it's a suburban district that voted for trump by about 10 points last cycle, but one showing all the signs that might trend away from republicans. it is not stylistically addictively like the president, and its john kasich's old district. trump is not someone who resonates there and democrats are excited about the possibility. it would give them a narrative setting election going into the midterm to say we can persuade those voters to support democrats more than they have in the past. susan: thank you very much of being here this week. we appreciate your announcer: next, former chief of

priebus joins bob woodward and carl bernstein to talk about american presidency in leadership. this was moderated by the panetta institute. this is just under an hour and a half. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] good evening everyone. what a treat to see all of you. what a wonderful turnout. you will be seeing a wonderful program tonight. this is the third event in this year's panetta institute election series. we have been discussing the american dream. our speakers will focus on the presidency and the world of leadership and how that influences the american dream. our greatest presidents were dedicated to giving all americans the opportunity for a from franklin

roosevelt's new deal, to ronald reagan's shining city on a hill, the presidents have struggled to make sure all americans have a chance to achieve the american dream. a presidents leadership on the economy to education to jobs and health care and others, determines whether we have the opportunity to succeed. time, we understand presidents are human and make mistakes, and we pay for those mistakes. modernength of the presidency has been challenged by never before in our history with deep partisan divide and a function that makes it difficult to govern. the failure of washington to deal with critical issues facing led tons is what in part the election of president trump.

he has brought a very different style of leadership to the presidency. he has challenged many traditional norms of that office. ofhas criticized our system checks and balances and taken executive action to reverse past policies. his views to the american people by tweeting. believe he was doing exactly what he was elected to do, change washington. opponents believe he governs by chaos. who is right, and how will all dream?fect the american the presidency is one of the most powerful institutions in the world. so is our constitution and our system of checks and balances. people have the opportunity to freely debate and discuss all those issues.

the freedom to do that in our democratic society gives us the impetus to know that we as citizens are responsible for protecting the american dream. we will discuss these issues with our guests, to have spent their careers observing and one whocy, served president trump as his first chief of staff. is one of thet most famous political investigative reporters in america. a two-time pulitzer prize observer of the innerworkings of government, politics, and the role of leadership. he is an associate editor at the "washington post," where he has worked since 1971. whats shared in two

surprises, for the coverage of the watergate scandal, and as the lead reporter for the coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. best reporter of his generation by the "weekly standard," he has authored or best-sellingore nonfiction books than any other contemporary american writer. "the price ofr, politics," was released in 2012. published in 2015, his most the lastok provides pieces of the complex story of the nixon administration and its legacy. from yaled his ba university. please welcome bob woodward.

[applause] host: welcome. [applause] host: our second guest is one of the most influential journalists in american history. spent 40 years reporting of the inner workings of thernment and politics, and hidden stories of washington and its leaders. careern his journalism as a copy boy for the "washington evening star," and then became a reporter asked 19. he broke the70's, watergate story for the "washington post," and was awarded the hewlett surprise. he has continued to investigate up the use of

political, media, financial, cultural, and spiritual power. the author of five best-selling books, his recent work is the national bestseller "a woman in acclaimed as the definitive biography of its subject, hillary clinton, that was published in 2007. his next book, a memoir of his family's experience in the mccarthy era. he attended the university of maryland. please welcome carl bernstein. [applause] carl: thank you so much. host: welcome.

host: our final guest is the former white house chief of staff to president trump and the longest serving chairman of the republican national committee in recent history. his way up through the ranks of the republican party of wisconsin as first congressional he was partyrman, andsurer, first vice chair, was eventually named state party chairman in 2007. in 2009, he served as general counsel to the republican national committee. left the chairmanship of rnc in 2011 and oversaw a dramatic turnaround in the gop. of the most successful chairman of either political party in american history. he was named white house chief of staff shortly after president trump's historic 2016 victory,

and left the administration in the summer of 2017. he has a ba from the university of wisconsin and a jd from the university of miami. please welcome reince priebus. [applause] host: and of course, moderating our discussion is the man who created this lecture series more than 20 years ago. he has served in public life under nine american presidents, was chief of staff, cia director, and secretary of defense. he knows the importance of good leadership. please welcome secretary leon panetta. [applause]

