>> if we adopted the right policies to fix our policies in housing and the fed would not be running the policy it is today. inflation is a process. it gives us some leeway in terms of where it is going to go. it has a lot of inertia to it. once it gets:, we need to be careful in a market the action. .

>> thank you all. we appreciate very hutch your contributions to this committee. and i think this has been an exlept hearing. i want to thank senator sessions for his contributions as well. we'll stand adjourned.

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today on "newsmakers," homeland security secretary napolitano on how the u.s. is meeting security threats. that's at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> the whole environment of politics had come apart. it had become polluted and destroyed and violent. "q&a" tonight. part of the reason for doing the documentary was to show another side of this because everyone just remembers him as someone who was licking johnson's boots all the time. people didn't understood the pressures that he was under. >> tonight at 8:00 on c-span.

>> now, former vice president dick cheney, the key note speaker at a ban quiet commemorating the 10th birthday of former president -- 100th birthday of former president reagan. this event was hosted by the young america's foundation at its reagan ranch center in santa barbara california. it's just under an hour.

it really is a historic occasion because it's given us an opportunity to reflect on president reagan and what he meant to us and the country. what i have here is a few remarks. it's short. but i thought i wanted to say something appropriate at the outset. and then it's my understanding that frank and i are going to do sort of an interview format. and that you all will ask questions and i will give sparkling answers. except to those questions that i don't want to answer. but it is obviously always nice to get out here in santa barbara in the sunshine. i just came from texas where i was quail hunting with jim baker and we had an ice storm yesterday down along the rio

grand, if you can believe that. i am businessly working on my memoirs. i've got a deadline creeping up on me so i haven't seen a whole lot of daylight recently. but i can't think of a better place to come for inspiration than to come to reagan country. people keep telling me they look forward to reading the book which only reminds me that i need to finish writing it. in fact, i can tell you that it's going well. i am enjoying the work. and, with luck it should be in the book stores this fall. [applause] right now i'm deep into my years as vice president and let's just say that i'm not having writer's block. plenty to talk about. but it's a longer story than that. some of the early highlights involve my dealings with ronald reagan when i was working both in the congress as part of the congressional leadership and for president ford. being out this way makes me

appreciate all the more what a privilege it was to know him and even in my first impressions were a little colored by the politics of that day. i had been asked to sign on as president ford's chief of staff and of course one of our responsibilities was the struggle in 1976 tover republican nomination. it was a great fight, i might add. it really was a special event in the history of the party. outside of a movie screen, my first glimpse of ronald reagan was on a 1974 trip to los angeles with president ford. i was in the room when the two of them met dressed in their dusm dos before going do you know. i think we were in century plaza and this was before they went downstairs to attend a republican fund raiser. i believe they were sizing each other up in a prelude to the battle for the 1976 nomination. i remember being a little

distracted because i was making some last-minute travel arrangements for the president. but busy as i was, i saw enough of governor reagan that night to know that we in the white house would have plenty to worry about if he decided to get into the race. it's a safe guess not many of you were around back then so it's hard to convey the tension in republican circles as reagan geared up to challenge ford. it was a very big deal. and that fight for delegates never stopped until the third day of our four-day national convention. in that first bid, i was on the other side. i worked for jerry ford and i had the greatest respect for him and i had watched him hold the country together in the aftermath of watergate. taking the nomination from a sitting president is a tough proposition. in the end, not even ronald reagan could pull that one off. after ford's narrow victory at the convention in scans, i must say i liked very much the idea

of putting governor reagan on the idea of a ticket. although it's probably just as well that it didn't happen. in the next four years, everything came together to set the stage for the reagan presidency. and arguably it took the carter presidency to really set the stage for governor reagan's election in 1980. by 1980 all of us were reagan united states. [applause] at that point, i was a congressman from wyoming. wyoming only has one congressman. it's a small delegation, but we like it that way. and we ended up, i ended up serving in the house republican leadership all the eight years that the president was in the white house. and those were great days when we had a republican president and a leader like ronald reagan and people like frank working for him and so many other close

