working with media com to explore the history of the birthplace of route 66 in southwestern missouri. saturday at noon eastern on book tv author jeremy neely talks about the conflict occurring along the kansas-missouri border in the struggle over slavery in his book. >> 1858, john brown, having left kansas, returns to the territory and begins a series of raids into western missouri during which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. s in -- in the course of this, they'll kill a number of slave holders. so the legend or notoriety of john brown really grows as part of this struggle that people locally understand is really the beginning of the civil war. >> sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv, we visit the n.r.a. national sporting

arms museum. >> theodore roosevelt was probably our shootingest president, an avid hunter. first thing he did when he left office was organize and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. this particular rifle was prepared specifically for roosevelt. it has the presidential seal engraved on the breach, and, of course roosevelt was famous for the bull moose party and there is a bull moose engraved on the side plate of this gun. >> watch c-span's city's tour of springfield, missouri, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's book tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. >> tonight on "the communicators," a look at the internet, broad band expansion and 5-g with u.s. telecom

president and c.e.o., jonathan spalter, interviewed by kyle daly. >> you mention that the group you represent, the companies you represent, have a lot of work to do. can you talk about that? you hear a lot about 5-g networks ultra fast wireless broad band networks. can you talk about how we get to that stage? >> sure. the essential ingredient, indispensable ingredient to moving forward not only extending more broadband to more americans, but also ensuring our global competitiveness is this wonderful technology called broadband. our companies are committed to continue to make the investments to provide the fiber the resources, the infrastructure, the networks to get more broadband connectivity to more americans. it takes a lot work. it takes the right amount of investment. it takes the right types of

business models but it also takes the right types of smart 21st century forward-looking policy frame works that can accelerate and advance the innovation and investment required for us to move forward. >> watch "the communicators" tonight on c-span2. >> tonight natan sharascky looks at his life and career and discussed his imprisonment by the kgb. remarks from russian ambassador to the u.s., anatoly antonoff.

he denied that his country interfered with the u.s. election. >> a few weeks ago, i visited chicago for one event. i entered hotel, switch on tv, and i saw cnn trying to prove that russia interfered with u.s. elections. i changed my suit, then i visited one restaurant where we had excellent dinner with my friends, returned back to my hotel room and what i see, the same. the same. three hours, just only about, what? they are gossips there are intelligence reports about -- ok regarding russian interference into american relations and you see we raised

this issue with our counterparts many times, requesting from them, if there is any opportunity to put proofs on the table, at least one, two proofs, it was mentioned that we hijacked or we interfered into democratic party website and so on and so on but specialist in cyber security know that it's very easy to interfere in your computer. for example from singapore but, it's possible to keep fingerprints in russia. so, there is a real problem cyber security. we have offered our american friends to sit together to look that the problem to find out what kind of problems, what kind of security challenges we face today and to discuss, could we

cooperate together and do you think that we were in favor, of course, i see you are smiling. you are smiling. i understand what it means, what it means. but >> watch the entire discussion tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. ♪ >> c-span "washington journal" live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning national journal staff correspondent daniel newhouser and christina peterson discuss the legislate deadlines facing congress in the 2018 midterm

learning. anthony will be on to talk about foreign policy challenges facing the u.s. in 2018. be sure to watch c-span "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. >> joining us from new york city this morning is chris whipple who is documentary filmmaker journalist and writer who has written this book, titled "the gatekeepers" how white house chief of staff define every president. start us off with this term gatekeepers. put this in context as we talk about white house chiefs of staff both present and former. guest: sure. the modern empowered chief of staff is first famously the gatekeeper. which means giving the president time and space to think.

he's honest broker of information. making sure every decision is teed up with information. he is the heat shield as don rumsfeld called him. taking all the incoming artillery of the president. getting all of the blame. at the end of the day the white house chief of staff is the person president counts on to executes his agenda and tell him what he does not want to hear. that's the short hand definition. host: you begin the book by writing about appear to be a pretty extraordinary gathering of chiefs of staff from the past. there were meeting with rahm emanuel who was incoming to president obama. tell us more about that meeting and why you decided to leave the book with that story. guest: it's an extraordinary scene that took place in december of 2008. when rahm emanuel was about to start as barack obama ice first

white house chief of staff. it was a moment of crisis. we were on verge of a great depression. potentially two wars, bloody stalemate. real crisis and remarkably imagine this happening today. 13 former white house chiefs of staff on every side of the aisle to dick cheney and leon panetta and gave rahm emanuel their best advice. they went around the table and got to cheney who was at the time, sitting vice president for george w. bush and cheney looked up over his glasses at emmanuel, said at all cost, control your vice president. which of course, brought down the house considering cheney's reputation. host: we have the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen.

