." he will discuss several issues that he faced as fbi director including the russian investigation, hillary clinton's emails, and his views on president trump. watch james comey in primetime tonight at 7:00 eastern. msnbc. how many books have you written? guest: 8. host: i want to begin with a picture -- this is from an earlier this month -- for our radio audience, three african long,an women saying "so bobby." guest: the affection the people felt for this guy, when he died. black and white. there was that wonderful scene in philadelphia, where 20,000 african-americans saying the "battle hymn of the republic was repblispontaneously --

-- republic" spontaneously for the guy. this is gone. the unity of black and white communities. very patriotic and democratic already so tied into pager does them. what has been missing? bobby has been missing, that spirit. host: in the beginning of the book, you talk about the politics of 1968. you wrote young people were obsessed with the daily spectacle of a war -- the vietnam war -- a conflict that their country could neither win nor end. -- the news of robbie kennedy's decision to run struck many antiwar activist as both a threat and an insult to those already in the fight. guest: i remember that period. i was in chapel hill in grad school, university of north carolina. people like me were for gina mccarthy. we are coming off of the march

on pentagon, and bobby was holding back. bobby held back until it was clear johnson was in trouble. party was clearly divided, bobby couldn't be accused of dividing the party. what mccarthy had shown party a weakness of johnson with the strong support up in new he really was torn. bobby wanted to run in 72. running in 1968 he knew very much threatened that. why did he do it at that time? why not announced before? guest: he didn't want to break up this party and destroy his chance of being president someday. of is theconvinced most powerful emotion of this book is his love for his brother. it drove him from 1952 all the

way to 1962. when jack died, he was heard in the lincoln bedroom in the white house, talking to god. so religious. said, "god, why? " that brotherhood, that love. how did you research the book? guest: i had a tremendous advantage in the fact i came across some interviews with canny o'donnell. bobby's best friend. they went to harvard together and played football together. there was tremendous insight through that guy into bobby and two he was. i have done these other books on the kennedys next and and jack kennedy. the closest people like ethel ofnedy, chuck spalding,

course, i worked for tip o'neill and he knew all of the political stuff. six years of sitting with two bone meal in the room, he told me all these stories, he would sit and start talking to me and i thought, i am sitting here with a treasure chest of history here. host: as he walks into the kitchen at the ambassador hotel. you talk about his relationship officers.ehost: why is this significant? guest: i was sitting in the capital one night and i was looking at it, and i was a cop on the 3:00 to the eleven o'clock shift. i would work in an office all from morning, andicers then put on a uniform and be a police officer until 11:00 at night. a lot of time with quiet night -- quiet time at night.

of all the liberal democratic senators, they are all highbrow and big thinking and they care about evil and all that, but the only one who ever said hello to capitol police when they lost i was bobby kennedy. that struck me. that was a true good guy who truly believed in law enforcement. he also was not a snob. a lot of them are country guys from west virginia and they were double doubles -- double dippers. regular guys. that is so much who bobby was. his friends are not aristocratic. it told me a lot about the guy. host: he had a lot of political enemies. , an officey hoffa right down the street here. hoffa was evil. even like some people.

he believed they were bad guys. host: would he have gotten the 1968 nomination? primary byad won the four or five points. i think he would have one in the new york primary six years later but that would've been tough. bosses, irishty guys, i think you could predict they would have all come in for him. comingnson thing was down, humphrey was not that popular. i think when you got to chicago was --st of 1968, there there were things to the cops, you could not believe. feces thrown with razor blades in them. get some pictures of these students, they are frightening. they are not just on summer break. they are in there for trouble. and the cops were bad.

