biography of alexander hamilton. then, and david cameron takes questions from the house of commons. after that, a news conference with president obama and the merkel. merkel. oh -- angela this week on q&a, historian ron chernow. he talks about the hit broadway musical hamilton in the consulting work he did on it. then minimal miranda base their musical on journal passion biography of alexander hamilton. chernow, when did alexander hamilton first kid on your radar? ron: i started writing about it in 1998. the reason i chose to do was that hemilton

seemed to be fading into obscurity. people were coming to regard him as a second-tier founding father. most americans know him from the $10 bill, but that was about it. it was comical, i felt as if i was lifting him out of the security. what were you doing at the time? ron: i have finished writing my biography of john rockefeller. i had done a series of books the gilded age. when i did lectures, people would start shouting out, do vanderbilt, do carnegie. i felt like i was getting stereotyped as a biographer of tycoons and i wanted to switch periods. alexander hamilton was the

perfect exit strategy. new era,expose me to a constitutional law, military history, on and on. plus, the most amazing story. brian: you probably don't like this question -- is there somebody today that would come closest to the way alexander hamilton thought about government? ron: that is a difficult question. mostnder hamilton was the verbal politician in our history. if he felt strongly about an issue, he would write a series of essays over the course of a few weeks about it. hamilton would sit very uncomfortably in an era of tweets in soundbites. rational, deeply

intellectual. i cannot think of anyone stylistically reminds me of alexander hamilton. book was 2004, your number one on the paperback on theler list and combined new york times list, in the top 15 all these years later. talk, five straight weeks at number one for an 800 page book that was published in 2004 -- it is safe to say that that is unprecedented. it has had a profound effect. it is through the looking glass experience for me. the greatest has been having lin-manuel miranda take this biography and translated into a vivid three-dimensional life on stage. it has been deeply touching, the way i have been embraced and incorporated into the show.

not only the creative, but the cast members. i have never been involved with the show before. i decided that i wanted to have every experience i could have with a broadway show. i was at every workshop, rehearsal. i sat in on the recording of the album. i said in one performance with the orchestra under the stage. been a lifelong theatergoing, never imagined i would be on the other side. it has been enchanting. as you watched it, what was the most difficult part? book, i have hundreds of characters. one thing that i realized was that history is messy and complicated. broadway shows have to be very short and tightly constructed. there is a conflict between

that. in a musical, you have to have 8-10 principal characters. you have to establish them early , and keep developing them. there are certain places in the show where things happen accurately, but we done by other people. for instance, there is a scene where jefferson -- where madison confronts hamilton about the reynolds scandal. you was actually confronted by three jeffersonians, but not those three individuals. what i loved about working with lin, in those cases where he used dramatic license, he would try to incorporate authentic elements into the scene. brian: if you go on the website today, you cannot buy tickets. how far has it sold out? january 2017.

brian: all of this year and january of next year. as you can on the resale websites, $1000 like a human. ron: people have been scalping tickets for up to $2500. for are routinely scalping $1000 or $1500. us,as been frustrating for because we didn't create the show for hedge fund managers and private equity people and we has been doing what is in our power to offset that pair for instance, there is a lottery every night for the entire first row. people can get tickets for $10 if they win. we also have, starting in april, every wednesday, they will be a matinee for new york city

schoolchildren -- 11th graders in title i schools, mostly black and latino audiences. they will be sitting there for $10 apiece. not only will they see the show, they are going to have a q&a with the cast afterwards. their teachers have been supplied with curricular material so they can use the show as a vehicle to teach about american history. we are trying to broaden out the audience. we are aware of this problem. it is a nice problem, but it is a problem. i got the washington prize for alexander hamilton. brian: so did lin? ron: they asked me to get up there and say attribute to him. brian: i want to show you a piece of tape from that ceremony. [begin video clip] >> i know you are expecting me

