the democrat and former transportation secretary ray lahood will be on. bipartisan nonprofit group of government officials that want to reduce the power of money in politics. will belorida democrat on to talk about the news of the day. and a book he co-authored called america, the owners manual. of the weeklyran standard will discuss republican efforts to repeal the affordable care act in 2017. beginning live at 7:00 eastern. join the discussion. alain kamarck is back at our desk. our topic is white presidents fail which is the title -- topic is why presidents fail which is the title of your book. what leads to successful presidencies.

in your book you layout three -- three thanks that a successful president need to balance. guest: a successful president like a leader in any organization needs to get the policy right, needs to be able to communicate the policy and needs to be able to implement the policy. those three things should be in balance because it is wonderful to have a good policy, but if it never happens, or as it happens, it gets all messed up, no good. host: modern presidents tend to lose that balance at what part of that gets out of balance? guest: i drew three circles twice. the verse one has been in balance. the second one has policy as a small circle and implementation as a small circle and communication taking over everything. modern presidents get to the presidency by talking a lot and

then when they get to the white house, they keep talking and speechifying. now with the trump tweeting. there is constant machines. what happens is this pushes out the need for making sure that what you say is what you do. the problem comes because once you say isn't what you do or doesn't happen and blows up on you, modern presidents have discovered they cannot talk their way out of the mess. host: examples where this obsession with communication, where it has led to failure? guest: there are so many. democratic ones in republican once. -- ones and republican ones. one of the big ones for george bush was the failure to react in a timely manner and effectively

after hurricane katrina. there was nothing that george say or his campaign could that could erase the image of those people in the superdome in new orleans. this was a massive government failure and massive government failures are massive presidential failures. moving on to a democratic president. there was nothing president obama who is quite eloquent could say to the people who were trying to get health insurance back in october of 2013 at the website that kept crashing. when there is a big governmental failure, the president cannot talk his way out of it. that is why they need to pay more attention to implementation and less time talking. host: we are talking with elaine kamarck. why presidents fail, that is our

topic. the lines are open if you want to talk about these failures. her recommendations to avoid those failures, we'll get into those. let's talk about our resident elect going to a transition -- our president-elect going through a transition process. how modern presidents have tended to deal with transitions. you rank -- every transition is soaked in hubris. they think they can impose their priorities on the world and the world rarely cooperates. bubblingf that problem up during the transition? guest: the first way is they bubble up with appointments. the appointments -- almost every transition makes it a point that

either they have to pull back over doesn't make it through the conservation process and they have to replace that person. it is a lot of appointment problems. that, we are going to see. rex tillerson looks like he is going to be appointed secretary of state. he has got some confirmation problems in congress. let's see if he makes it through. donald trump is appointing people he knows, people he knows are extremely rich. it doesn't look there is an elaborate vetting process going on. usuallying process delves into people's backgrounds, their finances and taxes to make sure they paid all the taxes they were supposed to pay, to make sure their business dealings are on the up and up. who knows what is going to come out? that is a frequent, with presidential transitions -- that

is a frequent problem with presidential transitions. host: what is your advice to avoid those early failures? guest: it gets worse when a president comes out of nowhere like trump, because he doesn't have the depth in his party of relationships, so he doesn't know that people generally no about policy as if they served in the senate. most president elects, needs a vetting team that is on the ball. we don't see too much evidence of that. how much they are vetting will come out, because when these people going front of the senate, believe me, the senate will put them through their paces. host: elaine kamarck is our guest. she is also the governance

studies senior fellow at the brookings institution and founding director of the center for effective public management with us for 45 minutes. phone lines are open. we will start with glenn and illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i am wondering about how many democrats -- presidents have lied like this one we got going now? is a thingw if it that you do when you are running ? host: a question going back to your concern about communication. guest: there is a tendency for presidents to exaggerate things, look for a great line in a speech, etc.

outright lying is fairly unusual , unusual for the vulcans and democrats -- four republicans and democrats. president trump seems to have a problem with this. what is being said around odd.ngton is this kind of trump supporters are saying, well, only his opponents taken literally. everybody else takes him kind of figuratively and metaphorically. that is kind of odd, because when you are president, your words matter. your words matter in foreign affairs and in international relations where they get translated, where other countries in recent -- other countries act in response to what they think the president is doing. it is a little nervous making.