i think if bobby had committed that as the leader of the war movement there would have been a thrill and i think he could have beaten him. this is what happened when he walked into that convention in 1964, it was unbelievable, a sacred event. i think the aura would have been overwhelming. he brought back his brother's memory. one of the moments you write about in the book, in indianapolis, a speech on the evening of dr. king, we will hear about it in a moment but set this up. bobby -- bobby -- the minorities go fight the war in vietnam. getting on the plane to

indianapolis, dr. king was killed. those were the days when you waited for the evening news to find out what was going on. people didn't know. and the police would not go in with him because it was a tough neighborhood. he is with john lewis and people like that and he walked up onto a flatbed truck onto a crowd that didn't know that. i'm listening to it and he said to the guy next to them, do they know yet? history in the african-american community has been shot by a white guy in the guy says no. he had to tell a crowd of people who were so enthusiastic to see him that there other and perhaps king, hero, martin luther had just been shot. bobby had to tell him. here is a relatively small white

guy walking into a crowd of angry african-american people, they are going to be angry, and riding had begun to break out across the country and bobby told him about it. andmember watching it thinking, how awkward what he said was and it was so soulful. he clearly was killed because he was white, it wasn't a racial shooting but it was his way of saying, you know, we have to get through these horrible things together somehow. we cannot just break apart. pilloried --lful soulful. people just enjoyed jack kennedy's company. bobby was sold. -- soul. people had an affection for him. i keep coming across reporters, so tough, and how much they love

the guy. it was real. april 4, 1968. let's listen. martin luther king dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. died in the cause of that effort. day, thisfficult difficult time for the united states, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are in what direction we want to move in. black,se of you who are considering -- considering the evidence evidently is that white people are responsible, it can be filled with bitterness and with hatred and a desire for

revenge, we can move in that direction as a country, and greater polarization, black people amongst blacks and white people among us whites -- and whites, or we can do it martin luther king did, to understand and comprehend and put deaf replace the violence and stain of bloodshed across within effort to understand, compassion, and love. host: what is amazing when you listen to that is how quiet the crowd was. guest: love. --t is not something politicians talk about anymore. .n the left does it

trump does it, both sides to it. people get excited by division. and bobby, i still think his ability to appeal, a very liberal guy from new york said, he looked upon waitresses, cops, construction workers, and firefighters, as his people. is basic working-class mixture. that group has been driven to that point of view. it was interesting, his grandson, joe the third, i love the name because it is a risk to track -- aristocratic. everyone talked about, lip gloss, which i didn't notice, he had a comment about both p or i wrote about it in the book. it work in wisconsin lost his job and has no health insurance

and the whole family is worried, what happened to our factory, and an american can grope where i grew up in philly, these kids grow up with nowhere to go, maybe a service job somewhere maybe. why are those two people at war with each other? i think both parties ought to take a look at trying to help both people. they should not be at a war with each other and they are both american and have been here a long time. we have to deal with -- everything can't be zero-sum. unfortunately with politics, people think if they get it, i won't get it. i'm not sure that is the way it works. i think helping out the african-american kid is a better thing for society than not doing for everybody. it is clear to me. host: our guest is chris matthews from msnbc.

line for democrats, new york, good morning. so, two observations. i watch chris's show relatively often. cavett -- to cavett -- dick asked whaton and he it was like interviewing back then versus now and when dick ca vett finally got a word in, he said back then, we could get a word in. i was always waiting for the opportunity to say, i blame chris more than anyone else for trump's election because at 7:00 when the other

tv shows were showing an empty podium waiting for donald trump -- bullbowl cracked, not asking why is my boss requiring me to keep his empty podium visible for a half hour to three quarters of an hour when the president has nothing to -- nothing intelligent to say. guest: we covered him and trump won the election. dick cavett apologized for that comment. people often think questions that aren't really questions, they are prompts. i want questions answered and i push them. i drift off and keep pushing. that is my style for 25 years

and i will not change. host: mike, you with us? caller: yes. thank you for taking my call and thank you for appearing on c-span today. guest: we are americans, too. caller: it gives me the opportunity to ask you a question. a comment and a question. we can probably all agree germinal -- journalism has changed a lot in the last few decades. my mom, a 31-year-old. my mother would talk about the network leadership of their time