friends and when we had some great folks up on capitol hill as well too. these days, at a distance of more than a generation, you hear even liberal-leaning commentators reminiscing about the reagan years in a way that doesn't always ring true to me. they speak of it as a gentler time in politics when supposedly debates were more cordial and opponents on capitol hill were unfailingingly civil and respectful toward the president. i hope i'm not disillusioning anyone, but i don't quite remember it that way. in some cases there was a cordiality that did allow for some big accomplishments. so when the president and speaker o'neal got together to save the social security system from collapse, but among the opposition in congress, president reagan also had to deal with some much tougher players. if they had warm feelings for governor reagan, president reagan by then, it didn't

always show in their tactics. i think of late in the second term when there were major policy differences over iran contra. i watched all of that as the ranking member on the select committee that was formed to investigate iran contra. and i've rarely seen politics get any ruffer than it did during that period. it's certainly true that we do attach a certain good feeling to memories of the 1980s but that has little to do with the conduct and spirit of the president's opponents. america remembers if time that way mainly because there was a gentleman in the white house. for all of his jeanality, ronald reagan himself was accustomed to political battles and he didn't resent the exertion of debating and fighting for what he believed in. he expected it. eight years as the governor of this state, his time as a union leader in hollywood had toughnd him and made him the pers veering advocate that was for all of his principles. he understood all that was at

stake in the great debates over taxes, over the size and power of the federal government and over the strength of america's military. reagan was a man sure of himself and his abilities, but more than that he had confidence in the people themselves at a time when big issues were riding on their good sense and their character. as he said at his first inauguration, i do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. i do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. of course, the worst fate that could have come to america was to suffer a lack of resolve 2349 years of the cold war. if there is any when the presence of one man made all the difference for the good it would surely be ronald reagan standing do you know the empire and vowing it would not gain another inch of ground.

margaret thatcher called him a prove dential man and i found a lot of people who agreed when i got to the pentagon as secretary of defense. more than anything else, it was the reagan military buildup achieved despite the constant heckering of the left that ensured our victory in the cold war. he left that and much else to his successor. and when iraq invaded kuwait in 1990, president bush had all that we needed to throw back the army of saddam hussein. we deployed half a million troops to the desert. but the air campaign, using the assets that ronald reagan gave us, was so decisive that ground operations took only 100 hours to prevail. and when it was over, there was one person i wanted to talk to. i picked up the telephone and placed a call to bel air and said, thank you, mr. president. [applause]

when we think back to ronald reagan, thank you is still a pretty good place to start. we associate idealism with youth. but the oldest man ever elected president was also the most idealistic and he brought out that quality in the american people. he inspired the kind of affection that even great men cannot claim by right but goes only to the truly good. kindness, simplicity, and decency marked his entire life. long before he first journied here to california and long affered after he returned here from washington. and remembering his final years, we might also add courage for the galant manful way in which he left us. there is much more that could be said. frank and i will turn to that in a moment. the short of it is that the great respect and admiration

that your generation feels for our 40th president and that shows in the work of the reagan ranch center is well placed. 100 years after his birth, history has taken the measure of president reagan. he stands tall in memory. and let us always be grateful that such a man came along when this nation and all the world needed him most. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much for those remarks. let me explore a couple of facets of president reagan and some of the things that you said. recent polls show that

americans now think that ronald reagan is the most successful president in the post world war ii era. and indeed, there are surveys that show him ranking just behind washington and lincoln in terms of all 43 american presidents. what is it about reagan that makes him even more popular today than when he left office and the special enduring qualities that he seems to have for america? >> i can see right now, frank, you're going to get me in trouble with all the other presidents i worked for. >> when you go to their centers, you can talk about them. >> ok. well, the way i think about it is that he has worn well. you mentioned it in your opening remarks that he dealt with big issues, he took on the tough problems. and when you think about the end of the cold war and how it ended, i am always been