our author chris whipple. we'll have lines for democrats and republicans and independents. chris whipple is joining us from new york city. more about the importance of the chief of staff. you write on page 11 of the book. couple of short passages i want to share. white house chief translates the president's agenda into reality. when government works it is usually because the chief understands the fabric of power. threating the needle. tell us more. guest: it's hard to overstate the importance of the role. there's nothing in the constitution about it. he's unelected and unconfirmed. hired and fired by the president alone. yet, ronald reagan quintessential chief put it the white house chief is the second most powerful job in government. dick cheney who ought to know, said that the white house chief

has more power than the vice president. what cheney doesn't add, that's true except when cheney was vice president. you cannot run the white house like 26th floor of the trump tower. that was the fundamental problem -- one of several major problem for donald trump in his first year. host: you write conversely when government fails can be traced with the shortcomings of the chief. the stakes that come with the job could not be higher. you interviewed 17 living chief of staffs is there a common denonnaytor --denominator.

guest: one day the treasury secretary said jim why don't we swap jobs. it was the most disastrous job swap in the history of american politics because it's no coincidence that after don became white house chief iran scandal bubbled up. jim baker put a stake in that immediately. some of the qualities that are important are judgment being grounded, being comfortable in your own skin. jim baker and leon panetta under bill clinton who can walk in the

oval office and close the door and tell the president what he didn't want to hear. host: you had picture in the book in his office. richard nixon lord high executioner there. how did he create the model. what was in place if anything, before that period? guest: i could have gone back to eisenhower in the book. one of the things that shocks me nobody beat me to this book. it's really extraordinary when you think about it. nobody what looked at this history in quite this way before. you could go back to sherman adams who was the civilian version of dwight eisenhower's army chief of staff. he was famously known as the noman. it was a gruff, tough gatekeeper. i chose holderman. he took it to another level. he and nixon were obsessed with

trying to get this right. holderman became nixon's famous words, the lord high executioner. he became the guy who was the gatekeeper. he was the broker of information. he was in charge of communications. he executed the president's agenda. the fascinating part thing about it is that holderman who wrote this template for the modern white house chief failed in the end spectacularly to speak truth to power during watergate. which was of course, richard nixon's downfall. host: we'll take calls now for chris whipple. before we go to calls. you said type of book hasn't been done before necessarily. why did you decide to do it? guest: it was actually a phone call out the blue from a

stranger. a documentary filmmaker who done 9/11 with his brother. they wanted to know if i would partner with them on a documentary, which we did in 2013 for the discovery channel. but that struck me that just barely scratched the surface of this unbelievable untold story. 17 living white house chiefs who really make the difference between success and disaster for every presidency. host: let's hear from conner up from auburn, washington. independent caller for chris whipple in new york. good morning. caller: mr. whipple. i would say profound instrument of i think gatekeepers is the appropriate word. it's integrity. i think we're seeing it especially in general kelly this notion of kind of not only being a gatekeeper but sometimes the zookeeper. constantly using his military

prowess and mature and organized methods of governing to assemble various factions of the white house. white house and congress can often be diverse in their political affiliations to really get the president trump to focus, to try to prevent him from doing foolish things on twitter. it's not easy to stand up to the president of the united states. kind of do that in a way using comradery is really special. i think somebody who has a military experience, is that kind of advisor is even made more effective than somebody who has pure political experience. thank you for writing the book. host: your gatekeeper. tell us more.

guest: in the case of john kelly, somebody very close to donald trump told me that this is almost like fred trump reaching from beyond the grave that john kelly is the son fred trump wished he had. there's no question about he has authority and he has donald trump's respect. he's made the trains run on time in the west wing. but the real test that is the easy part as any really successful white house chief of staff will tell you. the easy part is organizing the west wing. hard part is walking in the oval office closing the door and telling the president hard truths. kelly's record there as a gatekeeper is mixed. host: here's general kelly back in october talking to reporter about the job. >> i read it all the time. pretty consistently, i'm not

