nominated the weakest candidate, who really may have been a great man, but a really weak candidate, and that was george mcgovern. and then we in the press were able to establish some ties that

nixon had indeed, and those around and closest to him had engineered him. you then had a rel real investigation, you couldn't get a 77-0 vote in the senate for nothing today or could you have a legitimate bipartisan investigation as we have seen. and that is one of the big differences, and one of the differences between watergate and what we are witnessing now is the response of the republican party. that the blind defense of this president of the united states without regard to the facts as they have been exhibited so far by the republicans particularly, is very different than what

occurred in watergate. >> we are not getting out. and if i do a quick anecdote with working on the fourth bush book, there was a general who wouldn't talk. and i wanted to and i emails, intermediaries, nothing. so i found out where he is in the washington area. and this is the technique i

learned from carl, you just show up. and i have a little technique of that somebody in the cia once said. >> and so, take this finger and stick it over the little finger and jam it down into the fingernail so it hurts and it is a reminder to me to shut the fuck up. believe it or not. knock on the door. first of all, you have to go at the right strategic time, you have to go about 8:15 on a tuesday night. >> to have a drink. >> after the generals have had dinner and so forth. and so he opened the door and said, are you still doing this shit? and i just did this, poker face and he looked and i just -- not

anything and he then gets a disappointed look on his face, i think not because of what i did, but because of what he was about to do which was come on in, sit for two hours and answer most of the questions, now why? because somebody showed up. we're not showing up. we're sitting at our terminals and -- >> good point. right, president trump has reportedly discussed not having a chief of staff. with what do two former chiefs of staff have to say about that? is having a chief of staff absolutely necessary with this president? and let me add to that, if you could also comment on the fact that there really has been a great deal of turnover, we have

had almost half of the staff turn over in less than a year, a lot of reasons for that. but give me your sense of why you think that's happening? >> well, first of all, president trump was the chief of staff when i was there, i was chief of stuff. i always tell people, you know, there were certain things i did. but the president is the chief of staff, he's the coms director, you call it the spoektss on the wheel, and the president is in charge, and he has these director ports coming to him. and i think this ehe's the pers likes to be involved all the way. he's not going to be the guy who serves dinner, he wants to be husking the corn. he wants to be involved in earning that's going on.

i think it's a legitimate question, i know that's been debated in the press and most chiefs of staff think that that's crazy and you can't do that. but the reality is, he's a person, getting to your second question, that governs by, like i said before, and i don't want to repeat it all, but he governs by allowing people to agree with each other on very little to get in trouble by arguing it out with the best a game that they can possibly have, which then causes some of the articles that you read about and some of the things that obviously i had to deal with. including, as i said earlier, walking off that plane and reading a tweet and heading back to the west wing. so i think that that kind of drama is sort of the decision

making process he uses, conventional people don't like it, but yes, looking at the results, that is the process, that will always be the process, it's not going to change and i would argue that it works for this president and it works for the promises that he made to the american people. >> it's likely that we're going to see a lot of turnover in the white house staff. yeah, i think you will. and that's sort of why -- you know, people think, we talked about this earlier, it's sort of an attitude, but don't you remember what happened to you when you were in the west wing? that's because that drama, my drama whatever it was doesn't matter to american history. >> all right, let's talk about the president now as commander in chief, and dealing with this issue in north korea. how confident are you that any

of you that north korea will completely denuclearize? and let me add to that, give me your sense of what a kim jong-un-trump summit is likely to produce. >> a good question for you to answer. >> you have some summits, you do a lot of work, you sometimes negotiate on interests for a year or more before the principals come in and get an agreement. this is about a complex issue, how do you denuclearize, how do you stop the missile tests, how do you do the inspection, how do you do the verification that needs to be done along with a lot of other complex issues.

does he go into this thinking this is going to be a deal? or could this just be a photo-op? or could this be a disaster? >> it's interesting, there's partial answer in the intelligence which is classified and not public, but in working on this subject, the intelligen intelligence agencies tell the president, that kim jong-un will not get rid his nuclear weapons, because that's his leverage, that's what's gotten to the point he's at. and what could be given to him that would be some legitimate tradeoff? and the reality is, okay, you get all the u.s. troops out of south korea, 35,000, when you measure everything, and maybe that would be desirable.

his intelligence conclusion is you'll never be able to get him to give that up, because he's a major power. >> so what happens? >> this is the problem with people trying to predict the future. who knows? >> and we run around going what's going to lhappen? what's going to happen? >> and we don't know what's going to happen and one of those unknowns is the existence of the north korea state, like the existence of the pakistani state

to some extent and some other places is dependent on the nuclenuk nuclearization question, if north korea is a nuclear power, his belief, kim jong-un, is that there is a permanence to his state. and so one of the questions being debated and, bob, i think you can elaborate on this, by people in the intelligence community, well, is there a possibility that if somehow the south koreans, the chinese and the americans, guarantee in some meeting full way, the continued existence of the north korean state, is there a possibility that he then would disarm? but we don't know the answer. >> but that agreement is only a piece of paper, and its value is the value of a piece of paper. and the new national security

advisor, john bolton was on television this sunday sand he was saying, oh, look at libya, is a wonderful example, they gave up their nuclear weapons. >> that's right. . >> bad example, because gadhafi is dead. and on this, i think you have to -- because what happened last year on knot korean debate within the administration, after you left, was, hey, look kim jong-un almost, or maybe does have an icbm with a nuclear weapon on the top that could reach the united states, and the argument to the president by the people who are saying, we have got to act with simply do you

