house chief of staff in the modern era. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. ♪ host: good morning. it's sunday, december 31. on the last day of 2017 we have this question for you. what was your top political story of the year? what was the most important to you personally or most important to advance the debate and perhaps policy here in washington or around the world? 2017.op lyrical story of republicans call (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. you can weigh-in by social media.

there's plenty to choose from here. the folks from huffington post have this headline about one of the top stories of the year. international women's day was the most talked about moment on facebook this year. 2017 was quite a year for women. it kicked off with the inauguration of president trump, who was elected despite being accused of more than a dozen women of sexual assault. millions of people took to the streets for the women's march in cities worldwide. as the year unfolded large numbers of women indicated interest in running for office. the final months have been marked by dozens of women courageously coming forward to call out sexual abuse by powerful men. as the year unfolded large numbers of women indicated interest in running for office. earlier this year as we saw live on c-span. part of the story takes us to capitol hill as well. a series of sexual harassment

charges on the hill. the household hearing earlier this year. one of the people who testified at this hearing was jackie spear. here's what she had to say about the issue. >> as i shared my own story on had itcongress, i have numerous meetings and phone calls with staff members present and former, women and men who have an subjected to this inexcusable and illegal behavior. there are two members of congress republican and democrat right now who serve who have been subject to review -- not have been subject to review but have engaged in sexual harassment. propositions such as are you going to be a good girl to perpetrators exposing their generals to -- genital to victims having their privates grabbed on the senate floor.

all they ask the staff members is to be able to work in a hostile free environment. they want to perpetrators held accountable. i have been working on this issue since 2014 and there are three steps congress needs to the egregious and illegal behavior. the first step is to require sexual harassment prevention and response training every year for both members and egregious and staff just like ethics and cyber security training. existing office of compliance online training model is a start as some of you have pointed out that it is not adequate. research has found that effective training requires in person interactive construction and dialogue. the change of the house rules will achieve this result than there is already legislation co-authored by many of you. hr 604. we can fix what we don't know.

experience working on sexual harassment and sexual violence on college campuses and academia and in our military climate surveys are conducted regularly and are keen to recognizing the scope of the problem and evaluating the effectiveness of reform. that's why congress experience n sexual harassment and sexual violence on college campuses shd institute a congressional climate survey every two years. we must reform the broken dispute resolution system. the preston system may have been ok in the dark ages. it is not appropriate for the 21st century. was passed totion require sexual-harassment training on the hill. several members of congress leaving their positions this year in light of allegations. they write that this year of activation around women's rights was reflected not only in national politics but in social media feeds. facebook's 2017 year in review looks at topics generating the most interest on the platform found that the most talked about

moment of 2017 was international women's day. this year international women's day which people around the world celebrate each march 8 was marked by notable activism in the u.s. with a day without a woman strike rallying thousands in cities from new york to alaska in the name of social justice. the most attended event on the was the this year women's march in washington, d.c. with more than half a million people marking themselves as interested or attending the event. the second and third most talked about moments of the year were the super bowl and the las vegas mass shooting. on our page this morning, bill writes his top story of the year was president trump being elected president. the resist movement opposing him. susan rice the molar investigation. the only thing that will restore our country and take it back from the hands of traders.

elaine writes doug jones in alabama. clay writes trump delivers big-time and the left melts into a frenzy. kathy, your of first from new hampshire on the democratic line . what is your top political story of the year? story: to me the biggest is the fact that some of the people have become more engaged in fighting against the administration. coming forward to get involved at the local level. running for offices. they have been very successful in doing so. fantastic in this country because we don't have mandatory voting and we have such a relatively low turnout compared to a lot of places. that's going to have real repercussions hopefully this november and going forward and people stay energized. to some degree also the help of journalism doing a lot of investigating reporting.

mobilizing the american public and restoring democracy. maybe it took trump to do that. i think that is the biggest story. keepingu mentioned folks energized. what's the best way to do that moving forward? caller: i think for people who care to not just be online but to get out and be doing things. i don't mean necessarily protest. get involved with local activist groups. in new hampshire we have a lot of opportunity with that because it's a forefront with the national figures. in my town specifically more of a democratic lace anyway. there's very active democratic groups. there is the progressive alliance which has thousands of members. i think there's a lot of opportunities and i know so many people who have never called a representative before but now

are regularly doing that and contacting people. i think that has paid off. trump has been stymied in so many things he has tried to do. essentially going from getting involved calling up people getting out of your house there's lots of opportunities and i think this is a great time to come in contact with people to do that. arizona.da in independent color. good morning. caller: good morning. moviebeen watching the the crown. thethe comparisons between king who abdicated who had these -- justle nazi ties love taylor. he and the girlfriend who later became his wife who actually was to timing him and she later married him.

they love taylor. the comparisons between donald prutin came right out in our faces last night. we were astonished. some people are so overwhelmed with dreams of glory and power that they become not the people that you would really want them to be. very unpatriotic. this is the king of england. anyway, i think the most is the russian story and the connections to trump. i'm just hoping everyone can really realize the damage he's doing to our institutions. host: thank you for calling. we will hear from james comey a little bit later in the program. the caller mentioned vladimir putin.

here's a story in politico. .utin voices hope he says constructive dialogue between the nations is essential for global stability. the kremlin said saturday he emphasized his seatings -- seasons greetings to trump. politico.com is where you can read more of that story. joyce's on the line from capitol heights, maryland. just outside dc. democratic caller. caller: the biggest thing for me is the misogyny in our country and it being exposed. many people are in total denial that it has gone on for centuries. the other piece of it is that it has brought so many people out to join the political discussion. more people out to want to be involved in our communities and in the political discussion and

the issues that are being raised areur current president issues that many people talked about in back rooms and quiet places but not in public and these are things that are real and harmful to our communities and things that we need to partner around across the aisles and across this country. host: is enough being done right now? caller: no. there is so much more to be done. so much more can be done and so much more to be done. i'm just hoping that we don't get -- fall into the malaise of its just too much. i hear people saying, they are bringing out things from 20 years ago. that's how history builds. you can't change it until you go back to the source of it and deal with it a little at a time. everybody dealing with it face-to-face even though it affects people that many of us have honored over the years. host: thank you for calling.

jackson, tennessee. democratic caller. your top political story. caller: i just want the year harderr us to just workcaller: and become more aware of what's going on in this white house. between trump and putin. i just want us to be a stronger nation and stick together and have values and work harder to what's right and not what's wrong in washington. host: one of the top stories of 2017 perhaps moving into 2018 here's the front page of the wall street journal. the students clashing with riot police during an antigovernment protest. this was from saturday.

if you look at the new york times, chance are out there for the ayatollah's ouster. crowds aiming their anger at the supreme leader and demanding that he step down. the demonstrators took to the streets of one of the holiest places in shia islam. fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. over declininge conditions, corruption and lack of personal freedoms and presented a serious challenge to the president who won the election on promises to revitalize the economy. president trump put out a tweet earlier this weekend on this. he wrote that oppressive regimes in the dayre forever will come when the iranian people will face a choice. world is watching.

he added a short clip from a speech he made at the human meeting back in the fall -- u.n. meeting back in the fall. regimes cannot endure forever and the day will come when the people will face a choice. will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed and terror or will the iranian people returned to the nations proud roots what's right and not what's wrong in washington. as a center of civilization, culture and wealth where there people can be happy and prosperous once again? mainstream your reports over the last two days have implied thatde -- the iranian people are protecting the government's economic policies. many iranians are angry about high unemployment and the lifting of sanctions but the protests are manifestly about more than economics. there are credible reports of chanting we don't want an

oppressive government. and death to the dictator. posters of that dictator, the supreme leader of iran are being defaced and toppled around the country. these acts could land protesters in jail or worse. they are angry about far more than the country's struggling economy. that's in the weekly standard this morning. the new york times filled gordon has this piece and he writes that on friday night and again on as a center of trump sentresident out tweets. that abe fairly certain high-profile public support from the u.s. government will do more harm than good. debbie is calling from williamsburg, pa. your top poetical story of the year. -- political story of the year. morning.ood my biggest issue this past year has been the media and

unfortunately everything is an editorial now. i don't feel that there are legitimate news sources that give you the facts. and let you make your own decision. who are you reading, watching or listening to each day? to watch a little bit of everything and read a little bit of everything. i watch cnn, msnbc, fox news, my local channels. it seems everything they put out is negative and it's their opinion. it's usually not based on fact. host: is this something you noticed just in 2017 or had been building in your view? caller: i would say the last eight years. didn't hear anything and what you did here was more or less positive during the obama administration. as the election came about it

started to go negative and has just gotten worse. host: what does all of this mean for you and your understanding of the world and your friends and family? where is this going? i think that the should read and watch as much as they can and form their own opinions and hold news outlets accountable when they give out bad information. we should correspond with them to let them know how we feel and how they are projecting themselves out to the community. maybe that will change the way that they report. we hope part of that watching will include c-span. we go to tom in bloomingdale, new jersey. democrat line. what's on your mind? c-span.i just love you guys are one of the greatest

things to ever happen in radio and television history i have to say. thank you so much. for me the most revealing story of 2017 was the senate run of roy moore. he was a man who not only was credibly accused of misconduct and pursuing teenagers as an adult -- and maybe he was innocent. maybe he's guilty. but the people who came out in support of this man which included 48% of alabama voters and a lot of national republican figures like the president of the united states -- that unfortunately proved to me that they hate democrats more than they love their own country. you,ere was a man -- mind let's assume he was innocent of the charges because they weren't proven. here is a man who is on record saying that people of certain

religions should not be allowed to serve in government. here's a man who believes that homosexuality should be illegal. how anyone could come out and publicly support someone like he was a man who not only was that is astonishing and it really tells us where we are going as a country. we are completely bifurcated. host: new york city, tommy on the republican line. what do you think? your top local story of the year. caller: i think the president is doing a really fine job. the economy is my top story of the year. the economy is getting better and better. his foreign policy is doing very good. it looks like even the people of the middle east are trying to win this battle little by little with terrorism. i just wish that he would tone it down.

democrats are the ones that started all of this resist. they're are the ones putting the country up. the republicans are just trying to do their job. no one realizes this. thati live with all democrats ad me. they hurt the working people. they think they help the working people. they just tax the working people to give to the people that want handouts. . that's my story of the year. . host: how can the president tone it down? caller: don't tweet. keep onkey and just doing your job. he's doing a good job. what's the word -- he crosses -- all the dude -- all the good he's doing out by tweeting and having these little spats with everybody. just don't say nothing and do your job and he's doing a good job. host: the president did tweet last night.