quitting today. [laughter] i don't believe, i talked to the president, i don't think i'm being fired today. i'm not so frustrated in this job that i'm thinking of leaving. i will tell you this is the hardest job i've ever had. this is in my view the most important job i ever had. i would -- it is not the best job i ever had. best job i had is when i was enlisted marine, sergeant. that was the best job i ever had. host: chris whipple you mentioned mixed record in your view general kelly. how come? what's working and maybe not working? guest: kelly told peter baker on "new york times," i was not put on this earth to manage the president. that's true. that's true. it's misleading. it betrays a real

misunderstanding of what the most important part of the job is. it's not to control the president. but it is to tell the president when you think he is doing things that will harm his agenda. you're there to help the president govern. previous caller mentioned the crazy tweets tweets that continue unabated on kelly's watch. i think that his performance with the gold star widow, when he started in the press room with this eloquent description of how fallen soldiers are prepared for burial and unhinged tirade that turned out to be false against represent wilson. that showed that kelly maybe out of his depth politically. host: here's another quote from gem kelly in that "new york times" piece. he remains fairly unconventional. he is now fully briefed on the

issues and pluses and minuses, pros and cons. we go to dan now in corpus christi, texas independent caller, good morning. caller: good morning mr. whipple. happy new year. how would you -- any of this relevant to a current middle schooler. somebody in maybe ninth or tenth grade in public school who are so uninformed. how could you possibly ever make this relevant that it's so important? i'll take your response offline. guest: that's a great question. i think that so much of being white house chief of staff is really common sense. so much of it is being grounded having good judgment. jack watson who was one of the unsung but really effective white house chiefs of staff under jimmy carter during jimmy

carter's last year. when carter finally realized that he had to have an effective chief. jack watson said, it's almost everything you need to know you learn in kindergarten. it's not complicated. it requires an ability to work with people. you have to be -- you can't just be holderman perfect son of a [ bleep ] as he was described by richard nixon. you have to be able to work together. you have to be able to inspire a team and you have to be able to reach across the aisle and get things done for the good of the country. that's the simplest way i can put it. host: picture there on the book president carter and mr. watson during the final year of carter's presidency. as caption of that piece book called "gatekeepers" our guest

is chris whipple. myron is on the line from little rock arizona. independent caller. caller: hello. yes, sir. this is a great topic. mr. whipple, chris whipple. is that right? have you ever heard of this book, i found it in my private library here. "shadow presidents" guest: i know it very well. caller: it's similar to yours. it came out in 1979. guest: that's right. it's a very good early study of some of the presidents closest advisors. it came out well before so much of our recent history. of course it came out before

ronald reagan picked james baker has his white house chief of staff. he really set the bar i think for chiefs of staff. it's a very good early book about the subject. host: anything else? caller: he lumped all the early presidents together this michael medved. it was the modern day making of the presidential cabinet or something like that. he said when george washington was president, he had a treasury war and attorney general. that was it. they kept adding to it later. guest: government has got. much more complicated that it's

fascinating to me as you point out that the early presidents didn't have so called chief of staff. they didn't have somebody who was first among equals in the white house. that really is a modern phenomenon. it goes back to really the holderman and nixon. what i discovered in doing the book, every president since nixon, has learned sometimes the hard way. if you cannot govern effectually without empowered chief of staff, first among equals to execute your agenda. host: name you touch on earlier james baker iii. one hell of a chief of staff. james baker and ronald reagan. what made jim baker so effective? guest: baker is a friend of mine. baker had secret sauce. baker was a guy who had -- he

was a smooth as silk, texas attorney. he was 50 years old when he took the job. he had nothing to prove to anybody. he was grounded. he was confident. he knew capitol hill. he had white house experience. most importantly he could walk into the white house go into the oval office close the door and tell ronald reagan what he didn't want to hear. he did it often. i'll give you a quick example. ronald reagan was hell bent right out the block to tackle social security reform. that's what he wanted to do as his first big item. baker went in and sat down with him and explained, mr. president, social security reform is the third reel in american politics. if you touch it you will be electrocuted. let's try something else. reagan pivoted with baker's advice and others. wound up going with tax cuts and with focusing on the economy and the rest is history.