want on your resume, mr. president that the most volatile regime in the world got the capacity to strike the united states with a nuclear chemical weapon. and his answer would be your answer. no, i don't want that. so what do you do? and president trump has said this quite openly, there are some options that are draconian. and the president would repeat this often, and your dmub one issue is north korea. and there's not a day that goes by, i think you know that the president has an intelligence briefing every single day with the intelligence community. there's not a day that goes by

that there isn't a portion of north korea, i mean every single day there is learning and teaching and things that go on th that. >> okay, but answer this question, in a few weeks, late may, early june, they're going to sit down, for the life of me, i cannot imagine that they can cut a deal, in terms of the specifics of what needs to be done. so what i anticipate as the best scenario, is that they immediate, they have a broad agreement on a frame work of what possible issues. some agreement on denuclear station, and an agreement on some other broad things. but the specifics of that is going to have to be donated out.

and if he's successful, he's going to deserve a nobel prize. so maybe peace in our time is at hand. to mix an old metaphor. reince priebus, what aspects of the republican party principles are important to you and have the republican party principles changed with trump? >> so the second part i would say no, i think that president trump is so unique to himself, i think that he is a person larger than life, i don't believe that any of that is true, that people

debate that, you know, the party's permanently changed. i would say we have areas in this country, michigan ahead by 10. ohio by 10. and without the president, and without, i think his brash in your face style, some of that wouldn't be reality. but i also don't believe that the just as i don't think the party has been injured by anything you might think would be injurious to the party. >> the republican party divide, the party of reagan, were for

less spending, not more spending, they were for balancing the budget. >> if you want less debt, the american public will have to decide whether it wants to tackle medicare, medicaid, social security. i'm not advocating it, i'm just telling you the numbers. there's no trajectory that can get us to a place.

i don't fwleeb the plbelieve th don't think believe the party is -- >> the president isn't lock step with every single piece of the platform, just like president obama and bill clinton was not in lock step with the democratic party. you guys know, we had 16 people running for president, and you know, i'm a pretty traditional republican, i'm who people call the establishment, but i don't bheeb that a believe that any of the other 16 would have actually beaten hillary clinton. so while some of this is bizarre for people to listen to, people don't want to believe it. he brought forward a potpourri

of beliefs, some of them came from the republican party, but some of these beliefs came from president trump. he brought it together. he read the electorate. and it's not just an american thing, it's happening in the k,, it's happening in germany, people getting fed up with where politics are. >> we're looking at an election in 2018, and democrats are poised to perhaps take control of the house, and perhaps take control of the senate. what do you think is going to happen in 2018? >> i think the demographics and what's going on right now, conventional wisdom is that the

democrats will i want to try to add to the question a little better, and back to the theme of your institute here. and that is about democracy working. this discussion and what's going on in our politics is taking place in a context in which our institutions of democracy in this country are not working. and i never heard it expressed more eloquently than reince did this afternoon. with the students in an earlier session, in which he talked about the single -- in which he talked about the single two structural eelements that are keeping our democratic processes from working. and the electoral system itself which means that really as you put it--

>> his conclusion is different. >> go ahead and say what you did. what i said also, is i have never heard of democratic chairman express as eloquently as you did. this is not a partisan matter, and what you said is so important, lay it out again. the electoral college is that when you republican a campaign, and you're the democratic national committee, we're basically raising a billion dollars each to be spent in seven states, there is no national campaign for president. it's like having seven governors races in seven states and us putting all the data, all the ground game, everything we have in those states to win that

election. so that is the electoral college that we in place. but the other piece of this was we are talking about bipartisanship and whether or not bipartisanship is alive or dead. i tend to be more cynical and believe it to be dead. and the reason is if you're looking at state legislatures or house seats in different states. if lynne and i were best friends and we were both on the porch every night, his constituents would go that way, and my con stiff we constituents would go that way and we would never get anything done. ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about obviously a divided country at a time when we're facing a tremendous amount of challenges. and challenges with regards to

leadership. i said to the students in a democracy we govern either by leadership or crisis. what is needed today more than anything is leadership, political leadership that is willing to take the risks associated with leadership in order to deal with the issues that we have discussed here today. and a lot of that leadership, i might say, also rests with this audience and your participation in our democracy. if you continue to participate in our democracy, i am confident that our democracy will not only survive, but it will thrive in the future. thank you very much.

later this afternoon here on c-span 3, a discussion on human trafficking in the travel and tourism industries and ways to combat it. that's from the commission on security and cooperation in europe. it's scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. eastern with live coverage here on c-span 3. online at c-span.org and on the c-span radio app. >> this week on the communicators, house leader kevin mccarthy and cockle leader seas steny hoyer talk about t--

>> this year, we have electronic mail test that's going into a number of congressional offices so pretty soon it will transform all the district offices at the same time. and what happens? we become more efficient, we get better data, we understand where how we can follow it and we become more accountable to our constituents. >> now a discussion on how to reduce the rates of arrests, prosecution, and incarceration of the mentally ill in the u.s. this was part of a forum hosted by the center of criminal law at new york university. it's 90 minutes. >> all right, thank you so much for being with us today, and good morning. this is our 10th annual conference for our center, where we explore important topics in criminal law, and t