to stand up here and start snapping my fingers and breaking into couplets, but i'm afraid i'm going to disappoint you. one side of me is dying to do exactly that. i'm going to do it. [laughter] no -- i not going there, lin. [laughter] [applause] someone save me in. i have had this fantasy about going on the stage, and i told lin i would like to do the opening number -- they can pull me off with a hook afterward. for some mysterious reason, he has decided not to throw on my

unique theatrical talents. [end video clip] lin laughe never seen as hard. he was doubled over. when he got on stage, he received the award and said, i cannot believe it, we have ron on c-span.ping that has been a fantasy of mine to go on for the opening. brian: it is a two hour and 55 minute show. you can purchase all of the music -- how much can you do by memory? ron: i can do most of the first song. i know lots of different portions. i have seen the show about 50 times. i was very intimately involved with the creation. lin, i started working with he would send me the song via e-mail. i would hear him and see him

singing along with psychedelic screens. i was absolutely astonished. number at mypening apartment, started snapping, sitting on my couch. " how does singing, how does -- i said, that is the most extraordinary thing pretty have taken the first 40 pages of my book and condensed it accurately into a 4.5 minutes on. what is and say was, [indiscernible] . pages to 4.5led 40 minutes so accurately. brian: we have a photo of lin-manuel miranda with your book in the water. is that when he first got it? ron: when i met him in 2008, he

was still starting in his first show. he invited me to a sunday matinee and i went backstage -- i had heard that he read the book on vacation and it made an enormous impression. he said, i was reading your book in mexico and as i was reading it, hip-hop star -- hip-hop songs started writing -- hip-hop song started rising off the page . he said alexander hamilton's life was a classic hip-hop narrative. i think that lin prettied up that he had a world-class a new ignoramoust hippo -- about hip-hop on his hands. he said, ron, i'm going to educate you about hip-hop, and he did on the spot. he pointed out that in hip-hop,

you can pack more information in the lyrics than any other form because it is very dense pretty talked about the fact that hip-hop not only has rhymed endings, it has internal rhyme -- he started educating me in all of these different devices that are very important to the success of the show. musm not a complete ignora about hip-hop anymore, just mostly. in terms of the relationship between hamilton in washington, i was having lunch with lin and he said to me -- he was trying to figure out what the dramatic essence of that relationship was. he said to me, when washington met hamilton, would washington have seen hamilton as a younger version of himself?

i said, absolutely, because washington when he meets hamilton, hamilton is 22. when washington was 23, he was the head of the armed forces in virginia, let his man into a terrible massacre. is a beautiful song in the show where washington seems about, let me tell you what i wish i had known when i was young. next time i saw a new version of the show, to see that scene in that song and realize that it can out of it -- but even late in the game, for that the public theater where it originated ,ff-broadway, i said to lin there is one big policy point missing from the show, which is that when hamilton became treasury secretary, the country was bankrupt. as time he left, we were

credit worthy as any other country in the world. in the closing scene of the show, madison comes out and says , he took us from bankruptcy to prosperity. for that, we will forever be in debt. he does not get enough credit for all the credit that he gave us. that was a direct response to what i had just said. that was pretty late in the off-broadway run. is always prepared to listen. he was very good at filtering or whatever ridiculous asinine things that i would say. he had a very good instance. .e was always fully open he was diplomatic. if i said something that he thought was completely absurd, he wouldn't disagree, he would

simply stare at me wordless. [laughter] brian: you were born where? ron: brooklyn. brian: mr. miranda? ron: lin was born in new york, the westside. brian: and alexander hamilton? ron: he was born in the caribbean. he spent his adolescence on one of the virgin islands. around the age of 17, a hurricane hit the island. a letter was published by him in the newspaper describing the storm in shakespearean terms. he was a legitimate orphan at that point. the local merchant suddenly recognized they had his young genius in his midst and they took up a collection to send him to the north american colonies to be educated. with a few letters