absolutely convinced and i am to this day that in effect what happened was the soviets decided they couldn't keep up with the united states once ronald reagan laid the markers down that we were going to rebuild america's defenses, that we were going to go with the strategic defense initiative, and made the commitment, the soviets were unable to contemplate a situation in which they could, in which they had the resources to keep up with us, basically. and in the end, they folded. and it was peaceful for the most part. president reagan developed i think a good relationship with gorbachev so they were able to manage that. we got into the first bush administration and the collapse of the old soviet union, the departure of the narmbrod, the establishment of democracy all

across europe. it was a world-shaking events that he helped precipitate. and now we have had enough time after 22 years so that we're able, i believe i think, to have more perspective than we did before. and these are lasting achievements. these are not momentry battles over a piece of legislation. as i always thought margaret thatcher had it about right when she described him as a prove dential man, a man who was there when we needed him. host: that's the >> that's the way history turned out. that he was able to establish a relationship with gorbachev. but one of my jobs at the time was to stay in touch with conservatives. and there was a lot of grumbling at the time from conservatives that reagan was being snookrd by gorbachev. it took a really prove dential

man to see the possibilities to see how the cold war could end. from your vanityage point in congress, you were always a very strong advocate of strong national defense. did you have any concerns like that, that maybe reagan was being snookered a little bit by the younger gorbachev? >> i'm tempted to say i'm going to save that for my book. let me say that i was one of the most conservative members of congress and look at my voting record when i was there. and one of the first things i did was a television interview where i predicted the demise of gorbachev, said he's never going to last. that caused some trouble over in the state department. a little bit of heartburn. and in the white house. so i was a skeptic, i must say,

and i thought for a long time that it was very important for us to stay to the cussed on the traditional relationship, if you will, that gorbachev in the end i think basically did the right thing in the sense that he could have called out the troops, he could have smotsdzrd eastern europe the way his predecessor had in hungary in 1956, checks lovackia in 1968 and he didn't. i think he will deserve a lot of credit. but in part that was made possible because i do believe he established a relationship of trust with ronald reagan. so i think as much of a skeptic as i was, i would have to say i think president reagan got it right. >> how about the strategic defense initiative, something that really wasn't talked about that much prior to his famous

speech in 1983 when he just sort of lobbed it into the east-west discussions? how much of an impact do you think that had on the eventual peaceful end of the cold war? >> i think it had a big impact. i think it said to the soviets that the united states was going to use its technology and our lead in a lot of areas to be able to build defenses against incoming missiles. they were worried we were going to build a system so big that it could defeat their deterrent. and that was their major concern. the fact was the estimates on the soviet economy were inflated. in effect what had happened is i recall i had an economist with working for me who got it right. but they in effect the official estimates were based upon the soviets statistics on what their economy was doing.

its economic performances. and those were inflated numbers. so when they were building defenses trying to keep up with the united states, they weren't spending just 10 or 15% of their gnp on defense, they were spending something like 25 or 30%, which was much smaller than they said on defense and they couldn't keep it up. and that was crucial, i think, from the standpoint of the f.b.i. was of saying to the soviets we can do it. if you look at what happened, one of the things that i think we did well in the bush administration was we continued to push hard on defenses and we abrogated the abm treaty which i think was absolutely essential to get the restrictions lifted, if you will, that interfered with a lot of what we were trying to do in terms of testing missile defenses.

in an era when north korea now has missiles and weapons, iran is trying, they do have missiles. they're trying to get weapons. we're in a position where we badly need to be able to defend ourselves against these rogue regimes that may have just a handful of missiles that they could launch in a crisis. and we've been able to make some significant progress and did successively test our system a couple of times during the bush administration. but we need to do more of it. but you can trace all that right back to the commitment that president reagan made when he said we're going to do sdi. host: during all of your time in congress, unfortunately the republicans were in the minority. and yet, president reagan was able to get through mr. many important bills, the tax bill, the budget bills, aid to the contras, et cetera. from where you sat, what techniques did he use in order