that's the kind of thing that a savvy white house chief of staff with political skills can do. it's not clear that john kelly has that kind of skill. host: we have elise on the line from maryland, democratic caller. caller: mr. whipple, touch on what our caller from texas had stopped on earlier. it's apparent lot of the new generation is ignorant of history of the white house in that sense you put in your book. you surprise no one had beat you to this. in addition to that, we're dealing with a president in a system in place now that's bit more modernized. he's a rugged, individualistic president. where most of our past presidents were willing to listen to bit more conservative

and readily open to work with each other. my question is this, instead of a comment what advice -- what do you think would be best for our president and his cabinet and chief of staff to do now going forward to kind of not only bring in the old ways and do something a bit more than what they're doing with it now. instead of falling all over the place. guest: to answer your question, i think i would say just based on the history that i researched of presidents and white house chiefs, this is not the first time a president has arrived in the the oval office full of hubris thinking he's the smartest guy. convinced he can govern the way he campaigned. it's a fundamentally mistake. in hollywood, they say nobody

knows anything. in washington sometimes i think nobody learns anything. presidents made this mistake before. trump is taking it to another level. let's assume for the moment that he's learned first big lesson which is that he had to empower white house chief. he failed to do that with reince priebus. he's done it with john kelly to some extent. second major lesson, there's a huge difference between campaigning and governing. you can't govern the way you campaign. campaigning is about demonizing and disrupting. government is about building coalitions and reaching across the aisle and building something larger than your base. there's no evidence that donald trump learned that lesson. kelly needs to help him get there in my opinion. host: opinion of steve on twitter about general kelly. he says john kelly stopped the leaking. that's the major reason he's there. what do you think? guest: i don't think that's true

at all. i think the leaks continue unabated. frankly, 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's respect there's discipline and when you tell the truth. i honestly think that that's how you prevent leaks. you never will prevent them completely. it's like taxes. there will always be leaks. that was certainly true with successful two term presidencies. i don't think kelly stopped the leaks. host: barbara in red bank, new jersey. democratic on the line. caller: good morning. i'm listening to this conversation and the first thing that occurs to me is that i

think chiefs of staff should neither be seen nor heard. lot of the problems that we have have with chiefs of staff have been direct result of their being little bit too close to the forefront of politics. i been around for quite a while. didn't know chiefs of staff when i voted in my first election for eisenhower. i knew james baker. rahm emanuel was a little bit too cozy with the press i thought. kelly seems not to have waned in anything but the entrance and exits of the oval office.

rather than him making chance for trump, trump has turned john kelly. i want to thank mr. whipple. this is a great book. i'm going out and buying it on tuesday morning. guest: thanks for calling. that's a very good point. it used to be the case that way back in the 1930's there was a study done of the executive branch which it was recommended that senior white house advisor have a passion for anonymity. that's not really possible anymore. white house chief does occasionally have to go on sunday talk shows and advance the president's agenda. i would agree that some white house chiefs have gotten in trouble by being too visible and by being seen and heard too often. kelly quite frankly, that grand

standing performance in the white house press briefing about the gold star 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. you talk about andrew card here, josh bolton and president george w. bush. andrew card, had a very challenging experience as chief of staff of the white house. how come? guest: i think it's a fascinating case. when you think about the george bush 41 and his son george w. bush 43. it's interesting fascinating to me because i think that george w. bush did not want to create an all powerful white house

chief of staff like jim baker. even though 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 and but i think that he was not empowered in quite the same way that jim baker was under reagan or leon panetta was under bill clinton. there was some very powerful characters in that white house. dick cheney, don rumsfeld and others. i think it was a tough challenge for andy card. i think he did very well under the circumstances. host: let's hear from mike from california he's a democrat. caller: about this general. i have a list here for general comments. general kelly supposed to be this savior. john the baptist or something.

this crap that he pulled with that black congresswoman straight up lied about what he was trying to do about our servicemen. that was straight up bs. that guy is a p.o.s. it's just amazing. one fantastic, you take your hourly rate $15 an hour, you move to zero, $30. that's a 50 week year. somebody makes $80,000 that's $40 an hour. big thing is, going on, it's weird coopting of the trump voters that go to rallies by the super money. those money people do not give anything about gay marriage,

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

please the boss and he really stepped out of line. that's what i would say so that. host: here's one of the headlines about trump family members. story from back in late november. john kelly they write reportedlyreportedly wanted jared kushner and ivanka trump to leave the white house by the end of the year. we know what's going on from the reports about the first family. speak to us about chiefs of staff and family members and access to the white house and to the president. how is has that gone over recent history? guest: it's an extraordinary challenge. when you have family involved, it's always a delicate tight rope back. jim baker had a real challenge of course, nancy reagan was famously known as the personnel director in the reagan white house.