jobs are kicking in and companies are coming back to the u.s. unnecessary regulations and high taxes are being dramatically cut and it will only get that her. much more to come, writes the president. here are the words of senator john mccain. the republican of arizona took to the senate where earlier this year over health care to speak about the importance of bipartisanship on the hill. >> we have all played some role in it. certainly i have. sometimes i have let my passion for my reason. sometimes i have made it harder to find common ground because of something harsh i said to a colleague. sometimes i have wanted to win more for the sake of winning than to achieve a fantastic policy. .ncremental progress just plain muddling through to chip way it problems and keep our enemies from doing their worst isn't glamorous or exciting. it doesn't feel like a political

triumph. the most we can expect from our system of government. operating in a country as diverse and quarrelsome and free as ours. considering the injustice and cruelties inflicted by autocratic governments and how corruptible human nature can be. the problem solving our system the fitfulossible, progress it produces and the liberty and justice it preserves is a magnificent achievement. our system doesn't depend on their nobility. it accounts for our has helpedns and make errors most powerful and prosperous society on earth. it is our responsibility to preserve that. even when it requires us to do thanhing less satisfying winning. even when we must give a little to get a little. even when our efforts manage

just three yards and a cloud of dust while tricks on both sides -- i hope we can rely on our need to cooperate and learn how to trust each other again and better serve the people who elected us. stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the internet. hell with them. [applause] they don't want anything done good.e public our incapacity is their livelihood. let's return to regular order. we have been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. that's an approach that has been

employed by both sides mandating legislation from the top down without any support from the other side with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires great we are getting nothing done. the top 10 health care surprises from year one of trump from drug prices to the tom price travel scandal. a lot of health policy didn't go according to plan and the first item on their list is that obamacare survives its seventh year. you can read more at politico. the recent build the house passed on taxes does get rid of the individual mandate. ruth calling from sandy hook, connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm going to try and keep my comments brief because there is just so much. i'm reading in the new york mr.s this morning this -- trump is the 45th president of the united states but he has spent much of his first year in

office defying the conventions and norms established by the previous 44 and transforming the weredency in ways that once unimaginable. under mr. trump it has become a blunt instrument to advance personal policy and political goals. he has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 pennsylvania avenue. dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of the no holds barred crystal breaking us against them dam the -- here's the final thing that i will say. he has kept a business on the side and i'm just going to add my own little personal thing. when have we ever had a person that is so wealthy not show his taxes or where he gets his money from her anything that is

transformative? it's very frightening how this tax thing that has just passed on the transference of trillions of dollars of wealth to the people who don't need it and then the government will be starved because they won't have enough money and all the things willwe do for our citizens start to disappear. medicare, social security. help for people in nursing homes etc. it frightens me also one of your calledators that had said they didn't know how to believe in the facts. that is a problem. and the president has helped to promote that that it's all fake news. so of course people who do like him think that anything that is said contrary is a lie. and it's very scary.

you andlaud people like other people in the media doing research and putting it out there to try and keep us alert. we do get the point. here's the front page story you are talking about. the headline says under trump a once unimaginable presidency becomes reality. he is jettisoning the conventions established by his predecessors. where dowhat you said you think pushback comes from in 2018 to the president? what forces are you counting on to see things work out more than what you would like? on the newm counting york times, the washington post. c-span. digging into backgrounds who isf to try and find saying this. where is it coming from.

very difficult. i belong to a group called indivisible. and we try very hard and meet once or twice a month to talk about the important issues that are out there. what's frightening us most at the moment is we are afraid of the various methods that trump will fire molar -- mueller. promoting wise and it done. you can't ask somebody investigating why isn't it done until it's done and we need to have the facts because it's all with banks and overseas money. and look at all of the people that unfortunately president trump put in top positions. knowledgeem had the that previous presidents would have looked for and our state department has been decimated.

so we don't have people going over and trying to work on nonviolent ways of dealing and whoever heard of the president taunting somebody like north korea person making fun of him and best friends with putin. the republicans in years past were so dynamically afraid of putin and his regime and now all of a sudden they are not worried. i think the last thing that might be hopeful is all the republicans that spoke out against president trump as he was running for the office i think perhaps when something really rattles them they will come out and cross the aisle and work with democrats to try and keep this country a democracy. for calling.ou more of your calls in a moment.

here's president trump in new york earlier this year talking about the riots that took lace in charlottesville and his thoughts on the. >> i watched those much more closely than you people watched it. you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. and nobody wants to say that. but i will say it right now. you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very very violent. do you think what you call the alt left is the same as neo-nazis? >> those people -- all those people. excuse me. i have condemned neo-nazis. i have condemned many different groups. but not all of those people were neo-nazis. believe me. not all those people were white supremacists by any stretch. some people were also there

because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, robert e. lee. and you take a look at some of the groups and you see and you know it if you are honest reporters which in many cases you are not. any of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of robert e lee. this week's robert e. lee. i noticed that stonewall jackson is coming down. i wonder is it george washington next week and thomas jefferson the week after? you really have to ask yourself where does it stop. they were there to protest. excuse me. take a look the night before. they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of robert e lee. infrastructure question could go that. >> should the statue of robert e. lee stay up? >> i say that's up to a local town, community or the federal government depending on where it is located. do you think race relations have gotten better or worse

since you took office? >> i think they've gotten better or the same -- they have been frayed for a long time and you can ask president obama about that because he made speeches about it. i believe the fact that i brought in -- it will be soon millions of jobs. where companies are moving back into our country. i think that's going to have a tremendous positive impact on race relations. we have companies coming back into our country. we have two car companies that just announced. we have foxconn in wisconsin just announced. i saye many companies pouring back into the country. i think that's going to have a huge positive impact on race relations. we know why? its jobs. what people want now is they want jobs where they want great jobs with good pay. and when they have that you watch how race relations will be. we are spending a lot of money on the inner cities. we are fixing the inner cities. we are doing far more than anybody's done with respect to

the inner cities. it's a priority for me and it's very important. >> are you putting what you are calling the alt left and white supremacists on the same moral plane? i'm not putting anybody on a moral plane. you had a group on one side and you had a group on the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to i'm not puttia moral plane. watch. but there is another side. there was a group on this side. you can call them the left. you just called them the left. that came violently attacking the other group. so you can say what you want but that's the way it is. host: just under 30 minutes left. shots from the charlottesville as we continue to take phone calls on your top political story of 2017. we have david on the line from south carolina. david is a democrat. thanks for joining us. i just got in to doing

it. are you there? host: what was your top story of the year david? moved in with3i my daughter down here in south carolina. i got to watching fox news and i really liked it. elected when obama got about three or four months in fox news had this commentator show where and coulter got on there and she said the only way democrats is to lie about it. and they laughed and said, we can't do that. and this was on the programs. i said, what kind of person would say something like that? tell lies to get elected?

haveems like ever since i been watching this stuff i said, that has a lot to do with -- they're the ones who plotted up. the congress said -- and coulter said we can get away with it. it looks to me, i just can't believe it. i heard that and i quit watching fox news after that. host: thank you for calling. jane from maine. republican caller. caller: hi. i was believing that the top story of this year is about the media and donald trump. and i believe this man was put into office because he is exposing the lies that we have been living under.

i don't think the journalists that are out there now really understand their job. i don'te need to be know, reeducated. newsse there's different and you know how divided the country is so i guess we have to get back to basics and i guess it really opened my eyes when my mother that just passed away ,ecently was watching the news her mainstream media news and believed every word. and that generation did. peopleneed to know as a does nottry that this happen. that these news people either tell the truth and get their facts straight or get off the air. lisa calling from

louisville, kentucky. democratic caller. your top political story of the year. russian investigation is definitely at the top of my list. i would like to ask the american people when did we ever become friends with russia? we have never trusted russia. they have their missiles up in cuba in the early 60's. i was a small child. i was alive. they had never atoned for their sins unlike japan who has. have their missiles up in cuba in the early 60's. i was a small child. and if we go down this road putin will destroy us. i really wish people would wake up and really think about that situation. it's scary. we need to go after trump. i am sorry to say that but it's true. i also think we need to go after mike pence. he is being awful silent on this subject and it is scary to me to think that what he's really thinking and how much he knows. as far as fake news, watch fox.

not thesider themselves mainstream media now which totally blows my mind and that's my comment. one of the other hotspots around the world, north korea. one more headline from politico this morning. are no mattis says there plans to pause military exercises for olympics in south korea. he told this to reporters on friday so the winter the picks are coming to south korea in february. going to continue military exercise they have been holding with south korea. morningth reports this north korea says it will continue preparing for a preemptive attack nuclear force. this is from the ap. they promise to continue preparing preemptive attacks with nuclear force in the face of u.s. blackmail. do not expect any change its the state of korea's

official media arm. north korea in the news for pretty much all of 2017 and perhaps beyond. here's a little bit more in the fall during that general assembly meeting in september. >> north korea threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life. outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime that would arms supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict. earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles. the united states has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or we will have no

choice but to totally destroy north korea. rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. the united states is ready, willing and able. at hopefully this will not necessary. that's what the united nations is all about. that's what the united nations as far. let's see how they do. it is time for north korea to realize that the denuclearization isn't the only acceptable future -- is its only acceptable future. south korea suspected of providing oil for north korea. violation of international sanctions

according to a customs official. so of course the story will continue. calls continue now. your top local story of 2017. bob is: from virginia. independent caller. my biggest -- i really didn't vote for president trump. the thing that turned me was the health care. the health care destroyed my savings. we are paying $1500 when bush was in the year. -- a year. by the time president obama was getting done we ended up a $27,000 a year with a $6,000 deductible. my wife was working for insurance only. it devastated our savings, our 401(k). everything we had went with that. bald-faceds a big

lie and i voted for obama. .nd it breaks my heart i will never vote democratic because being inconsistent and telling people lies -- everybody is saying this about trump. i'm starting to see that president trump is really kind of draining the swamp. i didn't agree with that at one time. i also never watch fox. i started watching fox and things are starting to make sense. new york post, washington post, new york times. not telling the truth. i know there's a fine line between truth and fiction. but where is that line? who is telling the truth? you look at president obama and the race relationship with the police and stuff. i think he incurred a lot of those problems. trayvon martin. they could've been my son. charlottesville we had a

fellow that killed a bunch of these students. he was black. could that have been his son? he didn't claim him. because it was a race push thing that he actually brought up. it looked terrible. in massachusetts, professor gates. the police officer acted stupidly. if you read the whole story, the fellow was drunk. he wouldn't give his identification to the police. how did the officer asked stupidly? -- act stupidly? host: what a change are you going to be looking for in 2018? caller: i am just glad to see the mandate is gone from the health care thing. host: thanks for calling. let's hear from stephen. hello. -- these areabout

actually dictatorships to begin with including north korea is on that list. as far as the russians go we are trying to build a relationship with the russians so that we can avoid long-term conflict with them. that doesn't mean we should trust with hundred percent trump and hopefully we won't. kindully we can get some of normal relationship with russia where we aren't engaging in activity that leads to any kind of wars with them. in the wars with them past over korea where they have supplied weapons to the other side so we do have a conflict with russia and we need to try to find a way of keeping that is more peaceful in the future. that's all i have to say. stephen from new york. the washington examiner has the story. if you want to read it at washington examiner.com.

