john: we are joined once again by douglas binkley. we set out to visit all of state capitals. we thank you for that idea. it reminded me of how invaluable the c-span archive is that you can go back and pull out something like that. over all these interviews c-span has done, they are tools for historians. if you're going to interview somebody or do a paper in school, you can tap into that c-span archive and get real quotes for your paper. congratulations on keeping the archive intact all these years. john: we appreciate that. another project he has been involved with is c-span survey on presidential leadership. he served as the academic advisor for each of the three

surveys that came up with the methodology used for those who participate in that survey. a little over eight months into president trump's term in office, we thought it would be interesting to ask you how you think he is faring in terms of some of those survey criteria that you come up with? doug: the big thing is you never below william henry harrison. he was president for only one month. he died in office. when you see something like james buchanan ranked below william henry harrison coming up problems. it is obviously premature to rank donald trump. you are in your first year, polls are a better indicator of what the public thinks you are doing. he has had a different -- difficult year. i thought his leadership through the hurricanes was quite well done. he did a good job. his response to harvey and irma

got him up and running in the polls. you do not want to operate below 40%. ronald reagan used to say be at 50%. anything below that, you are not selling your product well enough to he would blame himself that he is not community gaining -- communicating well enough. on that survey of presidential leadership, the leadership characteristics that each president gets ranked on is listed there. doug brinkley came up with that criteria. talked about crisis leadership. another criteria there is international relations, certainly a big week for president trump when it came to international relations. i want to get your thoughts on his. writtenppearance at the -- u.n.

doug: it is too early to rank donald trump with the game he is playing with north korea. it is serious out there. insult to insult, it does not whatto be traditionally works in diplomacy. theodore roosevelt said speaks softly and carry a big stick. donald trump likes to speak extremely loudly and an ugly ways to our adversaries. it reminds me of ronald reagan calling the soviet union an evil empire. years later, it seems to have worked out ok after the berlin wall came down. the soviet union collapsed in 19 anyone. on this approach, we will have to see. you say you do not want to paint an adversary in the corner. they have no way of getting out. forwant to have wiggle room

diplomacy. even though donald trump at the united nations does the whole rocket boy is committing suicide about north korean leader, there is also diplomacy going on to try to figure out ways so we do not have a war on the korean peninsula, which would be catastrophic for the people in seoul and japan. john: for the next 15 minutes until 9:00, if you want to call in, we are to just talking about the first eight months of president trump fascias -- president trump's presidency. discussedtrump also his america first vision. here is what he had to say. as president of the united states, i will always put america first. , as the leaders of your countries, will always and should always put your countries

first. [applause] all responsible leaders have an obligation to , and their own citizens the nationstate remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition. making a better life are our people also requires us to work together in close harmony and unity to create a more safe and peaceful future for all people. the united states forever be a great friend to the world, and especially to its allies. we can no longer be taken advantage of or enter into a one-sided deal, where the united states gets nothing in return. as we heard that america first message on the president,

who would you compare that to in american history? doug: the america first movement of the 1930's was an isolationist movement that had people involved with it like joseph kennedy senior, charles lindbergh, that kind of ratcheting up the america first language like that. if you really listen to donald trump, it is not just america first type of language, which i think is different than the gemini said. donald trump is taking that slogan in a new direction. -- it ising hyperrealistic talk. the real message i got out of is the tough language to syria, iran, north korea. it sounded like the axis of evil that george w. bush gave.

we are taking care of our own people in america, but on the other hand we are threatening war with adversaries all across the planet. i noticed a new york times a more soout opening up we can do drone attacks against al qaeda and isis, and countries we are not at war with. an aggressive military posturing that he is doing right now. we will have to see if he matches the posturing with actual military action in some of these places. john: as we passed the eight-month market of the presidency this week, we are talking with douglas brinkley. he is a friend of this network. we are talking about his perspective on the trump presidency. good morning. >> hello. they do for taking my call. mr. brinkley, it is wonderful to

speak with you this morning. i've been a big admirer of your work. i wanted to talk about something different that goes along with this, and that is melania trump's role. i wanted to clear something up. a lot of people seem to be encouraging the idea that she is a modern jackie kennedy. i would like to point something out. mrs. kennedy how to encourage and conviction when it came to speaking in native tongue to cultural, racial, religious minorities during the campaign of 1950. -- jackie didng not have a highly evolved social conscience, but she cared about these groups of people. a lot of it didn't from her being a foreign exchange student in paris. degree.in art history

what really bothers me about trump could doa so much. she speaks six different leg really sell -- i languages, which i really celebrated before he became president. i do not understand why it is treated she is coming forward as a stepford wife to me. that is horrible in a way she cares about literature and the arts. if she wanted to be another jackie kennedy, why not be a benefactress of the arts? share your admiration for jackie kennedy and what she did with the arts. when john f. kennedy and jackie kennedy went to paris, with -- they were interested in the first lady instead of the president.

inviting people like carl sandburg to the white house. getting to our current first lady, i agree with you. i was hoping she would be a little more proactive on picking up with women's rights or climate change, or one of the basket areas that she has professed a great interest to. i think she has handled herself with style and grace. where i amwn to hear not in texas, met with people -- met withn texas, people. what you are suggesting, she does not do anything. she stays up the stage. , when we had the inauguration, she looked like jackie kennedy. she wore the fashionable clothes. she is acting more like a truman

for eisenhower, someone very much off the stage, who does not seem to get involved with public policy very much at all. it is unfortunate. no one expected her to be eleanor roosevelt, but it would be nice to see her pick a particular interest the way that nancy reagan did with say no to drugs or the way lady bird johnson did with america beautification. take a hold of one of our many american dilemmas and try to become the leadership person in that. i-8 -- i'm sure she is raising baron and trying to figure out what she wants to put her energy into right now. published by doug brinkley earlier this year. john: -- doug: it came out for john f. kennedy's 100th birthday.

he was killed in his prime. i think there is a kennedy research going on right now because people are looking at the success of the moonshot, saying we are going to put a man on the moon in 1961. we went to a joint session of congress and said we were going to do it, got bipartisan support, raised the money, had a success with alan shepard and john glenn. now people are looking at the advantages that we got out of the space program and telecommunications on loan, not only 10 mention the science of leaving the shackles of planet earth. new look.g to get a >> good morning. neverl disclosure, i was -- my question is slightly off. in 2004, you traveled and where the biographer with john curry.

if you think that harms your objectivity as historian, because since then you never struck me as a partisan guy. televisionyou are on come it always seems a little painted. -- tainted. doug: one of my colleagues wrote a book. i started writing a book about a band of brothers. i was going to do a group biography of john mccain, bob cleveland, john kerry of massachusetts. there were another one or two. they would meet in the senate. when the vietnam soldiers came

home, they were harassed or told they were killing people. gaveality, many people them the great honor of electing them to the u.s. senate because of their vietnam service. in the course of doing that book, this was before john curry ever started running for president. john mccain wrote a best selling book. times magazine ended up doing a book. reading the guys i was writing about were all dropping to the wayside. john kerry had kept detailed notes and correspondence from his time in vietnam. i switched my view of how to do my book. when you say vietnam, it is both the war and antiwar movement. .ith all that swift motion

you also have the returning and pulling away of the metals -- medals. the testimony of for the fulbright community where you can -- where, how can you ask a man to die for his mistake? he went on to get the nomination in my book about politicized. helps --e way it now he was going to support john kerry. on the other side, people created a swift boat to go after john kerry. my books are like children. that book got caught up in the of the political campaign. it was not a political book. if you read it, i keep that story to vietnam.

john: have you been watching the series on the vietnam war? doug: my wife when me to watch it last night. i read the book on the jeffrey ward. i wrote a blurb for that. i have seen parts, but i have not yet started watching each of the many hours. john: what you think about now being a good time to look back at the vietnam war? is it still too soon? is a good time. there are a lot of veterans we want to think for their service to the country. i did a book on the battle of a battle in vietnam. we honed in on a battle. giving the vietnam veterans their moment in the sun, i think that is positive. we always need to look at

vietnam. a mistake.ing our soldiers never lost a single battle. in the. it in washington dc. it is a wonderful tool. onm teaching a class at rice the 1960's and 1970's. next year, i will pick the couple of those hours and try to use them as a pull in my classroom setting. tool in my classroom setting. >> i grew up in the time period that you have been doing these bus trips and taking the pulse of america. what are one or two ways they think america has changed most significantly in the last 25 years?

doug: that clip we ran before i came on, during my early bus trip. -- i ranphone booths telephone booths. we did not have the students on the buses with the cell phones. that changed everybody's life, walking around with a phone. everywhere i go at cafes, people are looking at their phone all the time. i miss the old days. i think we have a nature deficit disorder going on where we rely too much on ptolemaic initiations -- on telecommunications. i am not very big on facebook. i do not do facebook. that is a personal preference. i think this technology is going so fast that we have not been

able to see how it is changing us as a country. we see the benefits of posting ourselves on instagram, but we do not see the dangers of what -- becoming addicted to these sort of social media world. when i was on the magic bus, each student had a paperback book. i made them handwrite journals. now they can keep them as a -- memento. a modern side, my last magic bus ran on natural gas. i went all over america natural gas. when i went into these national parks, i did not feel i was coughing out so it. i thought all buses would soon be on natural gas. decades later, we are still not fully there. john: are we more politically

divided? doug: no question about it. the point of history is to remind us that our own times are uniquely oppressive area i believe that fully. you watch ken burns documentary and you will see how we lost 58,000 americans. it was bad. even in the 1960's, it was worse than now. there is something about this dividing, this dislike and hatred of the liberals and conservatives that has gotten very extreme. used to be able to be in the middle. you could be with the democrats on this and republicans on this. centrists get killed in this environment. people want you to choose in this war of the moment.

we do not work in a cooperative way with each other. i love america. i was in indiana a couple days ago. wherever i go, i am heartened a thingsoliticians and that a county level. sometimes that estate label -- at a state level seem to be working. in washington dc, it is just brutal out there. country that could have voted not voting during the last election. we need to find ways to not run presidential campaigns for two years or three. we have to find a way to bring the acrimony level down. >> good morning. thank you for c-span.

secondly, douglas pinkley, thank you for all of your books. i did read the magic bus about 10 years ago. deluge."ve "the great everybody should read that about katrina. thank you for your honesty. forgiving your opinions on what is going on with this administration. i do not have a question, but thank you for you are. ofg: that is a call civility. my friend in pennsylvania is about to give out a stability award. we have the ways of having a public discourse but is a little better. i am big on free speech. let all different people come. that,e to take some of the violent, the noisy bashing of each other and shouting people down that has been a staple of talk radio and at

times cable news. we have to try to have more intelligent discourse. this country, our universities and colleges are really fantastic and great. the amount of research and development going on, when you meet people in their 20's and here there asked rations for the country. we are such a multicultural place. i am still extremely proud of this country and our capacity to be a leader in the world. in a a beacon of hope world where things are going awry very complete. i am concerned about the climate issue. i do write about the environment. trina but alsohe harvey now. -- katrina, but also harvey now. friends and fellow americans

overstated. the electrical grid knocked out now. we have to find ways to put together with the disaster relief fund, ways of getting money. i am concerned about the future of places like miami and new york city if we do not find ways of a civil defense movement to protect ourselves from rising seas and hurricanes. morning. we love our veterans. i have a quick comment and one question. i do not blame our beautiful first lady for not being out there more than she is. they were going to help the hurricane victims and all they could talk about where the shoes -- were the shoes. behind tell me the logic what keith said impairing the legal immigrant to the jewish

people? are we gathering them up and gassing them? his mainstream media not telling that -- as that worries that completely uncalled for? i was very careful personally to say that i think she is doing fine. i do not think every first lady has to become an activist. i think it would be smart if she became known on a particular humanitarian issue that she to become a voice and a leader. i thought she did great in texas when she came down here for harvey. tabloid.bit is you cannot pay that much mind. keith ellison misspoke. anytime you are doing any kind withalogy that has to do the horrors of the second world war and bringing it into a

modern political discourse, you will get screwed up and burned. we have a big debate going on about immigration right now. i would say that history would say that donald trump road into the white house on that particular issue. -- we will have to see how that works out. dreamersy, i think the , which has been in the news a lot, they need to stay. the concept of the united states , the people who were raised in this country, throwing them out to the country they have never even lived before be such an inhumanes gesture and that does not represent the best of america. i think president trump is correct in trying to find a way stay here, dreamers working with chuck and nancy pelosi to do that.

john: the leadership characteristics on that survey, that historians compare presidents on, listed there on the site. one of those characteristics is moral authority. how much do you think the 's response to the white supremacist rally will color his legacy on moral authority? doug: it will hurt donald trump badly. does not come and say the things he did. on hiscorrect himself first statement on charlottesville. he doubled back on trying to show that he was not wrong and create some kind of equal footing for anti-fascist on one side and fascist on the other side. he walked into it. he got himself into -- got

himself all tangled up. he did not have great record. and you are the leader of the movement that barack obama was not raised in america, when that , and your your mo campaign is about building a wall and you say derogatory things about mexicans and mexican americans, that could have been a moment for him to shine. instead, he wanted to make sure , his redaid his base meat. beast feeding moment. that was a time for national unity. base feeding moment. that was a time for national unity. left.about 25 minutes steve has been waiting in winter haven, florida. >> i grew up in history.

i grew up to john kennedy. through thent holocaust. nothing but history and education. i learned a lot about my family. i was born in new york. my father is from brooklyn. we know a lot about history. about what was going on before the election. we understand what the problems were before the election and what happened. when we voted, we were concerned about the issues and what was going to happen to our country and the country being divided. the problem is education and computers. there is no old math to solve the problem. affected the whole

education, including money throughout the whole country, including the job market. i knew that was a problem. the problem is, with all these p is doing, itum is putting the country and two different directions. do not know what direction we are going. i think that is right. there is political confusion going on right now. some of the biggest critics of donald trump are probably true conservatives. a lot of republicans do not like him as their standardbearer. i want to hone in on your comment about math. got the soviet union totnik, how we respond something like that, we created nasa and moved forward. there was a year we were not doing enough in the math and science system that was in education crisis. we were graduating people that

were illiterate out of our public high schools. it may be old-fashioned, but i think the future of our country gets back to education. we have to start focusing on how to develop students that have a great math literacy coming out of high school. sciencestize math and on education in this country. that is what makes us competitive. we are lucky that we have been able to bring in immigrants, some from china or japan, india, who have added in big ways to our american genius. any of them are math wizards, science wizards, and they are helping us tremendously. we have the up the game in the public schools. we have to make sure kids are getting the right math and science education. that is what will make them competitive in this 21st century economy.

carmen is waiting for democrats. >> good to talk to you. i want to can drive -- congratulate you on your response to congressman young who tried to humiliate you in front of the hearing. you turned the tables on him. that was great. ispoint i would like to say i think this is -- we are talking about education now. i am 67 years old and i grew up in the 1950's and 1960's. i think our educational system was better then than it was now. i think the election of president trump has been the commendation of what i can call the dumbing down of america. maybe i do not share that with everybody, but i would like your opinion on that. there is a big difference when you're looking at somebody

like john f. kennedy and his kind of education that he had and what he was promoting, and the science. he was a leader in the 1950's and 1960's of science education. donald trump is most known for trump university, which fell , a ponzi scheme operation. i do not think people elected donald trump because they think voice for a great higher education. they hired him for economic reasons may be over racial reasons. everything is not donald trump. you have a great college university professor, a great college movement. purdue university this week starting to look at how you can do a three-year college, and get your good -- degree in three

years. people in our armed forces are able to get college class work done while they are serving the country. a lot of exciting things going in the realm of learning. i think we need to talk about and prioritize more. we want a no child left behind policy. in themy early heroes state of mississippi in the civil rights movement had an algebra project. he astutely recognized that once kids do not take algebra, when they are no longer allowed, they cannot do the math and put in lower math classes, they are throwing litter chances for success in america. they need to be able to learn algebra to the advance themselves -- to advance themselves. in austin, texas we are blessed with a good school system.

veryban areas, schools are underfunded and will are not doing paid properly. we need to -- teachers are not being paid properly. we need to address that. fine.s i am back and running. i do three classes this semester. we are in europe a part of town that did not get the brunt of harvey. if you go a few miles in the different direction from rice, you are -- you still have a vast community struggling. there are problems with sewage, pollution, toxicity in the bayou system. hazards. thereh are banks and insurance companies where people are in need, they are not there for them. there are a lot of problems in texas, however, the state now

that it responded the way it did with the police force that stayed on the job and did a pretty good job. the mayor of houston was every minute working to try to get things done well. as disasters go, houston is doing a good job of not feeling victimized and trying to fix it's very serious problems, as long as it gets the proper amount of federal funding. to $150 need up to 100 billion. i am not even talking florida and puerto rico. we have real issues on what we are going to do with these areas and how to rebuild. we have to start thinking about building structure is too close to the water's edge. we have to find ways to do sustainable housing that is a

way from vulnerable, low-lying areas. areas,l along coastal including the gulf of mexico, does create problems. and 20 minutes, we will turn our phones over to those who have been impacted by recent hurricanes to get your stories on hurricane recovery efforts. video you are seeing on your screenshot is some of our c-span crews that went down to texas. we will let you tell your stories and how you are interacting with local authorities down there. until then, we have doug brinkley with us. brady is waiting on the line for republicans. >> i bet those students on the magic bus treasure their journals. i agree with you. that should be done. you made the comment that the

magic bus ran on natural gas. i come from an oil and gas background. we need to think horizontal drilling for the abundance and affordability of natural gas on the market. i agree that more vehicles should be running on natural gas. we need to make that conversion. the thing that i like about natural gas as a fossil is, take cities like new orleans with the french quarter or chicago. everything should be on natural gas because they are easy to read fuel. refuel. wouldn't it be great if we could get trucks in the united states to run on natural gas? if you can get trucks stops carrying natural gas, it is as easy as getting diesel.

you start making a real difference. i think we're headed in that direction. bigral gas will be the next step forward. we will also have to see how tesla continues to do with this idea of electric vehicles. eventually, this will happen. john: catskill, new york. >> thank you. excellent morning. wouldn't it be great if we could get the president to acknowledge that global warming is a reality? the real reason i am calling, i am hoping that before you get off the air, he will deliver a cogent opinion on the president's performance so far. i don't think i will ever live long enough to see someone do such a poor job. thank you. lot on write a

democratic and republican presidents. i find the winning formula is optimism. it is oxygen in this country. we need presidents to make us feel better about ourselves and plus together. campaigns by nature are brutal. is 2012 or 2016, they were rough elections. i do not see donald trump pulling the country together. maybe everybody is to blame. it seems to be the opportunity was there to do infrastructure first, instead it was to repeal and replace obamacare. that went nowhere. he created no legislative agenda in his first six months. if you went big with infrastructure, it might have fixingpartisan to start

highways and roads. start looking at ways to repair damage to abuse the land. improve,lp airports like you said in the campaign that he would do. we have airports that have a lot of deferred maintenance going on. our national parks could use the same kind of work court to pull them together. none of that happened. he is a very divisive president. him pulling out of the paris climate accord, why? the whole world is part of it. at least we're talking about it. to pull out of that in a , while the rest of the world is talking and focused .n it i find it selfish. it would not have stopped these hurricanes that were coming. i am not blaming donald trump for any of that. it disillusioned a lot of

people. he is about his movement, his revolution. he is in constant election mood -- mode. he is not thinking what can i do to pull the country together? operates not on optimism but fear and pessimism. look at his inaugural speech. the american carnage speech was dark. look at his speech to the united nations. it is very dark. i like presidents that are like, optimistic, caring. the warmth of the american people and their persona. i do not find that in president trump so far. is a president who is too much for his base, what do you make of these discussions with democrats when it comes to

daca? was that comparison to the past of a president whose party controls the house and the senate, reaching out to the other party to look for wins so early in his presidency? doug: it tells you how frustrated the president was with what i am saying. he understands repealing and was not theamacare thing to prioritize. i think you made the assumption that the republicans have been running on that for the last seven years and had a plan ready to go. it would be able to sail through and mitch mcconnell new how -- knew how to count heads. the fact that blew up on him left him looking foolish. he was angry in the summer when john mccain put his thumb down. he does not want to be seen as a lame duck president or hostage

to a republican congress. he is making moves this september towards trying to be more of the unity president. i think the docket issue will be the key one. donald trump is saying that he will see that these dreamers get to stay. by doing that, it is sending a healing message to the country that some of you might be able to work with. it is important for him to be flexible. he have to represent not -- represent all of us, not just his 30% base all the time. expand his brand not constantly be scared and afraid to expand it. constantly trying to feed the base. the base will be there with him. they are not going to the democratic party anytime soon. >> good morning.

think this boy is playing with toys. is playing with toys. there is a separation from men and boys. think we have a flyover by the government like in world war ii and iraq. we need to take this boy out of power. what do you think? concerned like everybody is about the situation on the korean peninsula. i will remind us, we all know, and donald trump said that the u.n. speech, any minute we could obliterate north korea and we have that military capacity. we cannot do that because of what it would cause the countries that are allies, like

japan and south korea. hence, we have to find a way through sanctions, like the president is doing, and getting china, the key to this, to not allow chinese banks to do zero business with north korea and try to strangle them. this is not a donald trump failure. it is an american failure. we probably made the mistake of underestimating north korea's nuclear capacity now that they have it. i do think all options are on the table, including surgical precision strikes on their facilities, perhaps even military bases, but that has to be the last, last, last resort, so hopefully, there will be solutions to try to get them to stop nuclear proliferation in north korea and find ways through diplomacy to make that work. i am not counting on it.

we are dealing with a sick -- north korea has a very sick leader, not just a dictator, but somebody who has no real global experience, who has brainwashed himself since childhood. i do not know -- without a regime change -- how this turns out well. host: what about the language between president trump and kim jong un, just as we about to get -- as we were getting ready to go on here, the president of north korea, obviously, a madman who does not mind killing or starve his people, will be tested like never before. he used the term rocket man during his speech earlier. a response from the president of north korea came, calling his comments unprecedented, related nonsense that showed president trump to be a u.s. dotard who is playing with fire.

guest: they keep throwing insults at each other. i don't think donald trump should take the bait. we are too strong and too old of a country to be exchanging insults with a dangerous crackpot like this. i think ignoring that rhetoric and strategically plan what we are going to do, we are showing patience with north korea, trying to bring in allies. there is no easy solution. i am afraid getting into a war of words every 48 hours is not helpful. we will see. the reason i hesitate is may be donald trump's strategy is working. maybe this boy language will reap a result. we don't know. host: yesterday, the president announced expanded sanctions hitting individuals and companies doing business with north korea. guest: i think it is all part of the trump administration

strategy. i cannot judge whether it is working or not. it is unusual that the united states wants to use this request -- reckless language. everybody knows his united nations speech was unusual with the rocket man. it sounded like a twitter feed from donald trump on the grandstand, but this is his style. he has not been president that long. you have to see if his style reaps positive results. if you had to write up the trunk -- trump-north korea situation, how has it gotten better since donald trump's president -- presidency, we have more threats coming up, more nuclear developments, i do not see where this tough trump language has gotten us, but maybe these sanctions, maybe donald trump has been able to impress by the

madman theory that donald trump might do something irrational may have impressed china to intervene and cut off all funding to north korea to bring them to the negotiation table in a proper way. we will see whether it is working or not. we cannot tell right now. host: we will try to get to as many calls. bob in california, independent. go ahead. caller: i was calling about the education thing, but first, kim jong un, i think he is badly educated. aboutbe better educated -- itthe weapons are could be better educated about the size and how much the weapons are very --. . it is amazing he can spend some much on arms. trump has gotten a lot of people discussing policy. you see a lot of people discussing policy and this global warming thing, which is global weather change, although

we have been warming since the height of the ice age. 15 million years ago. the planet has been re-warming. we might have sped up a little. we should be making plans to move people out of flood zones and move away from the water. as far as education, i believe education should pretty much be internet and homeschooling and going to new schools for tutoring and testing. of course, you can have specialized courses, but it is a lot safer. i educated half my children with home education. i got a break with the schooling system in 1960 when i argued with my history teacher, the only teacher i know, yet, she was teaching incorrect history. since then i have found a lot of other -- host: can i ask the subject on

which you have the disagreement? guest: yes, it was i had the right to free speech and disagree with her. it did end up getting me moved to a different school, which was regarded as the best public school in philadelphia at the time. host: we appreciate the call. doug brinkley? guest: there is a lot there, but college is a wonderful thing. one of the only times in my field of history that you might be able to spend four years getting to read about british, russian history, the american revolutionary war, it is remarkable to get these opportunities, but we have to realize it is not for everybody. we have to do more trade schools, double down on two-year colleges, homeschooling, online education. there are a lot of ways to get educated. i would tell any parent out there, the main game is reading,

and i have been teaching a long time, getting students to love books. it does not matter the topic. if you have a son who loves baseball, it doesn't matter, get him to read. if you have a daughter who wants to be an astronaut, let her read the biography of sally ride. find what a young person loves and get them to read a lot because once you get your i set to reading books and you toomplish it, you are set up read more and there's no higher calling for a parent then to make sure their children are reading all the time. host: bethany beach, delaware, bob is a republican. caller: thank you. i wanted to say to professor brinkley as a fellow professor myself that i am extremely disappointed in some of the comments he has made.

my feeling is there are a couple of things that bother me. trump's base is bigger than 35%. the elites opposed to that base you refer to make the base much larger than 35%. i would urge you to read the facts. the second thing about global warming, scientists agree that global warming exists and even trump acknowledged that, the question is what causes global warming and over what length of time? above everything else, i have seen you on cnn and other outlets, and as a professor at rice, i am concerned about how objective you are concerned about passing on factual information to your students. both the media and education are guilty of not pursuing the truth in the sense of the truth that requires a faultless examination of both sides, so

what do you say about the responsibility of education and the media to stick to the truth and balance the information given to the american people? thanks. guest: well, your call strikes me as somebody was very rude to call and talk to me like that, first off. secondly, you are calling the truth is your truth, the truth as you see it. i have said nothing except donald trump has a base, 43% in the recent polls. we talk about 35%, that is his diehard group. a third of the country matter what he does will stick with him. that 35% may be closer to 40% but it is in that range. i don't know what is wrong with that. as we are talking about climate change, everybody is talking about climate change. 99.9% of the scientists keep telling us about when a change. we have to prepare -- climate change.

we have to compare for drugs and mass dislocation -- drought and mass this location. people want to put their head in the ground and spew, get on the air and feel like they are big. those are little people. we need the time to create better american energy than that. i don't think anybody should be a climate denier or think on the change is a hoax. that would be someone very uninformed. host: caroline in washington, d.c., line for democrats. last call. caller: thank you very what do you think democrats or folks concerned about our country can do policy wise rather than focusing on the 2018 elections, really digging in and fixing the elements that caused the rise of these angry folks? we are saying suffering, the

opioid epidemic, just thoughts on that. we have been running close presidential elections. because hep won ran a much stronger campaign. hillary clinton has been on a book tour not talking about never once going to wisconsin. how do you not go to wisconsin? of course you will lose wisconsin. we'll have to come down a little bit and make sense of what is going on. part of donald trump's strategy is it operates with chaos. every day there is a new tweet that throws people's energy off. the democrats have to be something more than anti-drop. -- trump. they don't have to just want to protect social security. they have to want more social security. they have to talk to people about how it is going to affect

their lives. they have not been doing that effectively. you have the possibility the mullah report does not take donald trump down. he could easily be a two-term president if the democratic party does not start messaging in optimistic, positive ways to general americans. host: thank you for your time. come back again. >> here is a look at our primetime schedule. starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, live coverage of president trump attending a rally for alabama senator luther strange running against roy moore in a special election next week. on c-span2, a discussion on immigration policy and have possible acts by congress could affect immigration. ruth bader ginsburg speaking to first-year wants to that -- law students at june shannon university -- georgetown

university. morning, ap saturday look at free speech on american college campuses with ron meyer, editor of regular politics -- red alert politics. deedise of contract for mortgages. what are your rights in the wake of the equifax data breach. we will talk about that. be sure to watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 p.m. eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. tv oneekend on book c-span2, saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern, hillary clinton gives her personal account of the 2016 presidential campaign and election with her book, "what happened." >> it hit me that there were

these important issues that needed to be discussed that our democracy and country relied upon that kind of self-examination, and i thought, well, i need to know what happened, and i need to be as honest, candid, open as i possibly can in order to figure it out for myself, and maybe doing it in a book would provide the discipline, deadline to think it through. >> on sunday at 7:30, paul hollander, sociology professor at the university of maryland, his book on needle miscellany and hugo chavez -- benito m ussolini and hugo chavez. projecting aood at personality that intellectuals find attractive. idealism, thenary

assumption of the belief that these dictators use political power wisely and benevolently, that they were kind, this is the most important for intellectuals, that they bridge the gap between theory and practice. >> for more on this weekend's schedule, go to book tv.org. c-span, or history unfolds daily. -- where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service of america's cable television companies. >> for the next hour, a book tv exclusive. our cities tour visits concord, new hampshire, to learn more about its