mike the deputy chief of staff was image making to ronald reagan was like a son to reagan. baker was smart enough to know that. he recruited them as allies. when baker who was considered the pragmatist by his enemies the guy who wouldn't let reagan be reagan. when he came under attack from the hard right, he was able to fight back. he had nancy in his corner. he had beaver in his corner. he was able to be effective as a result. you have to be very savvy politically to navigate those currents. the white house were a family are involved. host: let's hear from jason. jay season is calling from -- jason is calling from maryland. democratic caller. go ahead please. caller: i think that we have to

be careful. i think you as a host and your guest mr. whipple. be careful about what mr. whipple written. he's written a book about the recent history of the role of chief of staff. his book, although very good, should not be used as a template what chief of staffs should be or do. as he stated earlier. chief of staffs are not mentioned in the constitution. chief of staffs is the chief of the staff in the white house. not the chief of the cabinet one of the earlier callers mentioned. the fact that if the presidency has to use the chief of staff as their main confidant rather than the vice president or any of his trusted cabinets. it shows a weakness in the presidency and it shows weakness in the reliance on the vice

presidency. the host: sorry i have to cut you off. guest: i have to disagree with that. if you look at the history it proves otherwise. history is littered with a bleach bones of presidencies that did not realize you to empower white house chiefs to get things done. look at ronald reagan and jimmy carter. jimmy carter was the most intelligent president of the 20th century. he thought he could run the white house himself without an empowered chief. ronald reagan was unfairly i think as a dunce. donald trump didn't understand during his first term. that is an outsider president needs a consummate inside tore get things done on capitol hill. that's just the reality of

modern history. the modern history presidency since nixon. host: robert in greenville, texas. independent caller. you're on with chris whipple now. caller: very good show this morning. as far as gatekeepers i feel for jim kelly. it's hard to imagine with such a wonderful career getting involved with an organization such as the trumps, the evil that it's presenting to the united states with. i'm an independent. my god. the biggest thing in this world that we really need is be careful of is inequality of the united states and trump just exacerbates that with his rhetoric and the elites that he surrounds himself with. poor jim kelly, he's a fella got

to go out and tray to play that up. it's going to be downfall of america. we need to be careful. guest: to that point, i think 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 some of the excesses of this president. in kelly's case, i have to believe he believes in duty honor, country. i think that he's a marine who wants to take the hill. he's somebody who obviously sees it as a challenge and to some extent, whether he wants to admit it or not, he is as white house chief to this president thin line between this president and disaster for us all.

when richard nixon was wandering the hall and drinking heavily at the height of watergate al hague and defense secretary made inspire that the nuclear codes were safe. those are the kinds of things john kelly has to think about. i think that he'd be well advised to pick up the phone and talk to leon panetta and jim baker and previous chiefs of staff. he's got a very difficult challenge. host: our guest chris whipple is a writers, documentary, filmmaker and speaker. he's a past producer at cbs news at the 60 minutes program and prime time on abc. he's author of this book

"gatekeepers." he's joining us from new york. in chapter nine of the book, between bad and worse. he speak about president obama's four chiefs of staff. you begin with rahm emanuel woman we talked about earlier. he was in for a relatively short amount of time. had a lot to accomplish in that period. tell us about his experience as white house chief of staff. guest: imagine such an odd couple. no drama obama and rahm emanuel is quite a character. actually, i think emmanuel was pretty good choice for president obama. remember, this was a moment of real crisis we were on the verge of great depression. we had credit was frozen around the world. it was a real moment where stuff had to be done.

obama had to pass a stimulus. rahm emanuel knew the hill intimately. he was in lined to become the first jewish speaker of the house. only reluctantly took the job as white house chief by the way. i think they got a lot done including as ugly as it might have been in the process including obamacare. i think that rahm had a pretty successful run. he was pretty good at -- he's kind of guy who did not shy away from telling barack obama what he thought. they had a real battle over healthcare. rahm wanted to go with something more modest, less ambitious. obama won that argument. emmanuel went and ahead and got it done. host: what is the average length of service for the white house chief of staff?