leon: good evening, ladies and gentlemen. got a hell of a crowd. [laughter] you to thelcome ttard forum of the pane lecture series. our theme is "the american dream: lie anve and well." tonight, we focus on the presidents. why? >> [laughter] leon: the presidency happens to affect the fate of our country, and whether or not people in this country are going to be

able to succeed and enjoy the american dream. decisions make the about whether or not we go to war, whether young men and women are put in harms way. make the decisions about how to deal with economic about whether or not they are going to support security for our american citizens, that was how social security and medicare came into existence. how are they going to support issues,n, housing issues related to jobs, or programs to develop them? all of that is impacted by the presidency. presidents are human. they make mistakes. we pay the price for those mistakes. it is important for us this evening to look at, what are the

of someone who was going, succeeds, is good for the country? what about those that are not so good? what about the system of checks and balances? these and so many other questions we will discuss tonight with this very distinguished panel. let me begin with the panel with the question i think is important to establish a baseline on the presidency. putting president trump aside for the moment, we have all either observed presidents, as ed to presidents, or reince and i were, chiefs of staff to the president. who was thetime, best president into was the worst, and why? -- and who was the worst and

why? >> [laughter] bob: the surprise ending for a president that really did a great job in our lifetime -- >> the president and i think really did a great job in our lifetime was gerald ford. ford went on television on a sunday morning announcing he was given nixon a full pardon for watergate. -- giving nixon a full pardon for watergate. ford hoped she could do this early on a sunday morning and no one would know. >> [laughter]

it was widely noticed, but not by me, i was asleep. >> [laughter] he hasall called me and the ability to say what happens in the fewest words, with the most drama. bob: he said, have you heard what happened? i was asleep. bitch was a pardoned. >> [laughter] bob: i had my decoder ring on it and i was able to figure out what happened. this was the final corrupt act of watergate. nixon gets a free run and a pardon. 40 people go to jail.

later, when ford ran against jimmy carter and lost, the president was suspicious that there was some sort of deal. 20 years later, i went back to re-examine the pardon. i called gerald ford up. i had never met him or interviewed him. i said, i want to relook at the pardon. thought he would say no. gerald ford turned out to be one of the most open, honest, direct encountered.ever i read all the memoirs, interviewed everyone he was -- who was alive. i went to see ford many times at his homes in colorado, rancho

mirage, and california. what happened? i remembered the last interview with ford, in his little house in ritual garage, -- rancho mirage, right off the golf course. i said, why did you pardon nixon? he said, you keep asking. i said, i don't think you have answered fully. he said, you are right. i will tell you what happened. he goes through and he said, let me take you to the moment -- i have been president 30 days. there was so much distrust and no one would believe anything. all the news was about, what is going to happen to nixon? the soviet union, the cold war was on, the economy was in trouble.

nixon is a private citizen and going to be investigated. he is going to be indicted, convicted, maybe he will go to jail. there will be two or three more years of watergate. i will never forget him saying, i needed my own presidency. we had to move beyond nixon. i preempted the process. a deal was offered the week before. leon: the chief of staff. he said, i rejected that kill because it would have been correct. -- that deal because it would have been corrupt. i said, i get to be president anyways. >> [laughter]

bob: and i am supposed to pardon nixon? but i rejected that. i said, you did pardon nixon. said, here is why. i was in charge of the country. this is a job of stewardship. realized this idea, the country had to move on. -- theaid, this is how i explanation of interest. i said it was gutsy. they award ford the kennedy prize, "profiles in courage." i remember watching that.

i thought, here i was sure ford had done the most corrupt thing in the world, and under examination, literally 25 years later what looks corrupt turns out to be courage. leon: interesting. ob: what a humiliating, humbling experience. we sit down and talk about your former boss. everyone is sure where this is going and what it means. i look at this and say, we do not know. reince: most of my family is from the united states. if you ever wonder how i get a name like reince priebus -- >> [laughter]