universal truths about the media in 2017. the first year president trump's time in office wraps up. there's no indication that national media want to do anything different even if there is every reason they should. let's her from cynthia. republican. good morning. the best political moment for me is that we've got president trump in office. he's trying to get this country back on track for the citizens of this country. of our pastd president constantly apologizing to other countries who are out to destroy us. as if we were all bad people in this country. the jobs are coming in. our 401(k)s are going up. i don't understand why folks can't see that.

if they would just all get in and try to help each other this country could be very good. he's trying to get people back and i just thank god that we've got a man in there that is helping with that. thank you. host: stephen writes in our story ofhate come top the year. lack of prosecution of clinton and operatives blatantly guilty of crimes that would land the rest of us in federal prison and only hope for justice in 2018. don writes collusion between the trump campaign and the subsequent cover-up. indictments and guilty pleas with much more to come in 2018. here's a short clip of former fbi director james comey who in june testified on capitol hill responding to a question from senator dianne feinstein. >> here's a question. you are big, you are strong.

i know the oval office and i know what happens to people when they walk in. there is a certain amount of intimidation. you stop and say mr. president, this is wrong. i cannot discuss this with you. great question. maybe if i were stronger i would have. i was so stunned by the conversation that i just took it in and the only thing i could think to say because i was playing in my mind. everywhere he said was playing in my mind what should my responsibility and that's why i very carefully chose the words. i have seen the tweet about tapes. i hope there are tapes. i remember saying i agree he's a good guy as a way of saying i am not agreeing with what you just asked me to do. maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance but that's how i conducted myself. i hope i will never have another opportunity. maybe if i did it again i would do it better.

watch that whole event and all of our programming from the past 30 years he on c-span at our video library. it is all located at c-span.org. you can check out our congress homepage. includethose statistics 613 total hours of house and senate action this year over a span of 259 days. in terms of debate time to hundred 89 hours were spent. 122 hours on those special orders in the house. 98 hours of votes. 51 hours of one minute speeches. short five minute speeches at the beginning of the house today, 41 hours. opening procedures three hours. just some of the statistics. all of it is at c-span.org. you can recap the year of 2017 in congress. michael is calling from roanoke, virginia. democratic line.

michael are either? are youd there -- there? caller: trump has been lying since day one. let's look at when he started his real estate school and he gave these people false hope. he wound up stealing their money. he lied about this russia probe. there was no collusion. people that had actually done business with the russians. -- trust.eally

the reason i say that is because he had a chance to serve their country -- serve our country. she got out of that. he talks about senator mccain as being a coward when he was vietcong.y the he has been lying to the american people since day one. jimbo calling from bakersfield, california. caller: thank you for the opportunity. i wanted to say as an independent i know that all republicans think that i'm a democrat and all the democrats think that i'm a republican. hatee a general visceral for both of the political parties so when you democrats out there try to call us

independents republicans and republicans tried to cause democrats, remember wee loathe both of you. getting back to the biggest i would thinkear it's the end of the shining city on the hill that ronald reagan talked about. how america needs to be the pivotal thing of supporting democratic institutions and whatnot. right now what i am thinking about is i have a president who is attacking the fbi. and what i am thinking is, which of the thousands of investigations to my question? -- do i question? do i question all of the investigations are just the ones the president says i should be questioning? should i question all of our democratic institutions?

the story is basically the end of the united states being the standard error for high standards for democratic institutions. free press, not a president who attacks the press. one of the most important things that keeps us all honest. i am terrified for the new year. i am terrified about how donald trump will respond when north korea tests and intercontinental ballistic missile with a hydrogen bomb attached to it over the bikini atoll area. they are going to do it. we don't know how the president will respond. will that be an act of war? no one has been ever to explain to me the difference between going to war with north korea and china. there are many very complicated situations but the most important thing that really americans need to do is abandon the republican and democratic parties. they are tribal. they are shia and sunni. become a real america again.

become an independent. god bless you and thank you so much for the opportunity to have my voice heard on c-span. host: bob on the republican line from auburn, maine. your top new story of the year? i voted for donald trump but i wondered if i would really do so again. i keep having one question that keeps popping up in my mind. donald trump keeps denying any collusion with anything about the russian interference in our election in my question is is donald trump going to give vladimir putin a presidential pardon? host: ok. the words of bob. your top political story of 2017. abc news put out this piece about the top google searches of the past year.

hurricanes, matt lauer and slime. it's a piece by andrea miller. searchne irma top google of 2017 followed by matt lauer leaving the today show. tom petty, the man best known as petty andman for tom the heartbreakers who died on october 2 part attack. the super bowl. the last super bowl where the patriots beat the falcons. the las vegas shooting from october 1 which left more than 520 people injured. 58 people dead. the mayweather versus mcgregor fight. you may remember pulled in $450 million earlier this year. the solar eclipse on august way first. hurricane harvey on august 25. the last two stories as far as google top searches of 2017, the aaron hernandez story. he's the former patriots football player founded on april 19 after committing suicide in his prison cell.

avis convicted in 2015 for murder and was serving a life sentence. number 10, fidget spinners. kids went crazy over fidget spinners. the three inch spinning gadgets. those are google's top searches of 2017. as we prepare for another day of national football league action here is what president trump had to say. at a rally for luther strange about those in the nfl who choose to kneel during the national anthem. >> luther and i and everyone in this arena to our unified by this engraved american values. we are proud of our country. we respect our flag. wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say cap

bitch off thethe field. he's fired. host: ramona in cincinnati. your top political story of the year. the main thing that stuck with me was the health care. i hear a lot of people call in and talk about obama being responsible for the health care affordable care act. not operating the way it was intended to. i think the republicans are the a lot ofblame because them didn't take the medicaid expansion just like they voted against the stimulus package. i think they need to put the blame in the other direction. i did someer, research. he was a republican and he voted for the affordable care act and a lot of republicans were mad at him and that caused him to

change parties. i think the democrats and republicans want to get this country on the right past, they need to work together and that's my comment. markets: from massachusetts. independent color. good morning. this is very animated discussion. i am 39 and from my perspective this is the most insane political year -- obviously i didn't live through vietnam or world war ii. but it is absolutely -- i just pray for everybody. the one thing the prior caller brought up was health care. the cost of health care so social services.

it's not just this year it's been happening. when we are in a state of good economic growth i think you should invest in things that have problems like health care spending. there's a graph of the u.s. that shows the top employer in every state. money to states out of 50 is 28 27 ared the other all health-care related weather it is universities with big health care systems. the only exception would be washington state. it just makes you think. is goingederal budget to health-care spending and social security. something needs to be done. happy new year. for me it has to be the opioid story that 60 minutes just did exposing how congress cited with big pharma over our own dea showing that money is worth more than american

citizens lives. rene writes ambassador nikki blasting the u.n. when they overstepped their boundaries. we are no longer a doormat for the u.n. tammy is: from cleveland, tennessee. caller: good morning. i thing with donald trump is like him every day. i watch either c-span or msnbc and this russia thing is getting out of hand. saying no collusion. please got the republicans that don't disclose the information to russian foreign powers or foreign ministries or whatever they are over there and i agree with one of the callers that said we had never been friends with russia. we've got a president that is knocking the doj. knocking these guys that have worked all their they spent their whole lives, i

prayfeel like i hope and that bob mueller gets to the end of this. on, and something going it starts with the american people. donald trump tweeted out the iran. we are living in sad times. that's all i've got to say. host: as we finish out the year, the new york times has this take on the year. events were big enough to be seen from far above. they begin with the women's march. millions of people joined the event across the united states.

these are the people who marched in washington. the camera goes down this full-page story. they show puerto rico, lights out in puerto rico. the island is devastated and all but destroyed. you can see how dark much of the is or was on september 25 versus june 24. that's a big difference. the giant algae bloom on lake erie was one of the worst in recent years. it turned the lake bright green. they also showed pictures of isis leaving behind ruined cities. in 2015 versus july 2017, what it looked like he for and after.

-- before and after. they lost substantial territory in iraq. entire neighborhoods have been leveled. one more picture form the new york times, wildfires across the globe. chile, spread across western canada, the u.s., portugal, spain, and even greenland. this is the california thomas fire. active fires are highlighted in red and orange. you can read and see more of those pictures in the new york times. willwe come back, we conclude our author's series that we've been doing for the last week. chris whipple will join us. white houseabout chiefs of staff in the modern era. we will be right back.

i've been attacked by everybody, the right wing, the russians, the trump campaign. now, i can add to that list the clinton campaign. the and seeformer donna brazil talks about her life in politics and her memoir. >> i was here in washington, not far from here. hillary had met this young state senator who was running. she has her roots in illinois. she told my good friend. we were on the third floor. i did not know barack obama. i knew bobby rush. rahm emanuel. i know a lot of people in

chicago politics. i never heard of barack obama. we met him in 2003. the rest is history. >> q&a tonight on c-span. >> tonight, christopher scalia, son of the late supreme court bookce talks about his scalia speaks. davidinterviewed by savage. speech.s his stump i was looking forward to finding a written version of the. i thought it was great. it included a wonderful passage where he compared the living constitution approach to a television commercial from the 1980's, where somebody is making pasta, eating up store-bought

pasta sauce. the husband says you are using store-bought sauce, what about the oregano? she said it's in there. it's in there. my dad would say we've got that kind of constitution now. you want a right to an abortion? it's in there. anything that is good and true and beautiful, it's in their. words book tv. >> this weekend on american three, we on c-span will tour the national world war i museum and the memorial in kansas city. >> i think some extraordinary story of grassroots support and funding to pay for what turned out to be an extraordinarily

dramatic memorial. history tv this weekend only on c-span3. washington journal continues. host: joining us from new york city this morning is chris whipple, the documentary filmmaker and writer who has written this book titled "the gatekeepers." good morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: let's start off with this term, gatekeeper. we are talking about white house chiefs of staff. guest: the modern empowered iste house chief of staff first famously the gatekeeper, which means giving the president time and space to think. he is the broker of information, he made sure everything is teed up with information on every

side. takinghe heat shield, the incoming artillery for the president, getting all the blame and none of the credit. at the end of the day, the chief of staff is someone the president counts on to execute his agenda. him importantly, to tell what he does not want to hear. host: you begin the book by writing about what appears to be an extraordinary answering of chiefs of staff from the past. they were meeting with rahm emanuel, who was working for barack obama. tell us about that meeting. extraordinary scene that took place in december 2008, when rahm emanuel was about to start is barack

obama's chief of staff. we were on the verge of the great depression. two wars, a bloody stalemate. it was a real crisis and former white house chiefs of staff on every side of the aisle from the cheney to leon penn at a came to the what -- leon penn at a came to the white house. they gave him the best advice on how to be chief of staff. they finally got to cheney, who was the sitting vice president at the time. he looked up over his glasses costs, control your vice president. that brought down the house considering his reputation. >> would have the phone number at the bottom of the screen.