guest: it is so grueling, so unrewarding and thankless and 24-7 that the average tenure is really less than two years. host: where do white house chief of staffs go after serving that position? how does it work? guest: well, famously in rahm emanuel's case. he left to run for mayor of chicago. succeeded in winning that election. not that many white house chief have gone on to elective careers. obviously dick cheney did. they go into a variety of jobs and there's no single pattern. what's fascinating to me about the book is that this is a cast of characters that aaron sorkin

couldn't dream up. from don rumsfeld to cheney to rahm. they're just a fascinating group of characters. host: let's move ton to jersey city. jonathan on the line for democrats. caller: hi, good morning and happy new year. thanks for c-span really appreciate the service. i want to touch again. touched on the carter administrations chief of staff. what role or responsibility do they have in the ineffectiveness of that presidency? guest: the carter story is really fascinating to me because again, carter was brilliant is a brilliant man. trained as a nuclear engineer. he could absorb enormous amounts of information and distill it in

policy. he was brilliant at all of that. his big mistake going into the presidency was thinking that he didn't need a single empowered white house chief to help him. one reason for that was that he -- this was right after watergate. he saw the example of holderman who, at that time, seem to personify watergate and the imperial presidency and this really rubbed carter the wrong way. it turned out to be a mistake. 2.5 years in was his agenda really paralyzed. carter reasonabled he had to people power somebody. he was a guy who didn't want the job. he was famously disorganized. terrific political strategist but just not cut out for the

job. it wasn't until his final year that carter picked jack watson to replace him. watson a former marine like kelly, much younger, very organized, smart and effective as white house chief. but it was too late. host: words of jack watson in the book. crucially important position said jack watson. it affects everything. it affects president's relationship with the congress and it affects the integrity infectness of the decision-making process. it affects the way presidential decisions are explained. do i believe the presidency requires that kind of chief of staff in order for president to be successful. i do. moving on to gary now in fletcher, north carolina. hello gary. caller: i want to remained

people. mr. whipple is very bright person. there are lot of bright people out there that have access to the media and portrayed thoughts to america. we're not brightest people. we don't go to school to learn how to filter out things. what we do, we watch news programs for a little while and we take the opinions of somebody else. we use them as our own. we don't really do our own thinking anymore. whoever is the most bube rant and tell us things we want to hear. we follow. we want to go with people who agree with us. we don't have humble ourselves to look at other side of things. our leaders are what's on the news. whoever the broadcasters are. they end up becoming our

milliters because we listen to what they say. it's really hard for us to distill. putting the voting booth in people's hands that we have now it's almost like we should take a competency test before we let people vote. we wouldn't get into the mess we do. the intricate things that mr. whipple here is describing is so interesting and voters don't have any idea this kind of thinking to themselves. it's good to have a program like yours that shows us these things. i think we're in a situation we are because we're not experts at this. host: thank you for calling. guest: well, i think that it's not that complicated or intricate really. .

what it really boils down to is our presidents effective or not? if you look at recent history from net and to the president -- 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. we will see what voters say. host: this is more from john

kelly from october. >> i read in the 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. i have found that mr. trump is a decisive guy. he is a very thoughtful man. he takes information from every avenue he can receive. i respect -- restrict the one from seeing him. we go in and help them collectively understand what he 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. they will tell him that it's the easy part of the job. the hard part 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. host: 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. i 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. he calls all kinds of people in 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. it was very difficult, that

scandal. they tried to get clinton through that time. i know it was painful for bowls. it was painful for the white house staff. they felt betrayed by clinton. host: mike is calling from missouri on the republican line. caller: good morning. i am surprised the staff isn't wearing heavy sunshade so they're not minded by your brilliance. my question to you is, you are 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? guest: let me respond. let me go way out on a limb here and just suggest that you probably haven't read the book. you would realize that i don't have all the answers and i don't pretend to. i will try 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. with all due respect, i simply

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 it, my view on general kelly is he has two basic problems doing the job. number one is his great respect for the chain of command. i think he really is hampered because of his i do it donald trump is that commander in chief. a 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. general kelly clearly has donald trump's respect. he has the gravitas and the authority, the confidence to do all of what i've been saying he should do. he needs to tell the president hard truths. he seems reluctant to do that. it's possible that he does it much more often than we realize and the trop simply goes on and does what he wants to do.

>> i think it's an extraordinary story. it turned out to be extraordinarily dramatic memorial. american history tv this weekend only on c-span 3. c-span "washington journal" live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning national journal staff correspondent daniel newhauser and christina peterson discuss the key fiscal legislative down lines facing the congress. and anthony will be on to talk about foreign policy challenges facing the u.s. in 2018. be sure to watch c-span "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion.