did that create the same kind of image today's golf would do? >> interesting is wilson and the theater going, world war i, "the washington post" editorialized in favor of wilson going to theater in wartime. you see the critical of the president playing golf or going to the theater. wilson was pratzed praised because it helped to keep that industry alive. you shouldn't overindulge. you work hard as a president. you should have time to tune out or read something or think bigger thoughtings. >> we have a program from 1948 of the theeter in the white house, that would have been the truman administration. it's a black and white changed dramatically since then. you can see it on the screen. what happened to the theater?

>> from 1953 to 1956, there was a white house projectionist who wrote down every movie that the president saw and with one exception, who the president saw it with. the one exception is under kennedy. he saw a movie, we don't know who he saw it with. it's a treasure trove of all of the presidents were seeing at a particular time. the theater has been around for a long time and helpful to presidents trying to get people along on a vote. so, for example, george w. bush brought in ted kennedy to see "13 days" which was a movie about john f. kennedy's experience of the cuban missile crisis that made john f. kennedy look good. so bush brought in ted kennedy and ended up working together on the no child left behind law. they were able to get that past the majority. >> who was on the record? >> he would not watch movies

with robert mitchum in them because he had been arrested for marijuana possession. he would try to sneak movies with mitchum by eisenhower. when mitchum got up on the screen, eisenhower would walk out. when jimmy carter who watched 480 movies since being president, the most of any president he did it in one term, he told fishe he wanted to watch family friendly fair in the white house. and fisher's reaction was think about it, this is late '70s, was you're not going to be able to see many movies that way. he was right. >> where do you find the information? where does mr. fisher keep it? >> all of the nixon movies are on-line. some of the others aren't fully available. >> the list of all of the movies. >> i'm sorry. >> the list of a all of the

movies are easily accessible. the rest require a lot of digging. there's a documentary on presidential movie watching. >> president nixon watched 153 movie s? >> b.b.ribozo? he loved him, he was a cuban friend. he said he's the only kind of person he would relax around. he's trying to impress everybody. nixon and kissinger where he makes the point that nixon tries to be somebody else when he's with that person. so kissinger, he tried to be the great foreign policy strategist or ehrlichman, he tried to be a political strategist. he's a different person with different folks. for him, he could just be himself and watch movies. >> on white house museum.organize, they have several pictures on there. most are white house pictures like we saw in the 1948 white house theater. the theater has changed a great

deal. it's now, what, a very rich red? it was all white room. how often do you use the things like -- you played some role in the bush-cheney debate preparation. how often is that room used for that kind of thing? >> the theaters are red plush seats. very comfortable, you can lean back to them. you don't need protection anymore. that's a little different. the ford administration, they use that room for debate prep. in that room, they had a disagreement of how to handle the soviet domination of eastern europe. the disaster in that debate is there is no domination of poland and eastern europe. it's more often used for entertainment for the president, the family, friends, and guests. girls bring in friends to watch movies.

>> how are you involve in the bush-cheney debate preparation? >> i did the debate prep books which was a very difficult and arduous job. you had to have the two debate prep books that covered every subject. the person who did it before me, i asked him on the first day for advice. i said, there must be 4,000 possible question it. how do you do that. he said you're right, 4,000 possible questions but only 40 answers. it's your job to write the 40 answers. you had to write them in the fields of economics, homeland security and national security policy. you had to make sure that the president's book and the vice president's book were the same. any time there was a new development or a new vote in congress you had to keep it up to date. you had to keep it punchy. >> i worked on the 2004 election. >> and over the years, have you studied the history of debates and what can you tell us about

some of the more interest ing interesting anecdotes from the debate prep? >> the books are famous on tv. the most famous story about the debate is the 1960 election. john f. kennedy going up against richard nixon. nixon was confident about the use of tv because of the 1952 checker speech. this is the speech where nixon salvaged the political career by going on tv and talking to his dog, checkers, how he wasn't going to give it up. how he manageled to get out by financial impropriety. he was confident about the use of tv. eisenhower was more skeptical. he was advised not to do the interview. he did not wear makeup, he was not tired, not shaved, he looked bad. henry mcmillan said your guy looks like an ex-con where the other guy looks like a spritely undergraduate.