of introduction but he did not know a soul. hamilton is not only the original immigrant, but a completely self-made, self-invented figure. all of the other founding fathers were born in the original 13 colonies. hamilton was the outsider. he started life with as many disadvantages as the others had advantages. secondsere's about 20 of the music. alive." is "stay it shows his relationship with general eisenhower at the time. ron: you are talking about washington? [laughter] brian: yes. i'm getting down the road. ron: hamilton is 22 when he

meets washington. washington would have been 45. [begin video clip] [end video clip] this was the valley forge winter. the continental army was sitting there amidst -- the problem was the farmers were selling the food to the british forces in philadelphia. i remember lin had sent me very beautiful, mournful music for

valley forge. he would hear the words of thomas payne over the music. that were the only words survived from that original draft of that scene. lin is extraordinary in terms of plucking out what he needs for racine. -- needs for a scene. he is a disciplined writer. it is hard for a writer to strike at a beautiful line. lin has the ability to do it -- i am not sure i do. brian: he is what age? ron: lin is 36. the firsting constitutional convention, the 30?ding fathers were thenhe would have been 32, 34 when he became treasury secretary. brian: so all of this had been

done by young people. ron: this is an interesting point. so much of the attention about the show has concentrated on the latinoat this black and -- what has not been sufficiently emphasized is how young the actors are. with a bunch of late middle-aged white actors in wings. here, there are very few people in the cast who are over 40. in the same way that this black and latino cast enables the audience to enter into this experience, providing a bridge between the sensibility of today

and the sensibility of then. i think that the fact that the show reminds us that the american revolution was made by young people. i think that is very exciting. brian: at that ceremony when lin got the washington award, folks said they were going to fund 20,000 young people seeing it? ron: we got a grant from the rockefeller foundation. we will have one wednesday matinee a month with 11th graders. brian: why 11th? ron: they are studying this period of history. works 3-4 the productions. they will be a chicago production opening in september. it will be in los angeles next francisco, one or two

national touring companies. london.ing to be in as the show goes to other cities, i'm hoping it is not the rockefeller foundation, another philanthropy will do exactly what we are doing in new york for the reasons stated earlier -- this is our most important audience. cast god from the time the october, itut in already sold 252,000 copies at it is almost every word of the show. it is to cds, it has the inside. libretto the cast album as much as the show has enabled the hamilton musical to really enter into american popular culture in no way that i have never seen with a broadway show.

every day, i get an e-mail from friends saying, my six-year-old is driving me crazy. she listens to the cast album again and again. i write back and say, there are worse problems than having the child who only want to talk about the founding fathers. brian: this is what the the ttotto looks like -- libre looks like. ron: we really have two audiences. we have the audience inside the theater in that is 1321 people every night. i feel as if we have a much larger audience across the country of people who are listening to the cast album and reading the libretto. newsweek and did an issue that

features -- already using the cast album as an educational -- there will be a certain moment where the producers will allow schools to start to license the show and perform the show. we all hope this is going to be musical widely-produced in american schools for many years. outside theis lin theater in august 2015 when he would entertain the folks waiting in line. [begin video clip] [applause] >> thank you for making this possible. i hope you all come to the show. i think we are going to run a long time. in the early 1850's, to

pedestrians strolling past a house in washington knew the white house realized that the widow seated by the window was the last surviving link to the early republic. earlier on a ledge overlooking the hudson, aaron burr fired a shot at alexander hamilton. in an effort to remove the man regarded as the main the pediment to his career. [end video clip] ron: that was actually opening night on broadway. lin came out two hours before the show and read the opening paragraphs of my book. i was very startled when i saw the clip you there are a couple moments where he is almost on the edge of -- as he is reading it. as powerful as i know his response was to the book, i learned something new about how

deeply he felt. we both fell in love with eliza hamilton had been a completely unknown figure to the public. at the sameis lin ceremony where you did the rap. [begin video clip] ron's version of hamilton is what made me fall in love. the first two chapters out-dickens dickens. it has been an incredible journey working with ron and learning about this history. the secret sauce of the show is, i am learning this stuff one chapter ahead. i am falling in love with these characters and i'm falling in love with the fact that they are not the people i grew up learning about in ap u.s.