to win consistently 40, 50 democrats and keep all the republicans together to put those majorities forward? >> well, there's a story i love to tell that captures the essence of the reagan live -- legislative strategy. i think it was a tax bill came up, and it was going through the house first because that's where tax bills originate. democrats controlled the house. and they wrote a terrible bill. what came out of the democratic controlled ways and means committee was a bill that a lot of us on the republican side didn't want to vote for. and we arranged, trent lot was part of the group and myself and a couple of other people. we didn't want to vote against the president directly but so we arranged to defeat the rule under which the bill was going to be debated. and when they brought the rule up, we killed it. that created consternation down at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. and we got word that the president would like to come up

and reason with his republican friends in congress. so on the appointed day, he came up. but first he had a stop he had to make that morning down in north carolina. he had to go down and preside at a memorial service for some of our servicemen who had been killed. and when he walked into one of the large hearing rooms in the rayburn building full of house republicans. he walked in and began talking about patriotism and sacrifice and what it means to be an american. and it was so effective, there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. and then he stopped and he said, now, gentlemen, he said, about that tax bill. people were jumping up all over the room. henry hyde was the first on his feet saying, i'm with you, mr. president. you can count on me, mr. president. he switched 70 votes on that, in that session. he never said a word about the

tax bill other than, now, gentlemen, about that tax bill. and he nailed it. they took it back to the floor and passed it, sent it over to the senate. [applause] again, it is always eh the it's always easy with the hindsight of history in terms of the tax bill, the first tax bill, the 25% cut across the board over three years. that was hugely controversial at the time because from a static anlitches that would seem to have increased the deficit. how, from your vantage point again as one of the most constoif members of congress, how did you approach analyzing that bill? did you have any concerns or had you become a supply side advocate by that point? >> by then i was a supply side advocate. i had spent too many hours with jack camp and finally. >> did you get a word in

edge-wise? >> eventually. i was a great believer in the tax policy and still do today that it was vital to remember that the private sector is what creates jobs and wealth and opportunity in the united states. it's the strength of our private economy. it's not make work projects out on the local highway spur or whatever it might be. it was i thought a very important piece of legislation. and the president partly what he did, one of the secrets to his success was that the democratic caucus looked different in those days, too. there were a significant number of what we call bull we've democrats. i'm thinking of guys like phil graham from texas. he had been elected as a democrat to the congress the same year i was in 1978 and came to town but he tpwhreefed a lot of the same fundamental principles that president reagan believed in.

so he signed on and joined us, and we had a number of democrats, bolweevel democrats, conservative democrats who worked with us and helped us pass that legislation. and for i would say the first couple of years of that first term we actually had a situation where even though we republicans were in the minority in the house, with our conservative democratic friends on the other side of the aisle, we put together a majority on the economic issues, on budget and tax policy and so forth and it was enormously successful. it was also a big tribute to ronald reagan and the democrats as i recall overreacted and penalized some of the guys on the other side like phil. so phil did a very interesting thing. i always thought it was a very principled move on his part. he resigned as a member of congress, announced that he was going to be a republican now, and went back home and ran on a

special election as a republican to replace himself. in other words, he switched parties but he was honest about it. he didn't continue to camouflage himself as a democrat, if you will. and i always thought that was, as i say, a principled move. but it was that kind of thing that helped a lot. nowadays, i would say the democratic party has drifted further left. you've got somebody like nancy pelosi as speaker, or she was until last november, a san francisco democrats run the house, and i guess i would be careful what i say. the fact is that a lot of those seats are now held by republicans. that's where we build our majority from because a lot of those members either converted or were replaced by republicans. and that's how we get to the numbers we have today. there aren't many bolweevel democrats left. >> we have sonl questions from

the audience that we collected before the dinner and they're on contemporary topics so we would like to ask few of them for you. we have two questions on egypt. bob trout of if you willerton, california. and patrick walsh, a student at san diego university both have a question about egypt and the current uprising. i'll pra phrase their questions. in light of the bush doctrine of trying to spread democracy around the world, how much of that influence do you attribute to what's going on in egypt right now? and, how is the administration doing in the very delicate balance of trying to manage the transition from authoritarianism, hopefully to democracy, in that country? >> that's an interesting question. the way i think about it is that i think it's important for us all to remember that this issue is going to be resolved

by the egyptians. you know, a lot of people with opinions outside, other governments, commentators on the cable news shows. but the bottom line is in the end whatever comes next in egypt is going to be determined by the people of egypt. and we need to remember that. i also think it's important to remember if you look at it purely in terms of u.s. interest, we have believed in and most plrgses have endorsed the notion of democracy and freedom.

i've known mubarak for many years. i first started to work with him the first weekend of the gulf crisis this 1990 when president bush sent me to saudi arabia to arrange for the deployment of u.s. force soss we could defense the persian gulf and liberate kuwait. my second stop was in alexander rea egypt to meet with president mubarak. and there was consternation throughout the region. the united nations supported it, congress supported it. the egyptians, the syrians, all sent forces as part of our coalition. but president mubarak was right at the outset signed up for overflight rights so we could get our aircraft into the region for access to the suez canal, for our naval vessels

and so forth. he ended up sending i believe two divisions of the egyptian army to fight along side americans to liberate kuwait. so he's been a good man. he's been a good friend and ally of the united states and we need to remember that. and it's also important when you get into these circumstances that you try to have an open channel of communications that is private to whoever it is you're dealing with out there. it is very hard for some foreign leader to act on u.s. advice in a visible way. you know, you tell me as the president of the united states that i've got to do x and you do it publicly. then if i do x, my people think i'm not my own man. i do the bidding of the americans. it's exactly the wrong way to go. and there really needs to be -- there's a reason why a lot of

diplomacy is conducted in secret. there are good reasons for there to be confidentiality in some of those communications. and i think president mubarak needs to be treated as he deserved over the years because he has been a good friend not only of the united states but a lot of other folks that we do business with and work with and have dealt with as well, too. so you're looking for balance here. but i do hope that the, that there is a channel of communication. >> do you think mubarak can survive? is it in our interest for him to survive or not? >> i don't want to make a prediction because i don't know. but i also think that there comes a time for everybody when it's time to hang it up and move on and somebody else to take over. it's true if you're running a company or if you're a vice president or if you get to the

point where the years add up, the burdens become tougher to deal with, and -- but as i say, that's a decision that only the egyptians can make. i think they will handle it in an appropriate fashion. i like egypt. i like egyptians. i'm fascinated by the country, by the history. and as i say, they've also been good friends and allies of the united states and we need to treat all of them with the respect they deserve. >> another area that a number of our questioners wanted to know about was afghanistan. the president had said that he is going to have his own surge in afghanistan, a commitment of additional american forces there. general petraeus is now involved and is running our forces there. from where you sit, is the president doing enough in your judgment to ensure that we are

successful in afghanistan and pakistan? >> well, first, i think the petraeus appointment makes a lot of sense. general petraeus is one of the most capable officers. he's a great choice and he will do a good job. i think the surge of forces that the administration's commited to and is now implementing is basically a plus. the key as i think about afghanistan, it's a very, very difficult set of circumstances you've got in afghanistan. it is one of the poorest countries in the world, it is the leading producer of heroin. it's never really had a strong central government. you've always had war lords operating in various places around the country and you're

not going to get a full blown democratty overnight out of a place that starts as deep in the hole as afghanistan is under normal circumstances. on the other hand, we've got to get it right over the long haul because in fact it was the base of operations for al qaeda when they killed 3,000 americans on 9/11. it's where they started from, it's where they trained. and it's very important that they not revert once again back to a safe harbor or a sanctuary, if you will, for terrorist groups trying to kill americans. so it's a worthy objective. i would like to see the administration not get tangled up in deadlines by when they're going to start to withdraw forces. i think that's a huge mistake. that says to the people over there in afghanistan and in the region that the united states isn't going to stay the course. if they just wait us out, we'll pack it in and go home.

and i think that would be a big mistake and to some extenlt raise questions in the minds about the worth of american commitments and whether or not we're prepared to do what we need to do. in the end we cannot send forces every place in the world. i mean, we have limited resources. but it's also important that where we do operate that we help the locals get into the fight and be able to control their own circumstances. be able to maintain the sanctity, if you will, of their sovereignsy. pakistan is a related problem because they're neighbors of afghanistan. a lot of flow back and forth across that border. something very important to remember about pakistan. a very large population, a strong streak of islamist fundamentalism in part of the population. and a significant stockpile of

nuclear weapons. and if pakistan ever goes to the dark side, we're going to have a big problem on our hands and so we cannot afford not to be involved in that part of the world. we need to be there. there's an awful lot at stake. the strategy you pursue and what kind of forces you use and so forth, those are all subjects for debate. but we cannot walk away. we did once before. we were actively involved when i was on the intel committee in the house and supporting the afghan muge hah dean against the soviets. it worked. it drove the soviets out of afghanistan. and then everybody turned and walked away. and the next thing you know, you had taliban government in afghanistan. in 1996 they invited in osama bin laden and he set up shop and the net result of all of that of course was 9/11 and our lots of 3,000 americans here at home. so this is not a place we can

just wash our hands of and say it's over with, we're done. we don't have that option. >> a number of our audience wanted to know if you could talk a little bit about your views on terrorism and preventing terrorist acts here in america. you've been critical in the past of the administration and i believe not taking advantage of some of the techniques that you believe were developed legally during the bush administration. are those crityisms still valid or has the administration gotten a little bet anywhere that regard in your judgment? >> the reason i spoke out on their counter terrorism policy, and this is after they had been there just a short period of time, was that in the very first day in office, or at least that first week in office, president obama was talking about how he was going to scrap the terrorist surveillance program, the enhanced interrogation techniques and so forth. the thing that really feanded

me and got my dander up was they started talking about prosecuting the people out at the agency that had been carrying out our policies. policies approved by the president of the united states and the national security council, policies that are kept us safe for sen and a half years and they were talking about going after and forcing these folks to hire lawyers and prosecuting them for having followed the lawful orders of the president of the united states. think of the kind of precedent that sets and what it says to people who get a difficult order to excute. tell them they've got to go perform a certain duty and responsibility on behalf of the united states government and they have to look over their shoulder to decide whether or not when we have a change in administrations the next crew is going to want to prosecute them for what the last president told them to go do. it's a huge, huge mistake. now, the good news is i sense that they've backed off on some

of their more outrageous propositions. i noticed guantanamo is still open. [applause] the notion that we broke the law on the programs we had in place, just it's simply not true. we went very carefully to the justice department, which is what you do in these things. we went and got their view of what the statutes provided for. things like terrorist surveillance program, for example. this was the one that let us intercept incoming calls and communications between suspected dirty numbers, al qaeda, and in kabul and wherever, and who they were contacting in the united states. we put that whole program together and then we briefed the congress on it. and we got the senior

leadership, chairman and ranking members of the intel committee, house and senate, eventually got the elected leadership, too. the speaker hastert in those days, and so forth, and headed down to the white house. and that bigger group we had down when some controversy developed over the program and sat them down in the situation room, breefled them on what we were doing, showed them the results, and asked them, do you think we ought to continue this program? they were unanimous. everybody there said absolutely. then i said, well, do you think we ought to come to congress and ask for specific grant of additional authorization for us to continue doing this? and they said absolutely not. if you send it up there it will leak. and we'll blow the program. you'll tell the enemy what it is we're doing to read their mail. and that was unanimous. nobody objected. either party, either house, in what we were doing and how we were doing it and the

authorization we had for it. that all came about later, got caught up in the 08 campaign and so forth. but i'm hopeful that what we'll see is a solid steady hand at the tiller that we will not have kind of decisions about counter terrorism policy that were talked about during the last campaign or that the administration and the president said they were going to pursue when they first got into office. >> let me ask you a question about a domestic policy of the bush administration. and a lot of people at this conference have made this comment to me and i know you've heard it. so it's not new to you. but a lot of conservatives think that all the good thing that is the bush administration did, and there were many of them, the one area where you could have done better is controlling government

spending. and they say that that sort of undermined our brand as republicans and that led in part to the very bad results that our party had in 06 and 08. do you have a comment on that? >> well, i can't argue completely against it. the fact of the matter was we had a republican congress for several of those years and when the question would come up on whether or not you ought to veto a spending bill, for example, the response oftentimes on the hill was, what would you accept? we want to work with you, we don't want to work against you. if you say you're going to veto that bhill we're not going to send it to you, we'll send a different one. so there was a natural ink

nation, if you will, because we had both the white house and the house and the senate that sort of tried to cap the notion of out and out conflict. now, i think we could have done a better job on spending. i will be the first to admit it. i always was concerned, for example, that when we got into prescription drug benefits, the original objective was that we'll grant additional benefits. i mean, modern medicine without prescription drugs isn't much. anybody who has got health problems, and i'm living and walking proof of it, prescription drugs are often the key to survival. it's got to be part of the package. but in return for that, we wanted significant reform in the medicare program. and began to get a handle on medical costs and one of the huge entitlement programs that has yet to be dealt with. we got the prescription drug benefit. we never got any of the reform,

for example. and i think the criticism has some justification. i think the other thing i referenced, though, too, is 9/11. had a huge impact on what our priorities were. and after 9/11 we felt, believed very deeply and i think most of the american people agreed with us at least initially that we had to undertake a lot of activity to make the nation safe, everything from setting up the homeland security department to military operations in afghanistan. and there's a lot of stuff we had to do, a lot of stuff we had to do fast, and it was expensive. no question about it. but i think we saved, in my view, thousands of lives that would have otherwise been threatened if we had not responded as aggressively as we did. so it's -- i'm glad to see the

republicans now appear to be serious about going after some of that spending. >> richard from santa barbara has a question here. you may want to save this answer for your book also. he asked if you could give any information on the meetings when he asked you to run for vice president with him. what could you tell us with that meeting? >> i've talked about that before so i'll talk about it again. i had been approached earlier in 2020 -- 2000 by one of governor bush's associates about whether or not i would allow my name to be considered for vice president. and i said no. i said, i've got a good job. i'm happy living in dallas.

i've had health problems, you know, that will be an issue. i'm in the oil business. that will be an issue. we're now both residents of texas. that's an issue. because you can't have the texas electoral vote be cast for president and vice president. so i had to go back and reregister in wyoming as a wyoming resident. it's a good thing we did because if i had stayed in texas, we would not have been able to count the texas electoral vote towards my election as vice president. and we would have had a bush-lieberman administration. but joe's not a bad guy but you wouldn't want him for your vice president. but the second request then was whether or not -- then the governor called me and asked if i would help him find somebody, run the search. and i said, sure, i can do that. that's a temporary assignment. we can get it done in a couple

of months here. then i can go back to doing what i want to do which is run the company. so we went through that whole process and we ended up on -- right after 4th of july, just a couple weeks before the convention, and i went down to the ranch outside crawford, this is before they had the new house built. they had a little bitty frame house that he and laura were living in out at the ranch. and we sat down and spent the morning reviewing all the candidates and then had lunch, just the three of us. and then he took me out on the back porch. about 120 in the shade that day in texas. and he turned to me and he said, you know, you're the solution to my problem. and i took that as a threat. i needed to work hard tore find somebody. but i told him then at that point, he didn't offer me the job, but he made it clear he

wanted to have me be considered. he wanted my name on the list. and i told him that what i would do is go run the traps and see what i had to do if i were to make myself available in effect. i've got to worry about who is going to take over halliburton when i leave, i've got to get reregistered in wyoming. we've got to get the doctors involved and the medical community. a long list of thing that is had to be addressed. and i said finally one other thing. i also want to come down to austin and sit down with you and whoever else you might like, karl rove or somebody else and tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't pick me. why i'm a bad choice. and he said, ok. and so the following saturday, we did all this stuff and then i went down to austin and sat do you know with the president and carl and laid out the brief against me. i said, i'm from wyoming. if you don't carry wyoming,