, a , a loop -- a belief that reporting the news accurately was a public service and they were not concerned about making money off of it. it was done in a much more professional and anti-inflammatory manner. it seems now with the consolidation of the news media by a few very powerful business conglomerates or interests, it seems journalistic integrity has suffered. with target marketing introduced and the national audiences were sliced and diced -- host: stay on the line. you brought in something before. has corporate ever come to you and said you need to do this or that? what has changed, my first job in journalism, i had a bigger root and a couple working for me. every day, i delivered the bulletin. it was an afternoon newspaper.

i worked for one in san francisco for all those years. the examiner. the newspaper was very similar to what we had on prime time television. printing presses around noon, , it is fire station mainly an opinion columnist. and in thee guys later days of that, you got an opinion. andre reading columnists feature pieces. it is a lot like what we do it cable night, whether it is rachel or hannity, they are opinion people on the news. i do not think it has changed. it is a different format. will tell you the local andpaper was all opinion

may be day sometimes read the paper afterwards and they have all of these opinions from people and it was mostly conservative but liberal and i think that is what we do tonight. if anyone turns on the prime support theirthey own opinions, which i think it is normal, it will be the other side. that is what it is about. it is not about delivering the but abouthe news delivering the angle if you will. you always look for the angle. just a question and response pair what i'm concerned about is the other generation, 30-year-olds, this is all they have known, finding a news on the internet and the opinion pieces and cable news and maybe

they do not quite understand it is opinion. agree with you. i know i should not interrupt but i completely agree with you. i always say to young people, put your own stew together and listen to npr for a while and news pages, read a good local newspaper. put it together. switch the channel once in a while. i would like to turn it over and say how are they doing? you cannot just be a student. you have to be a boss, take responsibility for deciding who is telling the truth. my older brother is a moderate republican. he said he is a liberal but he is the best. if you can discern like that and , because we're learning something every night and he would say to me, we are teachers. when the show stopped putting on people like other journalists,

people don't just one opinion. they want to walk away and say where did you learn that? i learned it on hardball. something, i go, i heard it on hardball p are great. we want to be a source of information. my show is a lot more complicated than some -- than some of the other ones. >> republican line with chris matthews. >> a question for you. you mentioned how bobby kennedy was an advocate for the working-class bank. did not matter if he was a white guy or not. 11 million plus, depressing wages for the working-class bang americans.ing-class ban here is my view about

immigration law. no one should serve in congress unless they believe in the law passed and enforce it. good immigration law. stop hiring people illegally. there is a job here waiting for someone, working in the kitchen somewhere, and they have to find a way to get there. pass a law, make it liberal, american, but enforce it. andries of left, right, center, they are not serious about doing it. labor in the country, a woman just got here, we know that, and i think democrats like the votes. no one is getting serious about it. they are kicking the can down the road.

years ago, 10, 20 they have got to pass a law they enforced. generally, they have to respect our border. host: chris matthews books --lude his most recent book, "bobby kennedy: a raging spirit." we covered him in annapolis and that will be on c-span two's tv. caller: i know you are a big fan of the kennedys and wrote many books about it. an issue that does not get covered in tv media that has changed so much since that era is the population has a most double to we added 3.5 billion people to the planet since jack kennedy was in office. america itself has grown by well over 100 million people since the kennedys were in their

heyday. the growth of human population, it affects everything. the environment, global warming, , the labornge market, why working-class bang working-class people can't make a wage, workers are more productive now, so why doesn't the media cover the growth of human population and what it is doing to say the middle east and africa. /? the rockefeller family was very concerned about population growth. you are right in terms of the future of humankind, you are right. i have to watch this because better medical care people are living.