chris whipple is the author of the gatekeepers. we have the line for democrats and republicans and independents . more about the importance of the chief of staff, you write a couple of short passages i want to share. when government works it's because the chief understands power. tell us more. guest: it's hard to overstate the importance of the role. there is nothing in the constitution about it. he is hired and fired by the president alone. it, the whiteut house chief of the second-most powerful job in government. dick cheney ought to know. he said the chief has more power than the vice president.

it's true except when cheney was vice president. the white house chief has to translate the president's agenda into reality. that was lacking in donald trump's first year. white houseun the like trump tower with people coming and going. that was the fundamental problem, or one of several, but a major problem for donald trump in his first year. host: you write that when government fails it can be triggered to shortcomings of the chief. the stakes could not be higher. you interviewed 17 living white house chiefs of staff. is there a common denominator among those men? guest: but me give you an example of the stakes. to answer your question,

consider when james baker after four years was burned out as reagan's chief of staff and was desperate to get out of the job. treasury secretary said why we swap jobs. inwas the most disastrous history of american politics. it's no coincidence that after don reagan became white house chief, the iran-contra scandal bubbled up from the basement. stakeker would have put a in that immediately. i don't think it would've ever happened. some of the qualities that are important our judgment, being grounded, being comfortable in your own skin. data --r and leon and paneta were guys who could walk into the white house and tell

the president what he did not want to hear. host: you have pictures in the book of bob halderman in his office. how did mr. haldeman create a model? what was in place before that? with: i could have begun eisenhower in the book. one of the things that shocks me is nobody beat me to this book. it's extraordinary when you think about it that no one had looked at this history in quite this way before. you could go back to sherman adams, the civilian version of dwight eisenhower's army chief of staff. he was known as the abominable snowman. man. haldeman took it to another level. they were obsessed with trying

to get this right. again in nixon's words, the lord high executioner. he was the guy who was the gatekeeper, he brokered information and was in charge of communications. he was the guy who executed the president's agenda. the fascinating paradoxical thing about it is haldeman who wrote the template for the water and white house chief failed in the end spectacularly to speak truth to power during watergate, which was richard nixon's downfall. host: we will take calls now for chris whipple. we will put the numbers on the bottom of the screen. you said this type of book is not been done before. why did you decide to do it? was a phone call out of the blue from a stranger. he is a documentary filmmaker .ho had done 9/11

they want to know if i would partner with them on a documentary. we did that for the discovery channel. that it barelyme scratch the surface of this unbelievable tour -- untold story of the chiefs who make the difference between success and disaster for every presidency. host: our first color is from auburn, washington. good morning. i would say a profound instrument of this, gatekeeper is the appropriate word, is integrity. i think we are seen it especially in general kelly, the notion of not only trying to be a gatekeeper but also a zookeeper, using his military method ofd organized

variousg it to assemble factions in the white house. often be diverse in their affiliations. toy can get the president focus, to try to prevent them from doing foolish things on twitter. it's not easy to stand up to the president of the united states. to do that in a way and use camaraderie is special and i think somebody who has a military experience, that kind of advisor is even made more effective than somebody who has pure political experience. thank you for writing the book. host: they read zookeeper. tell us more. guest: in the case of john

kelly, someone close to donald trump told me this was almost like fred trump reaching from beyond the grave, that john kelly is the son trump wished he had. gravitas, heity, has donald trump's respect. he has made the trains run on time in the west wing. that is the easy part of any successful white house chief of staff. the easy part is organizing the west wing. the hard part is walk into the oval office, closing the door, and telling the president hard truth. i think his record there is really mixed. this is general kelly back in october. >> i would just offer to you that as i read all the time consistently, i'm not quitting today.

i don't believe and i just talked to the president i'm being fired today. i am not so frustrated in this job that i am thinking of leaving. this is the hardest job i've ever had. this is the most important job i've ever had. it is not the best job i ever was when i wasob an enlisted marine sergeant. that was the best job i ever had. what is working and not working? kelly told peter baker in the new york times he was not put on the earth to manage the president. that is true, but it's misleading. ofbetrays a misunderstanding

what the most important part of the job is. it's not to control the president, it's to tell the president when you think he is doing things that will harm the agenda. he is there to help the president governor. you mentioned the crazy tweets to continue unabated on kelly's watch. performance with the goldstar widow, when he started in the pressroom with this eloquent description of how soldiers are prepared for burial and then segued into that unhinged tirade the false against representative wilson, that showed that he might be out of his depth politically. we can talk more about that. callsbefore we go back to , he remains unconventional did

we go to dan in corpus christi, an independent caller. caller: happy new year to both of you. how is this relevant to a current middle school are, someone in the ninth or 10th school, they are so uninformed. how could you ever make this relevant, that it is so important? that's a great question. i think that so much of being a white house chief of staff is really common sense, much of it is being grounded in having good judgment. was one of the unsung but really effective chiefs of staff under jimmy whenr during his last year

carter finally realized he had to have an effective white house it's, jack watson said almost everything you need to know in kindergarten. it's not complicated. it requires an ability to work with people. haldeman's sonbe as he was described by richard nixon. you have to be able to inspire a team and you have to be able to reach across the aisle. that's the simplest way i can put it. on the coverhipple of the book. this is during the final year of the presidency. the book is called "the gatekeepers." he is in new york city.

we have an independent caller from little rock, arkansas. good morning. caller: this is a great topic. whipple, chris whipple, is that right? bookyou ever heard of this i just found it in my little private library here? guest: i know it very well. caller: it is similar to yours. in 1979.ut guest: that's right. it's a very good early study of some of the closest advisers. so muchout well before of our recent history. it came out before ronald reagan

picked james baker as his chief of staff. bar i thinkt the for chiefs of staff who followed. it's a very good early book on the subject. caller: he loved all of the early presidents -- lumped all of the early presidents together. starting in 1857, that was the modern day making of the presidential candidate -- cabinet. he said when george washington a fewesident, he had positions. they kept adding to it later. guest: the government has gotten much more complicated and unwieldy. it's fascinating to me as you point out, the early presidents

didn't have a chief of staff. they didn't have somebody that was equal in the white house. that is a modern phenomenon. haldermanck to and nixon. what i discovered doing the book was every president since the end has learned sometimes the hard way you cannot govern effectively without an empowered white house chief of staff that is first among equals to execute your agenda. host: you touched on james baker, james baker and ronald reagan. what made jim baker so effective? guy, he had the secret sauce.

he was as smooth as silk. he was 50 years old when he took the job. he had nothing to prove to anybody. he was confident, he knew capitol hill. he had white house experience. he could walk into the white office,o into the oval and tell ronald reagan what he didn't want to hear. he did it often. ronald reagan was hell-bent right out of the blocks to tackle social security reform. that's what he wanted to do is is the item. baker went in and sat down with them and explained, mr. president, it's the third rail of american politics. if you touch it you will be electrocuted. with baker'sd advice and wound up doing tax cuts and the economy and the rest is history. aat is the kind of thing

savvy white house chief of staff with political skill can do. it's not clear that john kelly has that kind of skill. a caller on the line from maryland. hello. caller: how you doing today? to touch on what the caller from earlier, the new generation is woefully ignorant of history of the white house. you said you were surprised no one beat you to this. we are dealing with the president and the system in place that is more modernized. presidents were willing to listen a bit more and work with each other.

advicetion is this, what presidentest for our and his cabinet, his chief of , to not onlyorward bring in the old ways, but to take those tradition and do something more than what they are doing with it now, instead of falling all over the place? question,answer your i would say based on the history that i researched on the presidents and white house chiefs, this is not the first time a president has arrived in hubris, office flip thinking he's the smartest guy in the room and convinced he could govern the way he campaigned, it's a fundamental mistake. in hollywood, they say nobody knows anything.

in washington, nobody learns anything. trump is taken this to another level. let's assume for the moment he has learned the first big lesson , that he had to empower a white house chief. he has done that to some extent with john kelly. the second major lesson is you -- there is a huge difference between campaigning and governing. about demonizing and governing is about coalition. it's about building something larger than your base. there is no evidence donald trump has learned that lesson. john kelly needs to help them get here. host: this is the opinion of steve on twitter. he said john kelly stopped the leaking. that's the major reason he's there. true: i don't think that's

at all. i think the leaks continue unabated. you don't stop leaks by intimidating or threatening or being a tough general as it were. the way you stop leaks is by running a white house staff where there is respect, discipline, and when you tell the truth. that's how youk prevent leaks. you're never going to prevent them completely. there will always be leaks. that was certainly true even with successful two-term presidency's. i don't think kelly has stopped the leaks. host: we move on to barbara in red bank, new jersey. caller: good morning. to thistening conversation and the first thing shouldcurs to me is they

not be seen or heard. a lot of the problems we have had with chiefs of staff have of theirrect result being too close to the forefront of politics. i've been around for quite a while. i did not know chiefs of staff when i voted for eisenhower. i knew of james baker by reputation. rahm emanuel was a little bit too cozy with the press i thought. have anythingt to but the entrance and exit to the oval office. believe that rather than making any changes that are positive for trump, trump has

turned john kelly. i want to thank mr. whipple, this is a great book and i am buying it tuesday morning. host: mr. whipple? guest: that's a very good point. it used to be the case back in , there was a's study by the executive branch in which it was recommended advisors have a passion for anonymity. that's not really possible anymore. the white house chief does occasionally have to go on the sunday talk shows and advance the president's agenda. i would agree that some chiefs have gotten into trouble by being too visible and seen too often. frankly, that grandstanding performance in the press briefing about the

goldstar widow was an example. he hasn't done that lately. at the end of the day, he needs to be able to tell donald trump hard truths. he doesn't have to be invisible. he has to be a truth teller. host: in chapter eight, you write about the decider. andrew carr had a very challenging experience as chief of staff. how come? guest: i think it's a fascinating case when you think sont george bush 41 and his george bush 43. it's fascinating to me because i think george w. bush did not a powerful white house chief of staff like jim baker.