kennedy defeated him on tv though people on the radio thought nixon had done better. >>. >> before we leave, john kennedy, you say in your book, he watched 48 movies. what were his type of movies he watched. >> there was a thing that he liked james bond. saw the movie, "from russia with love." he wasn't a big movie watcher. he was impatient. he didn't like to sit still very long. he liked talking with people and engaging with people. he's not one of the big presidential movie watchers. >> d.w. griffith, you mentioned him earl inner in the book. and wood row wilson. what's that toerry? >> d.w. griffith was the director of the film, "birth of a nation," that is a racist film with a terrible depiction of black people and a pro confederate view of things. wilson watched it in the white house not because he was such a fan of the film or wanted to promote the film. it was the first film watch in the white house. but his wife had died. and he didn't think it was

appropriate for him to be seen going out to a movie. so he had a college connection to griffith. he agreed to see the movie in the white house which became framed as the white house screening. and then the famous line about wilson saying it was like history written by lightning. it's one of the most famous. but the truth is he probably never said it. >> most of it is down on the ranch. we'll let you see if you recognize anybody in these movies. there's l.b.j. and hubert humphrey. you can see the dog. how often do presidents use dog s? >> very often. presidential pets are a big deal. people love the pets on the website. they weigh in about the pets. bush had an annual movie with barney his dog.

we're going to see the dog again. johnson had that image where he held the dog up by the ears and people thought it was cruelty to animals. he dealt with the treatment where he'd get in your face. >> this is 1955 when it was shot. home movies again. what do you think of this kind of thing if the public had seen this before he ran? >> the shirtless picture reminds me of the shirtless picture of vladimir putin a few years ago. i don't think people want to see shirtless pictures of the president or candidates. you had that experience where johnson at one point lifted up his shirt and showed the appendicitis scar and there was a big tunnel about that. you had the president go to the beach like you see obama on the beach or clinton on the beach. for the most part, i think presidents should keep their clothes on. >> what do you think of the idea of keeping the home movies. richard nixon became public. home movies of john f. kennedy

and others. did you look at that for your book? >> a little bit. the point about home movies is similar to pop culture. pop culture is important for presidents to humanize themselves. to show you're a regular guy. you can have an appeal with him. they're important and they have a lot of power, you watch i love lucy just like they do. home movies and pop culture help the american presidents relate to the common man. >> who did not -- i'm sorry, who did not like movies and who did not watch movie s? >> harry truman, no interest in movies. i write in the book that he had a vacation home in florida. he would go to the home in florida and show movies to the guests but he feelsn't much interested in them. he liked reading. a huge fan of reading. he's the last president not to be a college graduate. but an autodidact, read history all the time. he said the only thing new in this world is the history you haven't read yet. he brought up history he was reading in his meetings,

national security meetings and other places and to the extent that there's been a truman resurgence in the last couple of years, a lot of the biographers like mccullen focussed on truman's reading and showing how up to date he feels. >> when did you start your history interest? >> my dad was a history teacher in the new york city public school. my brother is a presidential historian. so i was always reading history as a kid. loved history from a young age. i got a phd.. not doing it to teach but i want to get involved in politics. that's what we did. we had the history of politics and history. we combined them. >> where did you get the phd.? >> i got it from the university of texas at austin. i took classes at the lbj school. and the expert of the presidency who passed on, she was the expert. i took a lot of question classes with her.

i learned a ton from her. she is the wife of the national security advisor under lyndon johnson. when you started, did you have a political view. if so, what was it? >> i grew up in new york city in the 1970s. in a liberal jewish neighborhood and a liberal jewish house hold. i saw in the 1970s that things weren't really working. and i saw there was graffiti and blackouts and all kinds of troubles in the streets of new york. i thought perhaps there had to be a better way. so i was admiring with ronald reagan, how he helped to turn things around in the country and admired giuliani and how he turns things around in the city. so my reading helped me more on the conservative side. >> ronald reagan came from the movies but what was his habit when he was in the white house for the two terms. >> paul fisher before the white house projection is that the golden oldies are the ones for me.