history. they are flawed, messy. burr came alive when i realized -- waits, this is a guy who for what he wants. that unlocked him for me. [end video clip] brian: explain more about everywhere. -- aaron burr. presentsway that lin the ehrenberg conflict -- aaron burr conflict. they had contrasting personalities. hamilton is a very aggressive and confident person, burr place everything -- a more cautious individual. .e would hang back during the war, burr fell in

love with the wife of a british officer. there is a scene when hamilton says, if you love this woman, why don't you go get her? it is meant to point out the difference in personality between the two men. as time goes on, the difference in politics and ideology will become even that much more important. that is what lin is referring to. as we are ong this affair, you mention this earlier. we have an answer from the program about reynolds. this pamphlet was written when? ron: 1797. when hamilton was treasury secretary, a beautiful 23-year-old woman came to his door. she had been abandoned by her

husband james reynolds and she was in need of money. hamilton was then the most powerful and controversial man in the government. hamilton slipped out of the house, went to her moving house, said that he found her at the top of the staircase -- she then ushered him into a bedroom and he wrote a famous line and made -- that was the start of the affair. mr. reynolds suddenly appeared and it's at a stop in the affair decided it would be fun to charge hamilton with the pleasure of his wife posh company in bed. it was so reckless -- wife posh company in bed -- wife's company and bed. it was so reckless of him to

enter into the affair to begin with but then suddenly he is paying hush money to the husband when all of the jeffersonian press is circling around him trying to get some dirt on him. hamilton is giving them the biggest story that they would ever get. brian: isn't there a difference in the broadway show from the actual way it happened? ron: yes. you are asking before if there were things that were changed. what happened in actuality was that a scandal mongering journalist, who was a jeffersonian, published these charges claiming that hamilton had paid money to james reynolds because they were secretly in speculation treasury security together. hamilton publishes this pamphlet saying, no, i was paying money to james reynolds, before the

favor of his wife's company. i said to lin, i thought it was confusing to the audience because in the show it seems as if hamilton was preemptively publishing this pamphlet after jefferson and madison told him that they know about these payments. lin did not have the pamphlets that provoked hamilton. lin added a line at the end of withcene b withurr, -- , and medicine. that line came out of cash and madison. that light -- and madison. brian: thomas jefferson, james madison, angelica is in this, along with aaron burr, and

hamilton. let's listen. [begin video clip] ♪ [end video clip] with all of the success you had in 2004, are you finding people that are learning more about alexander hamilton and the founders? ron: every single time i am at the theater, at least one person comes up and says, i loved the show and as i was watching, i was embarrassed to realize how little light knew about the history of my own country and i am determined to change that. it is nice that a lot of them are reading the book or other

books about the founding era. , i don't know what your next show is going to be. an impactu have had in terms of stimulating an interest in american history that i have never seen. inust hope that periodically your career, you circle back to american history because i think said thegrapher has same thing, that we did not feel that we were reaching young people. when i do a lecture or assigning, typically the up.ence is about 35-40 and whereas lin has this magical connection with people of all ages. a friend even told me that she took her three-year-old to see the show in the girl was

bouncing and swaying in her seat. i have seen the show with people in their late 80's who were as starry eyed as that child. weight in golds in terms of stimulating young people to read about american history. brian: how important to the success of the show was his appearance in 2009 at the white house in front of the first lady and president? ron: for a personal standpoint it was very helpful. you have to understand that for all of the years we worked on this, before people saw the show, i would say, i am involved a a show that will be hip-hop musical about the founding fathers and they would look at me like i was crazy. was a little bit like " the producers." with "springtime for hitler."