he had seen how successful baker was under reagan. i think w wanted to run the white house himself to some extent. i think andy card did the best he could. i think he was not empowered in quite the same way that jim baker was under reagan or leon cannata was under bill clinton. there were some very powerful characters in that white house, dick cheney and don rumsfeld and others. i think it was a tough challenge for him. i think you did very well under the circumstances. host: let's hear from mike in modesto, california. mike is a democrat. caller: i have a list here for general comments. must be our savior or john the baptist.

this crappy pulled with that black congresswoman, straight up lies about what she was trying , thatabout our servicemen was bs and that guy is a pos. rate andke your hourly weekthe zero, that's a 50 year. $80,000,dy makes that's $40 an hour. that's a little favor to you. the big thing is this: opting of the trump voters ago to these rallies. those money people do not give anything about gay marriage,

jesus, any of that. they just use you to get the votes and they are going to do whatever they want. host: mike, thanks for calling. is there anything there you want to respond to? guest: there is a lot there obviously. i will address what he said about kelly. think it's a challenge for anyone to work that closely with donald trump. i think quite frankly no matter who you are, even if you're a four-star general, everyone in the orbit of this death start on his donald trump is sucked in and to some extent tainted. i can't help but think that misfire by kelly when he went into the briefing room was a case of trying to please the

boss. he really stepped out of line. that's what i would say to that. host: this is one of the headlines about trump family members. this is from back in late november. john kelly wanted jared kushner and i ivanka trump to leave the white house by the end of the year. we know about news reports with the first family. speak to us about chiefs of staff and family members and access. how is that gone over recent history western mark -- history? guest: it's an extraordinary challenge when family is involved. it's a delicate tightrope act. challenge, nancy reagan was famously known as the personnel director in the reagan white house. the deputy chief of staff who was the maestro of image making

for ronald reagan was like a son to reagan. baker was smart enough to know that. he really recruited. when baker, who was considered a pragmatist by his enemies, the guy who would not let reagan be reagan, when he came under attack, he was able to fight back. he had nancy in his corner. i think he was able to be effective as a result. you have to be very savvy to have against those currents where family are involved. host: jason is calling from maryland, what county when? caller: i'm right outside coping to. host: got it. caller: i think you have to be careful and i think both you as

host and your guest are careful about what he has written. he has written a book about the recent history of the chief of staff. it should not be used for what they should be or do. they are not mentioned in the constitution. the chief of staff should be the chief of the staff in the white house. not the chief of the cabinet. the fact that the presidency has to use a chief of staff as a confidant rather than the vice president or any of his trusted cabinet, it shows a weakness in the presidency and a weakness in the reliance on the vice

presidency. guest: i just have to cut you off here. i have to disagree with that. if you look at history, it proves otherwise. history is littered with the bones of residencies that did not realize you had to empower achieved to get things done. arguably thewas most intelligent president of the 20th century, he was trained as a nuclear engineer. he thought he could run the white house himself without an empowered chief. ronald reagan was once described unfairly as an amiable dunce. understoodit never and the donald trump didn't understand. that is an outsider president needs a insider to get things done on capitol hill. that's just the reality of modern history, the modern

history of the presidency since the. host: two robert in a greenville, texas, an independent caller. chris whipple is up in new york. caller: it's a very good show this morning. it's hard to imagine someone with such a wonderful career getting involved with an organization like the trumps and evil it is presenting the united states with. god,an independent but my we need to be fearful of the inequality in the united states and trump just exacerbates that with his rhetoric and the elites he surrounds himself with. kelly, he's got to go out and try to play that up.

it's going to be the downfall of america. we need to be careful. host: thank you, robert area guest: to that point, it's a real dilemma for anyone who serves this president. it's hard not to be damaged, it's hard not to be tainted by of thisthe excesses president. in kelly's case, i believe he believes in duty and honor of country. he is a marine who wants to take the hill. he is somebody who obviously and it as a challenge whether he wants to admit it or betweenis the thin line this president and disaster for us all. when richard nixon was wandering

the halls, talking to the oil portraits and drinking heavily at the height of watergate, alexander haig and the defense secretary major the nuclear codes were safe. those are the kind of things that john kelly other he likes or not has to think about. advisedhe would be well to pick up the phone and talk to and penn at a and jim baker ken duberstein and previous chiefs of staff, he's got a very difficult challenge. chris whipple is a writer and documentary filmmaker. he is a producer at cbs news on the 60 minutes program. he is the author of this book, "the gatekeepers." he is joining us from new york.

in chapter nine of the book, you speak about president obama's for chiefs of staff. you begin with rahm emanuel. he was in for a relatively short amount of time, but had a lot to accomplish. tell us about that. audit it was such an couple, no drama obama and rahm emanuel, who is quite a character. was a pretty good choice for president obama. remember, this was a moment of real crisis. we were on the verge of a great depression. we had it frozen around the world. where staffl moment had to be done. obama had to pass the stimulus.

rahm emanuel new the hill intimately. nobody knew capitol hill better than he did. he was in line to become the first jewish speaker of the house and reluctantly took the job as white house chief. they got a lot done, including as ugly as it might have been in the process, including obamacare. i think he had a successful run. i think he was good at it. tellingot shy away from barack obama what he thought. they had a real battle over health care. he want to go with something more modest and less ambitious, obama won that argument. he saluted and went ahead and got it done. what is the average length of service of a white house chief of staff? , sot: it is so grueling

unrewarding, so thankless. the average tenure is less than two years. host: two years. afterdo they typically go serving in that position? is it something they do at the end of the career? famously in rahm emanuel's case, he left to run for mayor of chicago. he won that election. not that many chiefs have gone on to careers. dick cheney did. variety of jobs. there is no single pattern. what is fascinating to me about the book is this cast of characters that aaron sorkin could not dream up, from don

rumsfeld and cheney to rahm emanuel, they are a fascinating group of characters. host: let's move on to jersey city. john is on the line for democrats. caller: thanks for c-span. i want to touch on, you touched on the carter administration's chief of staff. what role or responsibility do they have in the ineffectiveness of that presidency? guest: sure. the carter story is fascinating to me. brilliant, is a brilliant man, trained as nuclear engineer. he could absorb enormous amounts of information and distill into policy. he was brilliant at all of that.

his big mistake going into the presidency was thinking he didn't need a single empowered white house chief to help him. this wasn for that was right after watergate. men,w the example of older -- halderman, who personified wire gate. -- watergate. this rubbed carter the wrong way. it turned out to be a mistake. 2.5 years in, with his agenda paralyzed, he realized he had to picked theebody he de facto chief who did not want the job. , awas famously disorganized terrific strategist, but not cut out for the job. it wasn't until his final year

could carter picked jack watson to replace him jordan. was a former marine, much younger. he was very organized and smart. he was effective as white house chief, but it was too late for carter. host: in the epilogue to the book, it's crucially important. he was carter's final chief. everything, the president's relationship with congress and the cabinet, the integrity of the decision-making process, the way decisions are explained and implemented. two i believe the modern presidency requires that kind of chief of staff? i am fatty do. we are moving on to gary in north carolina. caller: i just want to remind whipple, he is a

very bright person. there are a lot of people out there who have access in the media and for trade their thoughts. brightest people. we don't go to school to learn to filter out things. we watched news programs for a little while and get the opinions of somebody else and use them as our own. we don't really do our own thinking anymore. exuberant the most tells us things we want to hear and we follow. we want to go with people who agree with us. we don't humble ourselves to look at the other side of things. our leaders are once on the news. they wind up becoming our political leaders because we

listen to what they say. us. really hard for theing the voting booth and situation we have now, it's like we should take a competency test before we let people vote. the intricate things that mr. , it is so describing interesting and voters don't have any idea of this for themselves. it's good to have a program like your's it shows us these things. we are in the situation because we are not experts at this. host: thank you for calling. mr. whipple? guest: i think it's not that complicated or intricate really. ist it really boils down to

our presidents effective or not? if you look at recent history president,d to the -- nixon to the president, patterns come through. the first year of trumps presidency is a perfect example of how you cannot govern the way you run a manhattan real estate firm. you cannot govern with people coming and going and nobody empowered to get things done it. nobody is empowered to tell you what you don't want to hear. that role is all the more important when you have the president with no idea how to govern. we see the results of that. voters say.what host: this is more from john kelly from october.

paper that i've been a failure at controlling the president, or controlling his tweeting. i was not sent in or brought to this job to control anything but the flow of information to our president so he can make the best decisions. is ae found that mr. trump decisive guy. he is a very thoughtful man. he takes information from every avenue he can receive. -- restrict the one from seeing him. we go in and help them what hevely understand needs to understand to make these vital decisions. i was not sent into control him.

you should not measure my effectiveness as a chief of staff by what you think i should be doing. the fact is i can guarantee you he is now presented with options, well thought out options that are discussed and detailed with his team. he comes up with the right decision. host: richard cohen wrote this in the washington post. he must be exhausted is the headline. what do you think year two of the trump presidency looks like? guest: let me just say in response to what you just played from general kelly, with all respect to him, the job is much more than just simply controlling the flow of information, presenting options and information to the president. that's the staff secretary's

job. the chief's job goes well beyond that. i would suggest general kelly pick up the phone to leon put on it. pick up the phone to jim baker. it's the tell him that easy part of the job. is walking into the oval office, closing the door, and telling donald trump what he doesn't want to hear. it's part of the job. that's what successful white house chiefs who want to have two term presidencies, that's what they learn to do. david is calling from longview, texas. he is an independent collar. you were on with mr. whipple. caller: with bill clinton's reputation, wasn't a failure to let him be alone with a female in the oval office?

guest: possibly. that's the answer to the question. think it's really impossible, even though the white house chief is the gatekeeper, you can't completely control the president and you can't completely control every person he sees. we see this even now with donald trump, he picks up the phone and he calls bannon, his former strategist. he calls reince priebus. of people inkinds it kelly can't control those conversations. in fairness to bill clinton's chiefs, i don't think is possible to really police bill clinton in that way. difficult, that scandal.

get clintono through that time. i know it was painful for bowls. for the white house staff. they felt betrayed by clinton. mike is calling from missouri on the republican line. caller: good morning. staff isn'ted the wearing heavy sunshade so they're not minded by your brilliance. is, you areto you typical of many of the lemmings i see on c-span. all you do is criticize. if you had come up with something that would be helpful, while you apply to be chief of staff?

with your political savvy i'm sure you would really help. why don't you run for political office? let me respond. let me go way out on a limb here and just suggest that you probably haven't read the book. i don'td realize that have all the answers and i don't pretend to. to be very evenhanded between democrats and republicans. i have decided democrat and republican as two people i think were the outstanding white house chiefs. i have no ax to grind here. my book is really about governance, it's about what works in the white house. , i simplyue respect suggest you pick up the book and read it.

host: and is calling from georgia. caller: how are you this morning? thank you for taking my call. i have one question. my call got dropped. i think i was banned from calling for a while. to get back to why i'm calling is my view on general kelly he has two basic problems doing the job. his great respect for the chain of command. i think he really is hampered of his i do it donald trump is that commander in chief. i think he comes from a different point of view. i think he also has another

problem, he is old-school marine. my husband was a marine. i understand that. he was a marine before the services became more diversified and accommodating to women and other types of personalities. i think he remains somewhere in that past experience with diversity. i think is reflected in some of the things he says. i'm curious to know what you think about that. guest: i think that's a very interesting comment. it's quite possible. i really don't want to psychoanalyze john kelly. that's not my job. there is certainly the possibility that sometimes generals want to salute the commander-in-chief. that's a real possibility.

donald kelly clearly has trump's respect. he has the gravitas and the dohority, the confidence to all of what i've been saying he should do. he needs to tell the president hard truths. he seems reluctant to do that. does itsible that he much more often than we realize and the trop simply goes on and does what he wants to do. i'm reluctant to psychoanalyze them. i think that's an interesting comment. rider host: this is a photograph of a young dick cheney. this is when he became chief of staff, conferring with president ford. remind us about what president ford was facing and what dick cheney brought to the table. guest:

in my mind, this was one of the great chapters in the book because there was a model that he wanted to put into practice, like the 26th floor of trump tower, calling it the spokes of the wheel with all senior advisers reporting to the president at the center. it was a disaster. excel toe month, ford was learning by fire hose, overwhelmed, as he put it. he had no time to think and make decisions. friend, up baking his ambassador of nato at the time, to whip the white house into shape, which rumsfeld did. he brought along his protege, a 34-year-old guy who probably could not have passed an fbi background test. he had a couple of dwis.

he flunked out of college twice. his name was dick cheney. he ultimately became chief of staff, succeeding runs field -- rumsfeld, was, believe it or not, the most popular guy in washington. he was self defacing. he -- self-defacing. --had a dry cell of humor sense of humor can you could bring people together and find bipartisan solutions. ever since the white house chiefs have said, what happened to that guy? it is a fascinating story. both rumsfeld and cheney. missouri, call, in roberts, independent caller. caller: hi. i am interested in who the gatekeeper was during the reagan presidency when he signed off on

selling armaments to the iranians. guest: sure. that is a great question and it goes to the heart of how consequence of the job can be because it is a perfect example. ronald reagan's white house chief was burned out and wound up swapping jobs with the treasury secretary. well, this was one case where nancy reagan's usually infallible instincts for personnel choices failed her miserably. don reagan was the former cochair of show of lynch. he was oblivious. he liked to have his arrival in . room announced ladies and gentlemen, the white house chief of staff. he became a laughingstock

shortly after taking over and shortly after he became white house chief, the iran contra scandal bubbled up. it was hatched in the white house basement. it was the kind of thing that jim baker never would have permitted, in my opinion. so i do not think it is a coincidence that the iran contra scandal erupted on his watch. it never would have happened on jim baker's watch. ultimately, howard baker a sickly had to pick up the pieces after don reagan -- had to pick up the pieces after don reagan was fired and they were instrumental in recovering from it. host: barbara, texas. republican caller. caller: thank you. it is been -- interesting to hear your comments. of theheard one

republican and i will ask the moderator who determines that. is a session i have been listening to. he has degraded our president for his judgment in every way i can hear, as well as kelly. the people that you praise the highest are our lowest presidency at. only to prove superseded by obama -- to be superseded by obama. i think -- host: barbara, we did talk about jim baker. respect, iara, with have said constantly and consistently that the gold standard as white house two. was james a baker the roman 3rd white house chief of staff

was james baker and also instrumental in helping reagan recover from the iran-contra scandal. some of the best white house cheney,rumsfeld, dick republicans, so if you read the book, i hope you will with an ton mind, the curse i tried research and write it with an open mind. host: barbara, what about that feedback is to mark caller: i -- feedback? caller: i appreciate you have highlighted the good staff reagan had, but i think you are seeing the reason we have trump. tax hear you talk about his reform, and trying to keep our borders safe, and that is why [indiscernible] bashing him. host: our last call from arkansas, democratic caller. good morning, keenan.

caller: hello. how far back does your book go, mr. whipple? physical back to woodrow wilson and earlier? guest: no, the book begins with the nixon era and his empowered white house chief. the reason for that is i could have gone back earlier to eisenhower, who had sherman adams as his gatekeeper, but the reason for it is, as i have said, there is nothing in the constitution about a white house chief of staff. the position did not exist until modern times. it originated with eisenhower but went to another level with nixon and alderman, which is what i started there. it is a rich history from there until the president.

if you asked all of the 17 living white house chiefs, 18 if you count reince priebus, i think they will all tell you -- bobb haldeman haldeman really wrote the template for empowered white house chief. whipple, writer, journalist, speaker, past producer of 60 minutes is the author of this book titled "the gatekeepers: how the white house chief of staff defined every presidency." thank you for your time. guest: thank you for having me. i'm honored to be in the company of the authors you have had. thank you. host: we appreciate it. we have about 15 minutes left in this last "washington journal" the 2017. what we thought we would do this next hour is take a look at hollywood. lots of movies have been out on variouspast year

topics relating to public policy issues. we want to get your take on whether you think hollywood is a good or bad influence on culture in both the movies and folks who work in hollywood? .ood influence, (202)-748-8000 bad influence, (202)-748-8001. a good or bad influence on culture? we will be back in a couple of minutes with some movie clips in calls. a reminder that after this program at 10:00 a.m. eastern, it is "newsmakers." steyer.own with tom he will address criticism he has received from democrats over his efforts. >> some quotes from democratic leaders suggests something other than timing. comment down --

unhelpful. a vanity project. when you hear these critiques of your effort, what are you hearing? >> i hear two different things. one, it isn't good timing, and the other one i hear is a question about my motive and me. i think from my standpoint, i do not spend any time on that. this isn't about me. it is about whether what we are doing is right and it is about the american people having a voice. it is supposed to be a democracy. we believed we are providing an avenue for the direct voice of the american people. if you take a look at the zip code of the people saying those things and where they spend their time, from my said dan point, we are trying -- from my standpoint, we are trying to allow people to have a voice will not spend a second worrying about people who argue when they should deal with the question of whether it is true, urgent and right. she wasf the people

quoting was nancy pelosi, who represents where you are sitting now. white has she told you about this effort? what have you heard from chuck schumer and the democratic national committee? guest: we really have not had a conversation. i never talked to nancy the single time about this. the fact of the matter is, i would say it again come up from our standpoint, we think the strongest power in the united states should be the voice of the american people and that is what we are trying to enable and activate. we think that will be an overwhelming power ultimately. we are -- we had seen it in the elections between the time we had started and now. we think it will continue to grow and build and ultimately, elected officials have to respond. on october 20, there were two people in the house who spoke publicly about

impeachment. they held a vote, 58 voted for it and four abstained. a fluke.think it is i think what they are seeing is the american people are exercised about this and they are right. they are. as we wrap up 2017 on "washington journal," as we sit in washington, we will look west hollywood. is it a good or bad influence on culture? the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen. we look forward to calling in. formerdaily beast, the vice president and general counsel for the new york times, writes about steven spielberg's new movie called "the post." good movie, he writes, that history. inhas meryl streep and hanks a great story, but he says it doesn't have the facts on its side. mr. goodell writes that it is a

good movie but that history. thexaggerates the role of washington post and successes of the publishing of the pentagon papers in the supreme court case. it downplays the role of the two catalysts. ben bradleend must be laughing at the roles hollywood has given them. here is a short piece from the trailer of the new movie called "the post." [video clip] >> can i ask you a hypothetical question? >> i do not like hypothetical questions. >> i don't think you'll like the real one either. >> do you have the papers? >> not yet. ♪ >> this is a devastating security breach that was leaked out of the pentagon. the most highly classified documents of the war. ofthe concept, 7000 pages

the white house line about the vietnam war for 30 years. >> they lied. those days have to be over. aboutple are concerned having a woman in charge of the papers. they think she doesn't have the resolve to make the tough choices. >> thank you for your frankness. >> let's do our jobs. find those pages. >> we are talking about exposing years of government secrets. >> is that legal? >> what is it you think we do here for a living? >> we might have something. >> it must be specialists -- precious cargo. >> just government secrets. >> the new york times was barred from the bushing anymore classified documents dealing with the vietnam war. publish, we will be at the supreme court next week. meaning? >> we could all go to prison. host: a clip from "the post." in the daily beast, goodale

writes about grams decision to publish -- graham's decision to publish the papers. he writes -- post has had as much to do with the papers as the times with watergate. they have put the post that the academy award level. it is hard to get more oscar-baity than steven spielberg, meryl streep, and tom hanks. it did not share this prize with the post any more than it shared it with watergate coverage for the times. for hollywood to create the impression the washington post was the key driver for the addition of the pentagon papers, the case is, well, hollywood. good drama but that history. part of what we wanted to do

during this hour was taken to our archives and bring in ourted -- was dig into archives and bring in related pieces. in 1997, we did an interview with katharine graham. she appeared on c-span to talk about her autobiography, and she talksry, about her relationship with key players in the pentagon paper story in this clip. [video clip] do in a time like this when one day, someone is your lawyer, and the next day, everyone else stays put and moves around, take you get confused? >> know because once people are in the government, the relationship changes. you can be friends with people in the government but they remember and you remember the paper comes first. sometimes, the paper attacks your friends or does things unfair to your friends. sometimes you can reason but

mostly you have to [indiscernible] recent piece, "the post" was written about in a series called the crown. she writes -- we are losing history. it is not the fault of hollywood but hollywood is a contributor. when people care enough about history to study and read it, it is a small same delight and mislead -- it is a small sin to live and mislead. when the absorber through screens only, the tendency to in an is more damaging -- age of lies, it adds to their sum total. it is not writes. it will do harm. that was in the wall street journal. on the calls. marion is first in virginia. is hollywood a good or bad influence on culture? may i say i, first,

have a terrible crash after watching mr. whipple. what a wonderful man. i will get back to what i should be talking about. the houseat i watched live embarrassingly in new jersey. when of the things that keeps men and women coming back is the arguing, and it gets out of hand, and it is like a train wreck you keep having to watch. i would think it is on bravo, so that is hollywood. so i would think republicans would love hollywood because from is doing this all the time -- because trump is doing this all the time. i would think republicans would like hollywood. i could do a little less of hollywood when it comes to our president. host: thank you. is hollywood a good or bad influence on culture? we talked to carl in rockingham, north carolina.

go ahead. caller: i think hollywood is a bad influence. most of them are liberals. i am a democrat conservative, for theve always voted man, not the party. i think from is doing -- i think trump is doing a great job. i think hollywood is giving the republicans a bad name this year. host: carl, ok. let's go to nancy. you are in north carolina. what do you think? caller: i believe -- are you there? host: i am. caller: thank you for taking my call. yes, i am calling from north carolina but i was born and raised at the end of world war ii. my father was born in north carolina but raised in

california by scottish parents. he grew up around the film industry later after world war fornd he went back and work a major studio in southern california, where i grew up. there are just as many republicans as there are democrats in the hollywood industry, and if -- and it is not all just actors going to see so famous out there speaking out against, say this code is, -- save this potus, if anybody remembers charleston heston? and numerous others that were very staunch republicans, and you voted for two of those and supported charleston heston with his president of the nra at that time, and they have as much right to speak out, not to see

actors and the people behind-the-scenes, the film crew , the grips, all of them, they are left and right. they just do not talk about it because they're too busy working, but they have a right to speak out, just as anybody else does because they pay taxes, they have children in school. they have as much right as anybody else. if you do not like it, do not listen to it. quick voting for them if you do not like hollywood. host: ok, call me now from oklahoma, good morning. caller: good morning. i do not have a clarity of necessarily ince the current political schema things, but the movies are a great source of being a former intelligence officer.

the are a great source of intelligence and good information. a lot of it people do not read between the lines, like most ,eople have seen the godfather the first one, and they like to offer youake an cannot refuse, leave the guy, bring the cannoli -- but there is one line out of that movie that is the most significant of any hollywood movie. that is when he comes back from italy after his in the italian bride is killed, and then he goes back to his old girlfriend in a day care center with these little kids and he sweet talks are all the way to the mafia and he makes a promise. he says, i can promise you this -- in five years, all of the

family business will be legitimate. down the you can go line. gambling was smart that is -- gambling? that is legal now. what about loansharking? that is legal, too, although they call it something different and advertise it on television. it is the credit card industry. loansharking made legal. then they got rid of the user laws. then you get into the protection racket. what is it? it is advertised on television, too. they have a nice lizard talking to you or a duck, or a smooth talking like i -- black guy. the point is it is the insurance industry. , auto, mosthealth everything, and it is part of the protection racket. ift: we are asking folks

hollywood is a good or bad influence on culture. we will do this for the final 35 minutes on this sunday. in variety, they wrote this earlier this month, engaged filmmakers follow tradition of speaking truth to power via cinema. for many inon, hollywood, it was the beginning of trump resistance. they have been unabashedly liberal creative community and the rise of trump has created a unified spirit that probably hasn't seen since world war ii, when the town's profound commitment to hit their pessimistic the fill the countries of screens -- profound 's defeat too hitler build the country screens with movies that help sustain the nation's resolve to defeat the axis powers at any cost.

host: that is in variety. newsday headline -- creeps crawl in every hollywood corner. weinstein's abysmal behavior is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bigotry and hypocrisy, while padding themselves on the back for progressive values, many hollywood elites have not only engaged in sexual abuse of females and males, but also blatant ageism and racism, writes newsday. on to jeff from virginia. is hollywood a good or bad influence on culture? caller: i think hollywood overall has been a mix. i think there is something to be

said for hollywood's ability to channel a message. lately, diversity, or about the humanization of transgender is him. these different groups in the pop-culture eye that were nameless faces. people talk about them, but nobody knew them. i think hollywood has been positive getting that message out. however, i think the article you mention are valid in that it is the preachiness of hollywood which undercuts the underlying message. people normally when they go and watch television shows, it is either to escape reality or see something they haven't seen before. they do not get that when the only message you ever get is believed this, this, and this. which i sawy it,

the great showman the other day. fantastic movie, but the entire time, there was a sense of whether it was the cast, riders or producer, they were trying to tell me to believe this. it is a pity when people cannot go to the movie theater and not have that in the back of their head. in many ways, i think they are undercutting their message. host: steve is riding on twitter -- theriting on twitter question is to black and white. hollywood is there to entertain. if you are entertained, they are doing the job. we wanted to show you a piece from a movie that has come out called thank you for your service. here is a quick and then we will talk about it as far as what folks are saying about that movie. what it is is a movie about u.s.

soldiers returning from iraq who have struggled to reintegrate into civilian life. [video clip] the rode shotgun in a lead, analyst for bonds -- humvee and i looked for bonds. you do not see the bomb unless they want you to. >> what have you got? >> i don't see it. >> he feels it. >> i was a soldier. i had purpose and i loved it. >> you see that over there? >> yeah. >> we wanted it to be perfect. >> i am home with favor girls. >> it is perfect, baby. >> in my getting laid or what? >> oh, yeah. ♪ >> how long have you been up? chip smileyocolate face pancakes. >> who doesn't like chocolate? >> ok.

>> and army achievement medal. >> you never told me you were a hero. >> to not spare me the details. i can take anything but quiet. >> you want my hammer up there. when these young guys see you fall -- >> i do not belong here. >> you do a job, not to yours. -- now do yours. >> you all right? >> no, i am not all right. >> it is to perfect. >> is this the incident that troubles you -- is there a specific incident that troubles you? ♪ more from the pages of variety -- thank you for your service can stir up emotions and

gratitude's at more than 50 screenings for veterans. the writer and director of the movie learned a lot about postwar experiences, so for the new film about the hurdle of when they come home, he reached out to veterans and set up screenings before the opening in october. he knew it would stir emotions but it was not what he expected. when you get a lot of them in the room, it is a communal experience. the piece points out another key screening was for the department of veterans affairs. the film depiction of va hospitals in 2008 isn't flattering. after the screening, va workers vowed to get better funding and improved conditions. yes, he writes, people can be filed, but there are those working to make things better. we will go to our archives, our coverage of the tucson festival of books.

the film version came out, but we talked to the original author, who discussed the book at this festival. here is a look. [video clip] >> i have a at this particular when thece early 2007, -- that seem like a long time ago now -- but at that point, there had been several versions of the iraq war, and the consensus seemed to be that it had reached its last chance, it's lost moments, or to a writer's way of thinking, it's tragic moments. when george007, bush announced that he would try this thing called the surge, and more troops were headed into the war, that interested me as a iiter and journalist area

wanted to write about that. first, it was at the washington post where i worked, and that turned into a book called the good soldiers. basically what happened is i got in touch with a battalion colonel,, lieutenant and his guys are going into this. and i said, i want to go alone. i went to write a book, not a policy book, not a book with any agenda. i am not out to say the war is good or bad or a success or failure, that is not the point. it is not a first-person book, i just want to see what happens to you guys. i want to write about your corner of the war. host: that was the author of from 2014 at the tucson festival of books, talking about "thank you for your service." whatcalls, north carolina,

do you say, linda? caller: i think a good influence. when you look at the #metoot movements,#metoo that came out of rose mcgowan. on ways been going longer than we can even think in corporate america, so the fact that they kept pushing it and pushing it until weinstein was out, and then it led to a cascade of horrible man being booted out, so i think it is a good influence. host: let's hear from shirley in boulder, colorado. what do you think? caller: i think it is good and bad. the good, i would like to talk about, probably somewhere around and ii was a teenager

could see what drugs could do history, ire recent was interested in politics from a movie, so i can see good and bad. host: ron is on the line from pennsylvania. good morning to you. what do you think? caller: morning. i think it is both ways, but mostly hollywood, a lot of these people live on a script. they finish one and go to another, so i do not see where they can sit there and tell people how to live or what is good for them and all that when they don't even work for a living. they live by scripts. -- because they have so much money -- they are pending moments, sort of like tom selleck with the reverse

mortgages, selling reverse mortgages. i'm sure he has a big one to pay off. and you have other ones. they come out and they still about what is good for america and all this other craft and and do not do it -- crap they do not do anything but live a fake life because a lot of them do not do anything. host: do you see any distinction between the movies and television? caller: movies and television? i do not know. i see them like, here is gun control. they do not want guns. a lot of them do not want guns. and kerrycealer holds, but look at all the movies they make now. i remember a few years back they said these were too violent for kids, people are killing people and all this, but a lot of these anti-gun people in hollywood, that is all they do, violence.

he might be shooting robots or something, but they are shooting things, killing things to survive. i do not see how you can go against something and then make movies like that or television shows. , like i said,hat it is split 50-50. you have some people who understand and some just into the fame, money and fortune. host: betsy from mike in new jersey -- let's hear from mike new jersey. what do you think? caller: i think it all boils down to everything we are speaking about. it is what a friend told me years ago, it is all about color and the color is green. money. host: thank you for calling. to twitter, steve says -- trump should appreciate hollywood. it is all about capitalism,

taking money on something people want to buy. another says i think people in the political world have been envious of hollywood's influence, in fact, it is true in my opinion. caller: good morning. theree that hollywood is on that they contributions of american entertainment. anywhere you go in the world, it is american movies, hollywood that people quote and look at. it is not some of the country's in that way, it is a great american story. on the other hand, you have is that unnecessary over sexualized themes that do not fit in the story because you have people like harvey weinstein that are

the decision-makers, so you get some content that is affected by the kind of people who are decision-makers behind-the-scenes. there is that, too. whenever political opinions that the producers, it isn't the actors, we all look at tom cruise -- it isn't that i use, it is the producers, the guys behind the money that can insert whatever opinion they have politically or otherwise. thank you. host: that was back. richard is -- that was zach. richard is calling from wisconsin. at caller: think it can be -- caller: i think it can be good or bad. i have an example out of darkest hour about winston churchill, a very important time in history.