he referred to rambo ones after a hostage crisis. he said i've seen rambo and now i know what to do the next time there's a hostage crisis. it was joking but it was a movie reference. they would sit at home, put the pajamas on early in the evening if they didn't have the social obligation. he would read, more books than people think, but also liked to watch tv. she liked murderer she wrote. he said now the new policy is that he can only be woken up for a national emergency and "murder she wrote" and he liked watching the sunday shows? meet the press, face the nation, and watched them carefully. >> how do you find this stuff? >> the internet is a great tool. googled books to help me find indexes and the books i needed. presidential archives are on-line. the library of congress has a

wonderful collection. i have a collection at home of biographies of every president at least one. you start from there and just branch out. >> when did you last work in politics and what are you doing now? >> i was the deputy secretary in 2009. the bush administration. i left there to go to the hudson institute and i've been at hudson institute studying politics, pop culture, the presidency, and health care since 2009. read a lot of articles. doing some tv stuff, and i also wrote this book. >> let me show you video of richard nixon when he was here for the book interview back in the 1990s to make sure i got the right day. it was '92 the day we passed on fairly soon after that. but here he is talking about books in his life. >> you would have to tay p take the bible from that. the bible apart from religion is great literature.

the new testament, particularly, and even parts of the old testament. i felt that the book of eccleastes is some of the most eloquent writing that i've seen. it lifts you. i would pick that as a book. among others, hard though tell. among current authors, the books by paul johnson appeal to me a great deal. a marvelous writer, a geopolitical thinker. many remember his later books but my favorite is the one on the british, the offshore islanders. just a marvelous book. not only great prose, but great poetry as well. >> what -- what did you find out about the reading on the part of presidents. >> i had a lot in there. very important to many of our founders and presidents. james madison studied hebrew to understand the bible better, the

political context of what's going on with the israel lite ooit readers. lincoln had few books. he read them all over and over again. one of the books was the bible. you can see it in the famous speeches. four score and seven years ago, a biblical language. he used the bible to appeal to americans and a language they understood to people much more bible literate in those days. the great story is gerald ford going on air force one at one point and asking for a bible. he was told that there was no bible on air force one. so he said there should be. there was subsequently after his request. but since then there's always a bible on air force one because of the joe ford request. >> joe ford told bob novak at one point he had read the twilight of the presidency by george reedy. what was the significance of that? >> reedy talked about the weakness of the presidency at that time and how some of the previous overextensions.

ford took from that book not that presidential power should be expanded which others had tried to do, including nixon and johnson. he thought there may be should be a more modest approach to the presidency. novak was struck by ford who was not quite president but clear at vbs when nixon cloaked to resigning, he was struck by a more modest approach in his willingness to shrink the power of the presidency rather than expand it. >> richard nixon mentioned paul johnson who wrote a book called "the history of the united states." there's a book called the people's history of the united states. >> very different. >> who could read one but not the other, what would you get? >> paul johnson. >> i want to start with what's the difference first of all. why would a student, if they were given only one side of that book, what would they get? from paul johnson.

>> johnson is a footnoter. johnson's way of doing research. he writes with a typewriter. he has two typewriters going faults. one is the typewriter of the text, the other is a footnote typewriter. wasn't so easy to link the two. not so sure i could have done all of my footnoting without the computer. he's a very careful user of sources to make sure he's got everything right. i think with the ideology he got the bert of his scholarship. >> we have video of jimmy carter who was here in 1995. he's talking about the book of poetry. >> beginning five years ago, i studied textbooks about poetry and the different kinds of poetry, the different kinds of whether they rimed or not, open verse, and so forth.

also famous poets, the words they said. the favorite poet at that time was dylan thomas but i don't have any ability or inclination to try to emulate his poetry. >> what do you think? jimmy carter has written a lot of books. what did you find out about him in books? >> jimmy carter wrote 23 books more than any other ex-president or president in their lifetime. dana roosevelt wrote a lot of books i talked about. most were before he became president. jimmy carter's book library has developed since he's become president. he mentioned the bible a lot. the growing up in georgia. but he's been very successful with his book sales and it's part of his shaping himself as the next president.