wereis how people come u reacting to a hip-hop musical. right before the show opened, i was walking in past two young women on the street and i heard one say to the other, it is a musical about alexander hamilton and they both started laughing and then the woman said, and it is hip-hop. they were roaring with laughter. the one thing about the white house clip is that when people left, i said, watch the clip from the white house. everyone who saw the clip then called me up and said, that was extraordinary. brian: let's watch. [begin video clip] >> i am thrilled the white house called me because i am actually

working on a hip-hop album, a concept album about the life of somebody who embodies hip-hop, alexander hamilton. you laugh, but it is true. he was born a penniless orphan in st. croix, illegitimate birth , became george washington's right-hand man, became treasury everyary, had beef with other founding father, and all on the strength of his writing, he embodies the ability to make a difference. [end video clip] brian: what had happened to lin miranda? what does success mean to him? that hehas already said is going to stay in the show through july. that was his announcement in the beginning. i think you would like to move on to his next show. doing a performance as a week, it is difficult for him to clear

his mind. say thaty heard him when he took my book on vacation to mexico, it was the first break he had had when he could open his mind to another story. i think the show has made him a superstar. people are running after him with every conceivable offer. .in is the original multitasker the year that he was sending me the hamilton songs, he always maintained psychological continuity with the show. i think that lin has another 6-8-10 wonderful musicals in him. i hope some of them revolving around american history. brian: from a financial standpoint, do they have to purchase your services?

ron: lin optioned the book. the interesting thing is that the book cannot in 2004. -- came out in 2004. it was optioned three times in hollywood for a feature film, as , it disappeared into a blackhole. hollywood couldn't figure out what to do with this story. ikept saying to my agent, don't get it, here is the story of an orphan kid from nowhere who set the world on fire. duels,e, sex scandals, all of the ingredients you could want. knew exactly what he wanted to do with it. brian: in the back of your book in the acknowledgments, you say

there was a study to find out whether alexander hamilton was black. he said the information is going to come later. what happened? ron: i discovered from directists that if i had mail hamilton descendents, descendents who had the hamilton swapping out of their mouths and sending them off to a laboratory for genetic testing. results were inconclusive. i was thinking to myself, wouldn't it be great for race relations and we suddenly had a biracial founding father? doing it was very instructive for me because it made me , americanst race tend to think of it as something precise and distinct -- becomes very nebulous on the genetic

level. it turns out that so-called races have more in common with each other than differences when you look at the genetic material . hamilton came to north america, he was a legitimate he always say, my birth has been a subject most humiliating. haunted byys references to his legitimacy. there was always in the press -- john adams called him the creole bastard. there were a lot of references to his racial makeup. when young people came from the it was not unusual for them to be the product of the union between a white master and a female slave.

we have a lot of paintings of hamilton. not apparent just from the pictures of him that he would have been biracial. i tell it in the book, his father may not have been james manlton, it may have been a named thomas stevens. hamilton's best friend from boyhood was somebody named ned stevens. everybody who knew hamilton convincingly had the chance to meet ned was bowled over by the lookedance, that they like brothers which makes me think that they probably were. lin decided that that was probably one complication too many and decided not to deal with that, which could have been

difficult. because he starts the show in 1776, in the opening song, telling us everything that we need to know up until that point in hamilton's life. that would have been quite a bombshell to drop into the first song. brian: here is more video from that event. by the way, it was $50,000? ron: i think so. [begin video clip] [applause] ♪