if they could pass birth, well into the 80's, if even they can get enough food to survive. trees are gone in africa. woman has to jewett job, walks for five miles, and eventually, the trees are torn down. it is a real problem. everyone talks about the weather and known does anything about it. what will we do? people have kids. agreement on population, but it really -- it is a problem. a headline, the president

rallies in what he calls "trump country." washington, michigan, was a big success, washington, d.c., just does not work. the white house correspondents dinner was -- i do not know who this was last night, but it wasn't for me. i did not like it. year, they get in trouble with a comedian. it did not click. no more movie stars, hip-hop the only person was brooks robinson and they said we

will go back to basics. and add something is as next year. clever knocks about yourself. i do not it is a funeral. everyone watched and felt great about being a human being. we felt better, we were elevated and joyful about this woman's life. there was some celebration last night. cynical. putting people like sarah huckabee down sitting right there on the stage, trump will win the fight because he is in the home of the reagan democrat. that is the center, reagan democrat country.

caller: i watch chris matthews nightly during the week. i feel like he gives it to us straight. i like the fact that you have tip o'neill, that was pretty great. i was listening to your views on immigration and i think that is why, for the most part, i watch, because you are saying it in a , kind of a keep up the good work. thank you very much. you wrote the following, he found good in politics. he found his mission in life and wanted dearly to go along.

>> he thought he wanted by a he did.ajority fan people don't of the future and they always look at history and say they know what was coming to her they don't. i look at it over and over again , having the time of his life with a beautiful wife. the crowd that opened, all the wasen, her husband discovering something and finally figured it out. he would be assassinated. when he died, he had a bullet in his head.

that is bobby. host: i wanted to include what his brother said. >> my brother need not be , to be remembered simply as a good and decent man. he saw a wrong and tried to write it. he saw suffering and tried to heal it. he saw a war and tried to stop it. those who -- those of us who loved him and taken to his rest pray that what he was -- to those he touched, and who sought to touch him, some men

see things as they are and say why. see things that never were and say why not? host: -- guest: i thought about that speech and you are asking earlier, i think the war would have been half as long. the vietnam veteran and the vietnam memorial would be different. i think there was a candidate who really wanted to unite people. it is so hard to do it and it is getting harder and harder to keepkeep lack and what together, young and old, the working kind, we keep talking about noncollege people as opposed to college people, what a ridiculous separation to we got to stop that but we know it it -- we know what it was about. the elite, a tremendous advantage over other people. it is not only the advantage of attic -- education. they were snotty about it or

they look down on those people. thate that about the fact bobby said hello to the cops. he was not a snotty liberal who thinks i'm better than you because i have a better education than you. it is a real problem in this country. it hurt a lot of the democratic campaign in 2016, elitism. i think it killed them. host: c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up this morning, bipartisan policy center's john us tor taught -- joins talk about election security. and then council president discusses border security. and we are live from colorado to the next stop on the c-span bus 50 capital store with colorado democratic governor to talk about top policy issues in his

state. he sure to watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 this morning. join the discussion. >> tonight, on landmark cases, united states v better known as the pentagon papers case. in 1971, a former military released a top-secret pentagon study to the new york times and the washington post which fought the next and administration to publish. thisuest to discuss landmark case are two top litigators including floyd abrams and ted olson, a former u.s. solicitor general under president george h.w. bush. watch landmark cases tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span and join the discussion. our #is landmark cases and follow us at c-span.

we are resources on our website for background. the landmark cases continuum book. a link to the national constitution center's interact with constitution and the podcast on c-span.org/landmark cases. on his first official trip abroad, secretary of state mike on pale made a stop in israel where he met with prime minister netanyahu in tel aviv. they made a joint statement before the news media focusing on u.s.-israel relations and the iran nuclear agreement. prime minister netanyahu: secretary pompeo, it's wonderful to welcome you. this is your first visit to israel as secretary of state. i think it's significant that you chose, as did the president, to include israel on this important itinerary. i think it's symbolic of our friendship, which