it's part of the resurgence in the postpresidential year he's become a contemplating ar author. >> it's very ought to biographical. it's homespun stuff. i heard that he has a lot of church going ladies in the south seem to like it and buy a lot of his books. he's got a built-in audience that works pretty well for him. >> what do you think of the story that's run for years that teddy roosevelt read a book a day or more. is that possible? >> two or three. i know it's possible. i was in graduate school, i had to prepare for the oral. he was the president. i would have to suspect -- not sure, but when printing was more expensive, books were a little shorter. but still, two or three books a day. he was a fast reader. he only had one good eye but he could span through books

quickly. he used to reach out to authors if he liked the books and develop relationships with them. there's the example of "the jungle" that talked about the horrible conditions in the meat packing plants that led to the creation under voeltz. >> what were some of the books that were important in the early years with the founding group in this country? >> the founding fathers read a lot of classics. they liked reading the greek and roman works. they read history and philosophy. but it was really to talk about in the book, the class was the ultimate and they like to read cicero and kato. george washington showed the play "plato" at valley forge when things were cold and things were going well in the war front. adam loves cicero.

we reread one of the books annually. jefferson was a wide ranging reader that read all kinds of philosophy. james madison, when he was preparing to come up with the constitutional convention and write the constitution, he asked jefferson of recommendations for books he should read. jefferson, at a time when books were expensive sent him two books that madison wrote the memo on it. >> when did the president stop reading the classics, or is there such a thing as a time when they stopped reading the classics? >> just so many more books available today. if you were reading "wealth of nation" in 1776, it was not a class thing. it was a new book and it was cutting edge. some books become classics over time. but i think now there's a presumption that the classics you read, you read as a kid.

when you're adults, you want to keep up and read some of the latest biographies. george w. bush was a new reader but he read 14 different lincoln biographies when he was president. there's so many new books out, it's hard to keep up. >> did you talk to him when you worked for the administration about books? sure, i sat in. privileged to sit in when he had meetings. donald kennedy from stanford is one of those meetings. not the biggest fan but impressed with the knowledge of books and how many books he read. >> was there a president that didn't read at all that you found? as president, he didn't read that much. he read mysteries. george h.w. bush. there's a great story i tell in the book when he's in

kennebunkport and he's asked by reporters what he's doing on vacation in kennebunkport, and he said, i'm going to do some tennis, some golf, some motor boating, some running, some -- some horseshoes. and i'll do a little reading. reading wasn't his top priority either. >> over the years when you looked back at the books that had an impact on a president, what did you find? and the impact on us is people. >> that's my inspiration of writing this book. i was curious if it had an impact. one of the most famous stories is this -- michael harrington wrote about poverty in west virginia. kennedy is supposed to have read that book and it led to the war on poverty. not quite that simple. it didn't happen quite that way. he read a book review by dwight mcdonald in the "new yorker" and that inspires kennedy to tell

walter heller who is the chairman of the council of economic advisors to go look to policies that can be used to alleviate poverty. kennedy died in 1963. he said that's not my program. he pursued it as president. >> were there years back a few books that you found had an impact on the discussion of this country? >> i mentioned request it the jungle" with teddy roosevelt and "common sense by thomas paine was well read by the founders. this is before he feels president. that book was very important -- or pamphlet really. it was very important in helping to buck up morale against the british in the tough time in the revolutionary period. it was a huge best seller. adjusted for population. the sales of that book were equivalent to the sales of peyton place.

>> what impact did the democracy in america have on the 1800's? any in this country? >> it shaped historian's and sociologists' view of america. i didn't have the impact. but i'm sure you have c-span listeners who followed the stuff. i'm curious to hear if somebody didn't know something. >> what about the -- the federalist papers. i know they had an impact when they passed the constitution, but beyond that, how much impact do you see the federalist papers having? >> people refer back to them. again, i remember -- i don't remember an instance where the president said i've been reading the federalist papers. this is part of what i'm talking about with the -- once the classics become classics, you don't refer to reading them as

frequently. it helped to shape the debate over the constitution. one of our future presidents at the time was heavily involve in that. >> you say you ear a presidential historian. we know because we had your correspondent at your book party here in town. and we have a picture of something and someone who was there at this party. we'll show it on the screen. a former president, people may not recognize him right away, but it's thomas jefferson. this -- thomas jefferson is one of the mascots for the washington nationals' baseball team. question -- how expensive is it for this guy to come to your party. teddy roosevelt is the guy who loses the races. he's in the title that jefferson read and obama tweeted.

>> you talk about cultures. the wa nationals had every race at every game. teddy roosevelt, abraham lincoln, george washington, thomas jefferson. and they added william howard taft to it. what impact do you think that has on people's interest if any in history? i like the way that nationals have made history part of their story. anything that you can get young people to study a presidency, that's a good thing. that's why we use pop cull dhur in the book. it's the attitude to the minds of the young people. >> how long did it take you to do this book? >> the issues for years. the actualing was a full year and about eight months in terms of editing and footnotes and adjustment ms. >> anybody interest in the presidency and pop culture.

so a little vim diagram, it's an overlap. it's a pretty broad audience. >> another example of a modern president talking about books and the famous book and the favorite author, bill clinton. >> the finest model in my adulted life is "100 years of solitude." i read it when i was in law school. i keep going back to it. it was a rhapsodic mystical work. i enjoyed that very, very much. a lot of the fiction i read now is more for release. i read a lot of mysteries and -- >> anybody in particular? >> well, yeah, i just read a mystery about bosnia and croatia by a british writer.

i read an interesting book by thomas gifford, an interesting writer. and a fun read called "jack & jill" by a mystery writer patterson. >> you have a full list of bill clinton's favorite books. where did you find that? >> it's on the internet. clinton printed it out, he published it at one point. if you look at his memoir, it's filled with references of books he read in his life. he went to russia -- remember the famous trip to russia. he said the border guards went through his bags thinking they would find pornography but they found a russian novelist in there. he was a huge reader. constantly reading and talking about it. >> the book on harry truman. he talks about the last 20 years, went home, and sat there

and read all the time. i remember i went to see that home and they asked me if i'd like to see a list of all of the books and they gave me a list of the 2,000 books that are still in that house. where did harry truman get in there. he was the last guy to be president. he did not have a college degree. >> he loved reading it as a child. the mother encouraged the habit. he's engrossed as a reader. they could be having an argument and the world could come to an end and harry truman won't look up until they get to the bottom of the page. he spends $5 on a set of mark twain books on a time when they had a lot of must be and read the twain books and loved them a great deal. but i wonder if that point about him not going to college made him feel he had to read in order to keep up with all of the brainy harvard yale types that were in washington. >> did you come across a president that started reading on his own rather than having a family that read? >> yeah, lincoln, clearly.

his father criticized him for his reading, thought it was a waste of time. lincoln came through for himself and it shaped him and helped him come up from his poor hardscrabble upbringings. one story of a president who really came from obscurity to become president by virtue of his reading. >> you know that he read a lot of shakespeare, or he started reading shakespeare. would you find that among presidents today? >> not as much. i found it in the 19th century. >> i talked about john tyler. people were attuned to that sort of thing and they understood the references. i think you might have a president to go to shakespeare's place. i don't know anybody who will reach shakespeare. >> you know near the end, karl rove wanted to prove that he was a reader. and i think -- i saw one article

in "the wall street journal" where he read how many books during the -- did they have a contest? >> they did. they would read 80 to 90 books a year. they were serious about it. they're competitive guys. they would track the number of pages i read. i read a book that was 500 pages and he read a book that's 200 pages. keep up with the number of books and the number of pages. this is an important point because there was a sense of bush as a nonreader in 2000. it's not borne out factually. i quoted a journalist who said bush is a graduate or harvard and yale and he does not read books. you can't just go around saying things that was not true. i think the journalist should have clarified it. it became obvious to everyone that he didn't read a lot of books, there were some people who kind of sniffed at it and he said he had a narrow reading list or yufzs reading to advance certain preconceptions of his.

bush is much more likely to read a book by a liberal author than either clinton or obama to be reading books by conservative authors. >> he talks about reading books on this network. >> i spend a lot of time reading. if the question is -- do you find ways to kind of escape from your job, can you possibly leave the presidency living in the white house? the answer is the only way i found to do that is through vigorous exercise or reading. books allow you to escape, books put your mind to another location. i've been reading a lot. it's quiet. not a lot of action here. and it's nice comfortable chairs with good lighting. >> what's your sense of where presidents read and when they read? . >> they read in the evening and in the residence.

bush was interviewed postpresidency about his reading and peter robinson of the hoover administration said what books are on your night stand? he said not night stand, i have an ipad, please. presidents are more prone to reading on a kindle or an ipad. >> do you do a lot of boxes in your books with interesting facts? you have a whole page that's boxed in about the jewish people that give president jewish books. explain that one. >> i thought it was a little bizarre that netanyahu gave president obama the book of esther. they gave the passed over nader book before he passed away. >> he's a journalist. >> he gave two copies to the book of the national security

advisor. nothing wrong with it. to the shoppers out there, i'm myself. i wonder if it had been a jewish president and if he was given christian books would people in the jewish community think it was odd. i highlighted that. people are krit sooizing me on that. they don't think it's an apt comparison or anything is wrong with it. i'm not saying anything is wrong with it. it raised an eyebrow. >> you grew up in new york city. what were your parents like? they are alive. what did they do? >> my parents are both retired now. my dad is a new york city public school himselfry teacher. and my mom was a guidance counselor in the new york city public school districts and reading was big in the family. my dad would sit in the chair or bed and read. and my mom liked to read a lot of mystery novels.

my brothers were older. i was on my own a lot. >> can you remember the books you read? not when you were 5, but when you got serious about history that had an impact on you. >> i would go to my early 20s. a couple had real impact on me. one was the closing of the american mind by alan blum. you talk about the impact of culture. that's formed the way i thought about culture. common ground, it talks about bussing in boston but i read blurb to say this is about bussing in boston is to say that moby dick is about whaling in new medford. it's about the policies and the underwritten controversial of those policies. >> how fast do you read? >> i can read fast. the jewish new year, i keep

track of how many times i read by the jewish new year. within the first three days of the year, i read three books. i was on a 360-day, 360-a-book year pace. i'm not going to keep that up. but that's what i started with? >> how often do you not finish a book. >> rare. when i start a book, i like to finish it. there's some books like the books on johnson that i don't read in one sitting. they're too long. i'm almost up to book three of the four books. >> what do you think of them? >> they're fascinating. car row has a different style. he's unique, but it gets to the heart and soul of lyndon johnson that i think he would be uncomfortable with. defining jon from the inside out. it's harrowing to read almost. >> what other current historians do you like? >> the books on adams and truman have been wonderful. they read like novels from my perspective.

that really struck me as -- that's a pop culture defused. he read books when he got older and without which he never would become president.

there was that impact on tv and that really struck me as -- that's a pop culture defused. he read books when he got older and without which he never would become president. there was that impact on tv and pop culture. >> we know about two meetings you had. anything else about the number of times he met with people with books he may have read. >> there's a fair bit about his reading. he used to have that thought of

martha's vineyard. he would pick a book. it would leak out. everyone would dissect what he read. one book was jonathan franzen's book, "freedom" and he got it before the book was available. that raised the interest and became a big best seller not just because of bama's interest but the interest helped to spur it on. the last two summers he started doing that and hasn't made the book selections quite as public. >> you have another one of your boxes in obama's chapter. obama is dark and edgy. not family fair. the first lady has no interest in his gritty favorites. at a fundraiser with "modern family" in 2011, the president said michelle and the girls loved themselves sot "modern family."

they love that show. what did you learn about his current habits besides what you just wrote here? >> he loves tv. he wrote a lot of espn. he said there were certain political actors in washington buying advertising in hopes that they can get obama with all of the espn watching. he likes the shows. they're gritty and edgy. there's the new wave of a third golden age of tv. you have very impressive shows on the air like "the wire" and "board walk empire" and obama gravitates to those shows. many are the paid cable. he likes the shows of the 1% rather than the 99%. >> how about theater glass. we have this one in front with the 3-d glasses. >> he watches movies, talks

about them. sometimes jokes about them. he's aware of what's going on in the movies but doesn't seem as obsessed with movies. >> you go to his opponents and you relate to his components in the campaigns to the culture thing, how did he trump them. >> well, mitt romney whom i was a supporter i would refer to pop culture. but the pop culture he referred to, he talked about seinfeld. he talked about ferris bueller's day off. they're two or three decades old. they're not cutting references obama up more to date, much more aware, more able to reach up to you if i talk about how he slow jammed the news with jimmy fallon which mitt romney and many americans have not heard of this concept of slow jamming the news. but obama was good and talented