facty, i didn't like the that they had this scene about aboutill or thinking and heting to hitler talked to people on the train -- that was pure fiction. i think that's what it is bad. it just isn't true. it depends on the movie. i think a movie like that should be truthful. and not to be truthful is about a because people believe that. it is a small example, but that is my opinion. host: talking thereabout movie about winston churchill, which is out now in theaters. we wanted to talk about another movie called hidden figures. it came out earlier this year. in the national, they write in

their review that it takes liberties with real life facts. hidden figures is engaging and enlightening but the screen play is fast and loses approaches to historical facts. the right that it is engaging it is they write engaging, and it is already the highest grossing film fronted right african-american actors with 150 family and dollars. this was an -- $155 million. and tells the story of three african-american mathematicians. portrays dorothy bond, mary jackson is portrayed by janelle monae, and kathryn aji henson.tar here is a short clip from the trailer. [video clip] >> you know what we are doing

here? we are putting a human on top of a missile and shipping them into space, and it has never been done before. i need a mathematician economic beyond the numbers before the russians plant a flag. >> do you have someone? >> catherine is the gal for that. she can handle any numbers in front of her. >> do not embarrass me. >> i am sorry. el is a tall glass of water. >> he is coming over. >> why would he be doing that? >> you already have eight slice of pie. >> you are a computer at nasa. can women handle that? >> yes, women do some things at nasa and it isn't because we were skirts. it is because we wear glasses. >> we go from being our father's

daughters to her husband's lives to our baby's mother. was mama gone for 12.5 days? >> no, but it felt like it. >> it felt like it to me, too. >> it is crunch time. astronauts will be here for training in 14 days. everything we do can matter to their wives and children. i believe it will matter to the country. >> my gals are ready. we can do the work. >> what do you ladies do for nasa? >> calculi. >> engineering. >> i am proud as the devil to be working here. have the right to be fine in every color. >> there's no protocol for women attending. >> there's a protocol for a man circling the earth, either. >> we will all get there together or not at all. ♪ >> feels good to know nasa did

not give up on good old-fashioned brainpower. >> 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. woo! were ame ask you, if you white male, would you wish to be an engineer? >> i would not have to. i would already be one. host: they continue to write that the emotional peak comes when kevin costner's character smashes the symbol of institutional racism but the incident never happened and it moment.tionalized they write that it cannot possibly happen that way. his white savior outburst comes after he realizes johnson has been wasting valuable computing time rushing between the black and white segregating -- segregation between the toilets.

1958.bolished it in they go on to write that her promotion in the film, again, patronizingly per trade as a white savior moment in 1961, is a distortion. she joined the team in 1958, after five years with a flight division, and she is repeatedly denied the chance to do this in the movie. they have other examples and they go on to write -- there is no need to exaggerate the evils of segregation. doing so threatens to cloud hidden figure' well-intentioned cause. it is then 2016, and author who wrote the original book of "hidden figures." here is a look. [video clip] >> have you gotten a chance to view the whole movie? if you have, is it faction or is it accurate?

[laughter] i am in the story and. when people see things on the screen, a take it as the gospel truth. i need to know what i am looking for. >> that is the question everybody wants to know. i have not seen the whole movie. they're still working on it. they're working on record time because they're excited about it and they want to make sure it is in the theaters by january and possibly early previews in december, so they are still working on it. the thing for me working on the book and movie at the same time is i kind of had to let go of the fact i was writing a nonfiction book that took lace over 30 years of history versus a movie that had to get people into the theaters, tell the story, capture the essence of it , hit the highlights, get into space, and come back home safely into ours. [laughter]

and i talk pretty closely with the people who are the producers of the movie ended the beginning, i had a hard time understanding, you basically cannot fill a book and put it in the movie and sell tickets, so the movie is inspired by true events. they have to take a segment of the history and make it exciting. what they decided to do was focus on that time from sputnik, when the russians first launched the sputnik satellite, sending the u.s. and soviets into the cold war space race, and until johnsonent when kathryn produced the calculations for the fights, which the moment has byn recounted many times

many people, including mrs. johnson. they made the decision, which was the right decision to take one of the real highlights of all of the research and make that the movie instead of the entire book. author of was the "hidden figures." 15 more minutes left on the sunday on this question as we round up the year, is hollywood a good or bad influence on culture? nancy has been patient in alexandria. go ahead. caller: yes, the reason i think that many hollywood producers propagandize and distort truth in favor of their own political objectives in america, i think it is constantly being done. bases andsome power to consummate increasing of their power bases.

so, yes, hollywood is a political tool. they work very closely, as you probably recall. think -- i think that they do dramatize. the gentleman who called earlier said there is only one thing and it has to do with green, meaning money, but i also equally think it has to do with political objectives to be concerned political parties -- to weaken certain clinical parties, good or bad, and to enhance others'. so you do see it everywhere. movies wereumerous -- where they were very few truths. -- since the 1920's,

they have betrayed foreigners, such as lawrence of saudi arabia pretrainingsuch as arabs is horrible people, so that is we instigated it here in the u.s. a whole lot of movies, maybe one or two, like the one that was written on afghanistan, the kite flyers, i forgot the name exactly, but they also betrayed cultures -- but they also betrayed cultures pretty bad. host: words of nancy. ites -- anyone who thinks hollywood has a good impact on america need only to

look at how black characters are per trade, good for whites. ed, good morning. caller: how are you today? host: fine. how's the weather? caller: very cold and getting colder. i have been listening what you have been putting on. it is for all the money the way i see it. it is a lot deeper than face value as far as it being influential. the other day i read donald duck got an academy award for his portrayal of the nazis. you want to see racism? who funded this project? the pentagon. for me, i think what is happening is hollywood is retaliating against washington because it started with weinstein being brought out of the closet area at -- closet.

they produced on the fast track to hollywood. it is a war and it is all the money and it is propaganda. donald trump calls it fake news because he doesn't want to use propaganda, but it is fake news. host: word of the day -- sorry, i thought you were done. let's go to dave in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. good morning. i have to disagree with the past caller. it is a great tool for entertainment. during the world war ii era, the majority of movies were centered on being an american and loyal, and being a patriot. not know where we would be without hollywood. that is one of the best places to go where you get entertainment and to dream yourself area -- yourself. there are a lot of inspirational

movies that lets you just dream about what the possibilities can be. yes, hollywood has violence and all that. theave to understand that characters that are per trade are just characters. it is unfortunate that we do take our leaders through that platform because they represent what they are able to get through to the masses of millions of people, unfortunately, and we do make rash decisions on people's character. we have to be congress in he is a character. the person is different. that is all i have got to say. host: thanks for calling. deb inhouston, texas -- houston, texas. what are your thoughts? caller: i think it is a good influence. it is media, like in the book,

magazine, it is like it embodies america. boll has hollywood -- ywood. we have something for everybody. if you want to be mindlessly entertained, you can do that. if you want to learn history, you can do that. what the guy said about the godfather, i thought that was a good analogy. i just wanted to make one point. i am not a real educated person, but i am self educated. , and ied cold mountain did not like to watch more movies, but i wanted to learn about my old relatives because i'm not like them. when you see these people broken down and they just land at their feet. they are poor, they do not have slaves but they are told to fight, it changes things. peoplebout understanding

. i think the movies, what about the things we would not know? i watched rabbit proof fence about the aborigine people being christianized in australia, or the lemon tree? the, ire movies that, as have never been on an airplane. what if i did not have movies? i am disabled and homebound. i would not know what is going on. i just wanted to give people's for thought. there is something for everybody. really changed hollywood's thinking toward washington and why do we forget that so soon? it has not been that long. why don't we remember in context? thank you for the topic. .ost: thank you for taking part down to our last minutes, there is updated news about the iran story as you have heard. there have been protests the last couple of days. president trump tweeting this

morning -- big protest in iran. the people are finally getting wise to ask how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. looks like they will not take it any longer. the usa is watching very closely for human rights violations! at cnn, their writing a ceo of a messaging app company is saying iran is blocking their service after issuing a warning to protesters. the iranian government is blocking access to the popular messaging app telegram, according to the company ceo. he says iranian authorities are blocking access to it for the majority of iranians after the company's refusal to shut down peaceful protesting channels. they point out in the story that antigovernment testers have largely been relying on twitter. social networks, also, to spread information. coveragent media inside iran has been limited, with few details about the protests.

we will be hearing more in the coming hours. back to ath carolina, question about hollywood. good morning. caller: good morning. that i know bits and pieces of messages coming through in the television programs i watch. i notice this for 35 years or more, and i just sort of them paying more attention to it. host: which messages? what kind of messages are you talking about? sorry to interrupt. , ther: like cheerleading latest war, getting people on board with whatever the latest social cause is. host: understood. thisr: and i noticed

stuff. i am an adult, and i can see this stuff, but what worries me is when stuff like this starts getting slipped into programs that are intended for children. i just think that the public's opinion is really influenced by a lot of the messages that they see portrayed on television, especially if they are looking up to a character that they see on television. that is basically a. host: thank you for calling. louisiana.ling from caller: yes. host: tell us your thoughts about hollywood. caller: it is complicated and simple to some degree. what the reality is that passed to do with gray washing. hollywood is not attributable about humanity and how we need to come together. what it does is keep people

divided. because of the people in hollywood, the same people running hollywood for so long, they are able to typecast temperature certain roles as certain the rituals, so it is not that much diversity because you have all these hollywood actors at the end complaining about how they always get robbed of stuff when it comes to getting a grammy awards. i mean, getting a hollywood award. a lot of times, certain people might play their heart out in a role but there isn't enough diversity. if you have the same people running it, the same people control what movies are being seen, what people should believe about certain groups, and i think marlowe brandon talked about how they stereotype all kinds of people and paint a picture of individuals to look at people of certain way in hollywood to have an idea of how you should look at other people. it continues to show that divisions are among human beings

through religion, classes and, all these things showing we are divided globally, statewide, as well as certain countries. i think it is bad because it doesn't give people a real voice. they control the force and narrative of how you should look at individuals and there is not enough humanity in hollywood. host: let me get one more voice. from from -- lance kentucky, good morning. caller: good morning. i think hollywood is a horrible influence on culture. the culture is influenced by elitists, like george clooney, leonardo dicaprio, and those type of figures, and they don't really live in reality. they live in their own little movie world that they participate in. host: all right. i want to thank everybody who called into the segment on hollywood and everybody who called in on this final day of

"washington journal" for 2017. when we come back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern time, we will ask what your messages to washington for the coming year of 2018. we will also talk with political analysts from around the country about what to look for. be sure to watch "washington journal" every day at 7:00 eastern time. a reminder that c-span is tweeting out its top 10 tweets of 2017. you can search them and on a website, www.c-span.org, you can go to congressional chronicles, and you will find in that red tab statistics on congress to the past year, such as how many hours the house and senate were in session, who might have spoken on the floor for the longest periods of time. all of it is there at www.c-span.org/congress. enjoy the rest of your day. see you back tomorrow. happy new year and enjoy the day. ♪

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >> next, newsmakers with tom steyer, talking about his campaign to impede president trump. and in a speech in iowa right new york city mayor bill de blasio. then a soviet ambassador talks about his time in a soviet gulags. newsmakersguest on this week is tom steyer, the businessman, philanthropist, environmental activist has been spending much of his own money over the past year and a campaign to impeach president trump. we will talk about that effort