[end video clip] trailer thats the he used to publicize the show. you said off-camera that those -- that is your family now. ron: i am running with a very cool crowd now. it certainly changed my image around town. it has been so moving that they have invited me into their world. brian: any chance we will see you on stage? ron: no, although i am hoping , it on june 12, tony night hope i will be on the stage if

we win for best musical, which i think we have a reasonable chance. i do not think i will be on stage at the theater. although, i keep mentioning it as a possibility. hamilton, theer main things that he did before dying at 49. ron: ok. act, when the revolutionary war, hamilton was washington's aid. the second act, the constitutional convention. hamilton issued the plea to meet in philadelphia. he was the sole new york delegate to sign. wrote 51 ofd and the 85 essays considered the

classic -- on the constitution. he became the first treasury secretary at age 34. he created the treasury department, created the tax system, the first fiscal system, the first central-bank, the first coast guard, the first custom service, on and on. hamilton was the architect of the federal government. on the one hand, hamilton was very charming, witty, charismatic. it was easier like that side of him. he was also brash and dangerously self-destructive. admiration fors what hamilton had accomplished. i often say, the wonderful thing was that youory

could admire him, but his flaws were so serious that we can all identify with him. human andnce very superhuman, depending on the moments. it is a fascinating story of someone who was as brilliant as hamilton was, flawed and fallible. when we were creating the show, there was this notion in broadway that the central character should be sympathetic. he should be rooting for the central character. hamilton, with the reynolds ,amphlet and other things hamilton is constantly testing the sympathy of the audience. it has been interesting that people walk out of the theater with tremendous admiration and affection for him. becomes real to them. this is the big mistake that we

make in our schools teaching history. we think that in order to love a historical fure, we should present a series of statements. the students are very bored and the figures seem unreal. if you can capture them accurately, they will love these characters. brian: would you go to high school? ron: forest hills high school in queens. i did two degrees in english literature, at yale in cambridge. brian: you must at some history classes? do you remember them? ron: history should be the most exciting subject. is memorization. i do not remember having exciting history classes. i think that i, like a lot of discovered --re,

some people were lucky enough to have fantastic history teachers, i don't me to denigrate -- i think that my story, in their 30's and 40's, they one day on their own pickup a piece of history or biography and a star rating and they say, this is fascinating, how come they never felt that before? having a sensation constantly with the show that people are coming and saying, how come no teacher let me know how insionate and brilliant argumentative and fascinating these characters were? brian: the last time you visited was for your washington the, a book as big as the hamilton book . now, what are you doing? ron: i'm doing ulysses s. grant. brian: how hard is it to live in different centuries? .on: extremely hard

mornings and afternoons, and i am during the reconstruction of the civil war. then, nights and weekends, i am back in the 18th century. occasionally, when i come up for air, i am in the early 21st century, but only occasionally. because my books are very long impact packed with information, when i finish a book, there is a delete button in my mind that wipes out the whole book. his like my mind is tired of having to keep all of this information. whereas i have not only had to keep the ulysses s. grant book in my mind, but because of the show, hamilton in washington -- sometimes i feel like my brain is bursting with these books in my mind is crying for release. brian: when will you finish the grant book? ron: i'm hoping to finish it

this year, and it will come out next year. i have just had so many distractions with the show -- pleasant distractions, but still distractions. every time i think that the interest in the show is going to subside, it actually intensifies. what do you think of grant? in terms of searching for topics, i always look to people whom i think were misunderstood. with hamilton, hamilton had been very demonized. the ideas growing up, was that jefferson was a virtuous man of the common people in that hamilton was this villainous figure, a tool of the plutocrat. i tried to show that hamilton was much more liberal than he

had been portrayed. less.fferson, maybe similarly with grant, i always try to start at with some of the myth around someone. grant was actually a strategic genius militarily. or, grant the juncker. -- drunkard. that turns out to be a very complicated story. hardly the whole story. reconstruction was a big story of his presidency. there is so much that has been forgotten by ulysses s. grant. i'm hoping that when the book comes out, it will be as surprising to most people as hamilton or the other books have been. they are going to see so many more dimensions to this figure.