at using pop culture references to appeal to the voter he wanted to vote for. >> what do you think he's done to change the way people might do it in the future. >> he understands the segmentation of the audience, the way the tv tech kpifs now understand. when i was growing up, you watched "happy days" and the numbers of people were staggeringly high. today, even the shows that people are talking about aren't really watched by that many people. in fact, the vast majority of americans have never seen even the most popular shows. so obama understood the need to appeal to audience by segmentation. and appealing to them in their areas of interest. i think other presidents will have to be more savvy about doing that. i think that there's kind of this sense that republicans have been old white guys, not really up to date on the culture. and there's been a lot of talk, including in the famous republican national committee

offense about the 2012 election, that they have to be a little more up to date on pop culture. some of the republicans wanting to run in 2016, are they the younger 40 ismaels that expressed interests in tv, movies, rap music. >> so far, what have you found the people are most interested in. >> people are amazed at this stuff is going on for a long time. they asked me like you did, how long it took me to write it and how you found the information. how do you find this. i gave a shout out to politico. which covers what the presidents reading and watching. some of the stuff on obama, he never could have written without that source. >> the pervasiveness 234 the american popular culture says michael hogan, who's he? >> author, historian. >> the pervasiveness of blue

jeans and basketball, of jazz music and rock 'n' roll. hollywood movies and television representing one of the most cultural developments of the 21st century. explain. >> that quote jumped out at me. it's something i believe. it's good to have the validation. hogan is saying that american public hasn't captured the world. you hear people of peter berger going to his sociologist and to africa. he was bald. people would say hey kojak. so american cultural ideas and symbols have reached around the world. there were a few common touchdowns around the world. whether it's blue jeans or american knew vies, that's how many areas can communicate in some degriese that they haven't been able to in the past. >> we talked about movies.

over the years -- you have a sentence or you wrote -- yeah, washington would hardly recognize the role that american diplomacy plays in american live today. by the way, people get elected president. >> and i taukt about two things. in the founders had a vision of enlightened leaders ruling over an educated pop yue louls. i don't think they recognized how raucous democracy would be. \m/m

>> arsenio hall comes back with fromgram. there is a clip 1992 when bill clinton was running for president. what impact this moment have? [applause]

>> well, that was the loudest clip and it was really a ground-breaking moment when clinton goes on the arsenio hall show and not only plays the saxophone but wears sunglasses and trying to be helpful. playing elvis, heart break hotel. some of the critics say not well. you can figure out where the phone was. he sits down and talks to arsenio for a good 20 minutes to a half hour about some very personal topics. if you think back, in 1968, nixon, richard nixon, went on laughing. he said the phrase -- the signature fratz of that show which was talk it to me. he didn't say it that well. that's the extent of the experience. that humanized nixon. here, 20 plus years later, you have a presidential candidate putting himself out there showing he's hip, cool, combining both music and television in the way that he's going to be appealing to the american people.

elvis had been controversial when elvis started on the "ed sullivan show." they had to censor the gyrations of his hips when hi appeared and now a more universal way to appeal to the american people by using an elvis song in 1992. it was a ground breaking moment and obama has followed in clinton's footsteps. >> can you think of a moment in presidential campaign history that didn't work for a candidate? >> dukakis and the tank? there have been a lot of examples of that. george h.w. bush with the scanner incident in houston. where he appeared not to know what a scanner was. that's a little overplayed. nevertheless, the cultural mean got out there. and i think that the presidents had to be careful. you put yourself out there in a cultural environment. it doesn't always work. so obama so many shows. over two dozen shows where he

appeared for the entertainment shows. not hard news shows. you can make a gap or two. one time david letterman asked for the deficit or the debt. he profelszed to know the sites of the debt but didn't want to say it in that venue. for the most part, he did well with it. it doesn't always work. you have to know what you're talking about. ronald reagan in 1984 talked about bruce springsteen and born in the usa. that became an anthem for his campaign. two problems -- one is reagan didn't really know that much springsteen. in fact a press aid was asked what other songs he liked. the press aid said he had no idea. and second, springsteen objected to the use of the song. reagan was successful and won that campaign, but that was a bit of a misstep. >> in the back, in your appendix, rules for presidents engaging in pop culture. you start off with the number one on the list is borston's