host: in your book, some of the blame comes from the nomination process that we have today for our president. guest: you bet. we used to nominate presidents the way the rest of the world nominates their leaders, enclosed party convention. that seems very undemocratic except that what was going on here was the party leaders and followers were controlling who had their brand, so to speak. when we opened up -- and only the united states have done this -- the system to primaries, parties lost control over who the nominee was. it became this free-for-all. it was not until this election that someone got nominated who had no deep roots in the

republican party. in fact, what used to happen in the old system for all of this downsides, was that you had an element of what the political scientists call "peer review. other people who knew this person and new things about them was -- them -- was here she capable echo did he or she have money problems? they knew things that the voters are likely not to know. that peer-reviewed gave us some ok presidents. we don't have it anymore. host: this is an argument to give more power back to the party elite. guest: yep. there was talk, everybody was complaining about the democratic superdelegates. on the republican side, they were wishing they had more superdelegates.

this something both political parties are going to have to grapple with because this system can yield people who a lot of people wonder if they are qualified. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me ok? i have a couple of things to say. that lady talked about the bank that lent russia money, the bank doesn't lend iran money for the boeings. she was way off on that. to the point that we are talking media,s -- i blame the and i know everybody says that. this guy did not get cleared. his sons were bragging -- i am talking about child -- bragging

that the russians were pouring money into the trump enterprise. that is big news, especially what he is doing. it is clear to me, how did he get in there without showing his taxes and knowing what is companies are doing? russians ownnd trump. it is no big secret. everybody is eating at the straw because they want their big tax cut. guest: i think that you are right that the media could be more, you know, sincere in its investigation. the fact of the matter is the media has a hard time doing this, that what used to happen was people, the party process of nomination was controlled by people who knew the players. it was one of the reasons it disintegrated -- it it was hard

to get new players and their. the virtue of it which you see with our neighbors in canada and great britain is the people who come in to lead the parties and the government tend to be well that it. they are well vetted by the press and people who know who they are, what their business dealings are. this season went surprise and consternation to the republican party and they were worried about this guy. host: the capability of the media to vet candidates getting better or worse? guest: i think it is getting worse. the reason is the media is under a lot of pressure to get eyeballs and viewers, so if you aww, donald trump is

tweeting about miss america or miss universe pageant and everyone runs over there, it is easy to distract the media. trump is good at distracting the media, particularly when they start doing complicated and sort of boring things like what his business dealings are in the world host:. south carolina, jesse a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. .aller: i am a veteran i have had some major issues in columbia. i was doing fine but because of incompetence, just not doing the right thing, i lost money. i think that is another reason why presidents fail. they don't pick the right people to look over these things. 8.5 months for an exam,

an acceptable i waited for months in 2011. since this has taken place, i have lost money. i will not get into who is involved but i had the director hank up on me at the columbia v.a. that is wrong because they make mistakes and they don't want to fix them. , case been to the ip management, they did not do nothing. i have had senators, congressmen not doing anything for me. i even went as far as the one over here, this v.a. system in the cannot get the results there. host: the v.a. system being touched on. guest: i talk about the ba system in the book and -- v.a. system in the book in one of president obama's failures. it was no secret the administration had serious problems doing what it was supposed to do. nor was it a secret that they were cooking the books, so to

speak, to make it look like they were treating people like our caller in a timely manner, when they were not. it is one of the things that talk about in the book, which is presidents getting so far removed from the government that they run so that when the v.a. scandal broke into the news because of a veteran who actually died for lack of care, the obama white house acted like it was a surprise. they were surprised you the whole thing. that should never have happened. the president should not be surprised. the president should be able to anticipate what is going on in their government and fix it. host: one paragraph from a book that sticks out -- most of the people the president sees every day will be the same people he solid when he was campaigning. the people the president doesn't really know are the 4 million or so people who work with him in the executive branch and the military. a new president is where

intellectually that they are there, but few go out to walk the halls of the federal office buildings and washington, d.c. who was the last president you think did that? was good at being hands-on and knowing what was happening in the hallways? guest: not many. [laughter] this isit is particularly modern problem .ecause our government is now -- government is now run by 800 [indiscernible] at any given point in time in an organization that they, something is going very right and something is going very wrong. presidential failure tends to happen in two directions. first, as in the example of the failed to ronnie and

rescue mission with president jimmy carter, when something is going wrong, it is because the president doesn't see and what isnd the level of happening in the government. they fail to see what the government knows and learn what they should be learning from the government. we saw that time in and time again in the bush administration, particularly with their intervention in iraq. ways, either they do not see the problem that blow up in the face or they don't take the good and the smart stuff that is in the government and use it in their policymaking. host: the book again is "why presidents fail: and how they thatucceed again," a book "one washington post -- that one ryder said hest"

wishes president-elect trump would read. michael is in alabama, democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning. it has been months since i was able to talk on c-span. in-depthe been several surveys. these are the two main concerns are have of any president and you hit it. this wonderful journalist or historian hinted at one of orse, the cabinet members partisan or even more partisan of that president. i see most residents choosing yes men or women, yet, they seem -- when they claim to get things done, it is usually by, one hand watches the other,

you do what you have got to do. , evend fight rahm emanuel though he is a fellow christian, the secretary of the interior under reagan, the first one, and ed manes is connect sample and i'm too young to remember the corruption of vice president iiro agnew under nixon but heard his name so much on the evening news when i was in kindergarten and elementary paull, and countless wolfowitz, and the last george w. bush administration and education secretary who gave us, what i call, although she meant well, no standardized test leave which did not flexibility for the state. one more problem that i see that it wish you would address, each theident appears to have secretary, the treasury, or the choice for attorney general

order the irs to inspect the .ooks usually, lobbying groups and think tanks that are the opposite from the way the party empowers the white house things at that time, and i thought i choices, butty that wonderful barter income who had so many of those problems getting the v.a. to do anything for him, my heart goes out to him. host: i will let you pick up on that. said old a loter of interesting things, and one of the things about our cabinet secretaries if they do not have in the way to look at it is the cabinet andetaries have to manage

let's take the environmental protection agency head, yes, i think the person would like to do a donald trump and run around the agency and say, it "you are fired, you are fired coming are fired," but the epa does not exist because someone made it up. it exists because congress passed laws creating it and telling it what to do. you cannot just get rid of it because you are cozy with this person or president's "yes" men. you have to convince congress to stop and repeal the clean air and as a republican congress, they may do that but that is more difficult. remember, we are an organization of laws, and while president

trump may want to walk into some of these office buildings and tell everyone they are fired, they will say, great to see you, mr. president, can we have a selfie with you wish to mark that i am -- with you? but i am protected by civil service and you cannot come in fired. host: good to be a topic for another segment. guest: [laughter] that is right. host: speaking of cabinet picks, that expected pick of rex tiller's and made official by donald trump in a tweet, saying he has choosing one of the greatest business leaders of the world, ceo of exxon mobil, to be his secretary of state and the basis nomination fight and the confirmation fight on capitol hill. ryan is in new york, new york, republican. caller: good morning, c-span. i wanted to get into the news

media. it is so important when we are misinformed on a daily basis. to cnn, they are the most mendacious, deceptive news media that is out there. they lie all the time. our give you an example. when donald trump went to meet with the president of mexico, they met and when donald trump came back, cnn started off in the morning and first thing they said was "donald trump lied about his trip, he said there was no discussion of building the wall." that was a stupid lie because people -- this is all coming from the left. they call it a euphemism, liberalism, but they really are left-wing fascist, these people, if you look at what they have destroyed throughout the world. but here's where they went wrong . andld trump went to mexico the mexico president said he would not give money to build the wall and donald trump said,

let's hold that into they -- into bay. i did not come to talk about that. the way the extrapolated is based on a left-wing biased. they had to say he lied. it goes on and on. instance, a couple of people said he was a racist. why? well, he called the mexican judge a mexican. that's the way we talk in new york. if i told you my best friend was raised in and brooklyn, that would make me a racist under the pc thinking. identified oneer thing in the last election, which is people were sick and tired of political correctness. and this goes back to looking at donald trump. his opponents are really worried and appalled about him. they think he is a racist.

they do not believe that he is going to be a good president because of what he said. his supporters think that he is to first politician ever speak to fully and honestly. that is something we will have to see as it works out. one of the points of my book is that all of this stuff, what you say, how you say it, etc., once you are president, reality matters. baloney on both sides that you heard during the the presidents come into office thinking they can continue to play that game. they cannot. reality matters. if donald trump wants to get the chinese, go get the chinese. if he wants to put a terrace on stuff, go do it -- tarffis stuff, go do it.

that is reality, and people know the reality of their own situation. the point of the book is there comes a point in presidencies when the reality of you on situation is much more important than what ever baloney or the press or the president of the united states is talking about, and that is what president have to worry about. host: north hollywood, california. james, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. wow. what a great guest to have. i would first like to thank c-span for the news they do pennell and like to thank madam kamarck for coming on. i will lay it out. host: 102, james. -- one or two questions, james. is unfortunate to me that so many americans do not see the american government has an organization to be valued [indiscernible]

that thesehesis ands cap the policy communicating the policy and implementing the policy, my question is where do you think president-elect donald trump is going to fall into this framework? and how we anticipate it will impact his foreign-policy? i hope to have you back again. you have so much to offer. guest: thank you. the thing we have to worry about for donald trump is on both sides of that, both the policy and the implementation of the policy. is the first presidential candidate in a long time who does not have a lot of reefing papers on their website, did not sheetst the typical fact that go along with presidential speeches of candidates during the campaign.

we do not know exactly how he .ntends to do these things we know he wants to get tough on immigration. people elected him and were drawn to him to get tough on immigration. we do not know if he can actually create a registry for muslims. you need appropriations, etc. we do not know what that level turn out to be. and of electronic sensors in some places a while on the border, what more does donald trump do and does that really ?ork once you build a wall, people can go over and under it, so does that really solve the problem? of course, the business of mexico paying for it is idiotic and basically he does not say that anymore because i think he knows it was a great campaign line. a lot of the things that president-elect trump has said

cap real problems being implemented. the question is going to be going back to this literal or figurative. what to his supporters conclude in a year or in two years? , do theye is no wall lose faith or do they say, no, we wanted him just to be tougher? are under theons amount that has been doing the obama administration, what do they say? that is what we are interested in seeing and that is one of the things going on in washington now. people are saying, do not taken literally. host: sherry, republican. caller: good morning. caller:good morning. i would like to -- i am not really up on all of this politics, but i have been trying to read about it. i am 74 years old. this is the worst i have ever seen election go.

i never knew there was so much corruption in the government until this past year. killingg, stealing, the . what is wrong with our government and how can we ask some of this? some of the things she says donald trump lied about, hillary or worse, so please, help me out on this. host: go ahead. guest: god is a matter of perception. we do have a fairly active judiciary -- that is a matter of perception. we do have a fairly active judiciary that finds out corruption in government. caughtere two that got for corruption this year and they are on their way to jail. host: news this morning. a 10 year sentence. for corruption, there is the headline from "the washington post." guest: we do tend to find

corruption. ,hose are two people out of 538 however. the federal bureaucrats in washington have lots of regulations designed to prevent corruption. in campaigns, we do have a lot haveing and i think we do them on both sides, and i'm sympathetic with that. i think you need to separate out what happens in campaigns. this was a particularly dirty from whatampaign happens in the government. i worked -- i have worked in 35 countries in the world, and i is a lot of there corrupt governments and we don't even come close. imagine being in the country -- one example, one where you go to the hospital, it is routine practice that your family has to pay off the nurse in order to get treated.

it is also routine practice that the doctor says, you need this drug that we don't have it in the hospital. i have a clinic, there is a clinic down the street and you can buy it there, say go down at street and absorb it their rate. this is not an unusual story. west countries in the world have levels of corruption that we cannot even anticipate or believe. i just want to give you -- i am not saying there is no corruption. i want to give you historic perspective that we are [indiscernible] host: the book focuses mostly on the executivehost: ranch, but the legislative branch doesn't get off without some criticism. "the founding fathers must be rolling in the graves. the branch of government meant to check the power of the reducede ranch is now

to a few thousand well-connected kids getting the ticket punched so that they can go about and make a box, and the members themselves spencer much time in their districts raising money that they cannot be bothered to learn much about the government they run." guest: what has happened is the government is let, loan, to use that phrase from the movie, but there is constitutional responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable. are you getting them what you are supposed to get done? are you spending the taxpayers money wisely? we don't have a lot of evidence they are stealing taxpayers money, that is hard to do in the government. we do have evidence that it is not necessarily said in the right way that their inefficiencies. congress used to hold oversight hearings and they have gotten over the oversight is this, and i'm hoping that they will get back into it because they are

everyhington journal live day with news and policy issues that impact you. former indiana congressman and democrat tim rower and former transportation secretary ray lahood will be on. from the bipartisan government officials. senator bob graham will be on the talk about a book he co-authored called america, the owners manual. in the weekly standard to repeal the affordable care act. join the discussion.