if you were able to interview george washington, hamilton, or grant, or rockefeller -- who would you choose? ron: i would choose george washington. wasll of the figures, he the most important and the most mysterious. just the kind of people to stare at him in study him. if i wanted someone for his intellect, clearly alexander hamilton. washington wast the indispensable man who made everything else happened. hamilton, ibout certainly came to feel that his achievements were up there with washington. brian: we found some video that

lin miranda put on youtube when he was a young boy. i want to know if there is any video of you that would exhibit this kind of talent. [begin video clip] ♪ [end video clip] brian: this is before hip-hop, i suspect. ron: i think it is safe to say there is no such video in their of mew family archives

dancing on my dad. i was probably playing stickball. brian: has anybody shown any interest in doing a broadway show on washington? ron: there is interest in doing dramatizations, in terms of television and film. i'm hoping that will happen at some point. when lin told me that hamilton's life was classic hip-hop in that , i did was a perfect fit not understand what he was talking about. i understand now, because there is something about the way lin presents him, hamilton is presented as this very, very intense, frenetic character. here you have visited very dense hip-hop music, and there something about that personality and style that perfectly meshed. took me time to see what must have come to lin in one blinding

flash, that this life and music would match. brian: we're almost out of time. has there been anybody that didn't like the show that wrote about it? the only review i can remember that was at all critical was in "the new yorker." otherwise, we have had hundreds upon hundreds of ecstatic reviews of the show. it is inevitable that somebody would come along -- when you have everybody saying it is the greatest show, somebody will come along and say, i don't think it is so great. brian: did you know this was going to happen? ron: no. i remember in january 2012, lin did a performance of 10-12 songs at the lincoln center. was people in their

20's and 30's. they were not even staged, really. he sang these songs and every member at the end, although these young people were on their screaming, and it looked around and said, oh, my god, is this a preview of the future? every time the show was tested, that was then reaction. when we were at the powerhouse festival, the priest was crawling -- the place was crawling with producers from new york. just the first act was done, every producer in the room was saying, this is the greatest thing i have ever seen. we had intimations that it might happen but we couldn't have predicted that it would be quite such a sensation, or that it

would be not only a theatrical phenomenon but a political and cultural phenomenon. with her at the white house to couple of weeks ago. i don't think there is a proven a sitting president who came twice to see the show, the first .ady twice we have had the obamas, the clintons, the cheney's, every hollywood and broadway star you can imagine. rates been a who's who passing through. that is something none of us could have imagined that it would be quite this kind of sensation. brian: ron chernow, author of "hamilton," thank you very much. ron: it was a pleasure, thank you. >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org.

programs are also available as c-span podcasts. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: if you like this program, you can watch our interview with him from 2010 will be talked about his biography of george washington. other interviews you might enjoy andude michelle easton david stewart. you can find these programs online at c-span.org. washington journal,

live every day with policy issues that impact you. on monday morning, christina marcos joins us to preview policy and political debates taking place this week on capitol hill. then, michael steele will discuss their rules governing the republican convention. directorusa executive examines the announcement by united health that they are pulling out of most aca exchanges by 2017. watch washington journal beginning at 7:00 eastern, monday morning. join the discussion. announcer: nextannouncer:, prime minister's questions at the british house of commons.

then, president obama continues his trip with a stop in germany where he had a joint conference with angela merkel peered at 11:00, another chance to see q&a with ron chernow. alize on the next series "game of thrones" due out very soon. >> questions to the prime minister. [shouting] >> question number one, mr. speaker. >> thank you, mr. speaker. this morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this house, i shall have further such meetings later today. >> thank you, mr. speaker. on her 21st birthday in 1940 7a young woman declared that her

whole life whether long or short would be dedicated to the service of our nation. >> here, here. >> nobody could possibly argue that her majesty queen elizabeth ii has been anything other than fulfill her promise to the nation with dignity and grace. >> here, here. >> people across the country will be marking the queens birthday, 90th birthday tomorrow in many different ways, many honorable and right honorable members will join for the queen initiative tight enough our neighborhoods. some will be raising a small glass and many will be having a proper -- so when the prime minister next has an audience with the queen will he pass on my best wishes? [laughter] and those, and those of the whole house? >> here, here.