law. our national politics is a conflict of images or between images. presidents must therefore understood public culture even if they don't endorse it. who was he and how did you invent it? >> i loved daniel borston's law. you ask about books forward tipping. i read him later in graduate school. a great historian. covered the gamut both technologically and politically. he talks about the book and the impact of television and talks about how you can be here, meaning you're watching at home while you're there being projected to the american audience and how tv brings people to your living room in the way that no technology had done so. it's not radio that brought the voice in. sot your image. so borston understood that the

images was very important to the understanding of how americans would proceed them. >> mark knoller of cbs radio. what's that? >> mark knoller tallies everything about the presidency. he's got a great data base. they archive how many games he took. when there was a nalgsal press conference event, reporters say what's the number on this particular thing that the president is doing. what i found is that the presidents take vacations. i don't begrudge their vacationings. but if a democratic president takes vacation, they get krit sized by republicans and the other way around. there's hypocrisy in the type of criticism. they should be allowed to have vacations as long as they're doing the job that's fine. >> the law of hbo and show snm.

>> i mentioned this a little earlier with the shows of the 1%. these shows get a lot of buzz, shows like the wire and homeland and a lot of the cultural elites talk about them. if you refer to yourself watching them, it's not always successful. while they get a lot of buzz or ink, they're not watched by that many americans. >> a speech back in the early 1960s about the vast waste land meaning television. you have in your second correlation says being direct, not hand fisted, if you don't like the message from the dark knight. what's minnow's law? >> he talked about the vast wasteland. when gilligan's island came around, the name of the ship on gilligan island was a u.s.s. minnow which was a shot at minnow. he criticized tv as being a dump of low brow shows and very unimpressive fair.

you can really never go wrong by appearing to be more highbrow than tv. i'm trying to get at that. you can't be seen to be embracing some of the lowest brow elements of tv and be an effective government leader at the same time. >> genuine praise will not be graciously received. one under that group. the left coast is not american law. >> well, the point there is that's more if you're a republican. if republican praises let's say modern family is mitt romney and mrs. romney did. they can get criticized for a lack of support for gay marriage. whereas obama said they love us some modern family. they're not only praised but they're also vetted as a fundraiser. so i think republicans have a bit of a disadvantage dealing with the culture. i think what we're trying to get at with that law is they need to be cognizant. if you're going praise some

show, you're not going to get slapped back from the purveyors of that show. >> who wrote the title of your book. jessica, ike, and obama tweet? >> i mentioned i had a bunch of friends who strad jitzed with me about what the title was. the original conception was cicero to snooky. how our culture shaped our president. the publisher said there's two problems with that. one is that the vin diagram of people who know who snook i can is and cicero is doesn't intersect. the second is it was in 2011 when i was talking about writing the book that people might not know who snooky is. i think that star has faded. so we had to come up with an alternative title and we wanted to convey this motion, two notions -- one is we're covering the gamut of presidents all the way back. washington, jefferson was a big reader. one thing i had though convey. the second thing is the way that culture has changed things.

they were raeting and watching and now tweeting. reading is a passive act. you are reading the book that's in front of you and you don't change the text. tv is something you're watching but you can also impact it by appearing on tv and tweeting you're the president. you're providing content. obama has 20 million twitter followers, he puts a b.o. at the end so you know it's a barack obama written tweet. >> the title of the book is what jefferson read, ike watched, and obama tweeted. 200 years of popular in the white house. tevi troy. thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me. box

>> this is rose another -- eleanor roosevelt's typewriter. firstirst one was her column. it set the tone for the columns to follow. she talks about the comings and goings in the white house.

from 1940. e talks about how a larger crowd came in from hyde park. the president went out to greet them. they would await election results. the president would come out and greet them. rooseveltady eleanor >> in a moment on "washington journal" to your calls, tweets and comments. followed by a look at the new health insurance exchanges and kaisercare law with

health news correspondent jenny gold. later, a discussion on budget cuts under sequestration. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it's monday, october 21, 2013. you're looking at a shot of the white house where president obama will give a speech later this morning where he is expected to address the ongoing website created to help the public and role in the new health care plans. as we take you through the latest this morning on the "washington journal" we ask what you'd like to hear the president say at his rose garden address today.