you're toast anyway. only three electoral votes. and so we went through that whole exercise. he listened. karl agreed with me. he didn't think i should be vice president. and i went back up to dallas and within a day or two got a phone call. in the morning, i was on my tread mill. and it was the governor saying, ok, you're my guy. i want you to run as my vice presidential candidate. and i've often had the suspicion that he never really gave up after that first request. earlier in the year. he always had in his mind. he's never admitted that to me. maybe he will after he sees this. but it was a -- the thing that changed my mind, that affected my judgment on it was i worked

with him. and over a period there of over two or three months, where i heard and i could observe his mind working about what he was looking for. this was a guy who wasn't sort of going down the normal path for picking vice presidents where he would pick a guy like lyndon johnson, for example, and then you bury him someplace. they didn't even let him go to meetings with the senate democrats when he was vice president. you know, you stash vice presidents. you get them out of the way, you send them to funerals or whatever. he wasn't just worried about the electoral college vote or the politics for the whole process. he was really looking for somebody who could serve alongside him and be a parts pant in the process. and get actively engaged. and he liked my background and obviously my experience and my resume. and he -- i came away convinced. we never signed a contract.

but he meant it when he said, look, you can sign on and be a major player in my administration, get involved in whatever you want to get involved in. you'll have access to all the meetings and all the policy debates, however you want to operate. and it sounded very attractive, frankly, put in those terms. he kept his word. we ran integrated staffs. we avoided a lot of the pitfalls that a lot of administrations have not avoided. and it wasn't clear sailing all the way. we had our differences. we argued about those. and i always got to voice my view. he always made the decisions. and it was all things considered for me an absolutely fascinating experience. i loved it. [applause]

>> we have just a couple minutes left. there were a couple questions i want to get to. we have a lot of young people in the audience, mr. vice president, and a number of them asked questions along the lines of, what advice do you have for them who are very interested in politics and want to do something for their country, for those that want to pursue a career in public service? >> do it. it's a -- [applause] >> from the standpoint, i started out i was going to be an academic. i thought i wanted to be a school teacher. not that there's anything against school teachers. it's honest work. but i got to washington on a fellow ship internship and there are a lot of internship out there. there weren't many when i started out there were only two for example in wyoming in state government and i got one for 40 days in the state legislature. but now there are tremendous

opportunities out there all the time for young people who want to start out and get some experience and participate. but your name on the ballot. there's a crying need for candidates. start at any level. you don't have to be president of the united states first time out to have a major impact on events. you can do it in your local community or school board or the state legislature, whatever moves you, whatever turns you on. it is just a very, very privilege that most of us come to appreciate the more we travel and get out around the world and see what's going on out there. look at a lot of troubles that a lot of other people have and you come back home to the united states of america and it is whatever we make of it. and you've got the tinets and indeed the obligation to get out there and spend time and effort and resources serving.

and if that turns you on, there are a lot of ways to serve. you don't have to run for elective office. it doesn't have to be as the successful political wars. i think a lot of what's going on here at the center, when you bring youngsters in, students, and give them some exposure to the legacy of ronald reagan and to the ideas and the principles that he operated in accordance with. it is, as i say, a tremendous privilege to be able to live in a society, in a country like that. and it will only be what it's been for all of us to the extent that we get actively involved and that next generation coming along. we've got an obligation to try to pass it along to the next generation in the best possible shape we can leave it. the young folks have got an obligation to pick up that burden and see if they can't do it better than we did.

>> and the final and most important question that's on everybody's mind. who is going to win the super bowl tomorrow? >> the packers. packers. [applause] >> i'm not sure there's unanimity on that. would you join me in thanking the vice president for being with us. [applause]

>> clnch span is a private -- c-span is a private nonprofit company as a public service. this morning on "washington journal" we'll take your questions and comments. after that on "newsmakers," we'll speak with homeland security secretary janet napolitano and later senate debate on health care repeal legislation. . .