"my bigif you ever see fat greek wedding," that is my life. >> [laughter] my upbringing, like all of our upbringing, is a huge part of our life. andok to most of my life the person i would follow around the house everywhere, everything he said, was my grandfather from ece. he would come to wisconsin. it isn't like when the relatives come for a long weekend. when the greeks come, they are living there for a couple of months. off thethe letter "p" shelf from the world book. he would read these world books all day and i would sit next to him. he had johnny walker next to him.

he would read the list of presidents from the letter "p." it could be kennedy, andrew jackson, jimmy carter, every single one of these guys was great. "reagan was the best." what i took from that is that the person i looked up to most in my life loved everything about this country, and he wasn't from here. sat through as many american presidents as you all have -- leon: the advantage of being younger. what was calvin coolidge like? >> [laughter]

reince: when i look at presidents and the former chief of staff gave me a reprieve, because he took president trump off the table, i look at who was inspiring this country. i look at ronald reagan and the feeling he gave americans across the country, republicans, democrats, a lot of people inspired by the american dream about something beyond legislation, how we feel as americans and making people proud again. i don't remember a lot about jimmy carter, other than what i read. he was at the bottom of the polls when i grew up, and he seems like a good man. reagan got me involved in politics. leon: i assume, nixon?

bob: you got something right. leon: carl? at the bottom because he was a criminal president from the day he took office until the day he left. he is unique in our history in that regard. what a question goes to is a commitment by the president of the united states to the common good, to the national interest. the first president i covered was kennedy. all the presidents have their successes, failures, but the standout in retrospect, the commitment to the common good, putting the interest of the country over their own interests without huge character flaws

that have brought them low, i go to gerald ford, for the reasons numerated.as e he did that parted knowing it would probably cost him the presidency. when he ran for the election, he was willinghe did that parted tl interests about his own ran knowing he would probably lose the election as a result. we have to look at barack obama. >> [applause] one, in terms of personal rectitude, which he displayed throughout his presidency. what ever his feelings in terms of policy, putting the act of health care before something what ever wenship, look at, the idea of the common

good and the national interest, we have to look at obama in terms of really saving american capitalism, saving us from depression. the first months and days of his the republican opposition, rather than looking toward the common good, was really committed toward undermining the incoming president in the united states. not a single republican embraced obama's solution of dealing with financial crisis. republicans heby inherited from the previous administration. disagree withht the size of the bailout, what but hepany was given, really saved our system, and world from ad the

real depression that would have been ongoing. hedid it despite the fact was being accused of all kinds of things. kind of austerity approach that failed elsewhere in the world. there, his steadfastness i'm going to do the right thing, that is the basic question. which presidents go, what is the right thing for the people of this country, or the greatest good, the national interest? i think those are two examples. >> [applause] reince, we have to now look at trump. you know the president then i think -- better than i think all of us. you served him in his campaign and as chief of staff. can take everything you've

heard and multiply it by 50, to quoteat you said about -- what you said about his time in the white house. identify for us what his strengths are and weaknesses are. reince: i was describing the job of chief of staff. marinefour-star combat in john kelly says it is the hardest job i have ever had, it goes to tell you being chief of staff is not easy. you know that. you have been there. president trump is different. he is more complicated. he has never run for office before. he wants to be perfect at little things, middle things, big things. he is like many successful people, impatient. whould say it to people

give him misery in the media -- take it from me. i resigned the day before. i walked down those steps, read a tweet i was being replaced by john kelly. i am coming to you as someone not here to spend. -- not here to spin. -- this president made it clear who he was and how he was going to govern during the campaign. the people were tired of foamy and plastic -- phony and plastic. they wanted someone who was going to be the biggest middle finger they could find, to tell people in washington to go take a hike. the president has the failed -- -- has fulfilled -- >> [laughter]

reince: if you are a republican. maybe there is not a lot of them here. maybe there is. >> [laughter] republican,ou are a you love the results of what this president has done. you like the fact that isis is on the run. you like the fact that 22 regulations have been eliminated. you like the fact this president is on his way of appointing more than any federal conservative judges -- more federal conservative judges than any other president in modern history. we will probably spend it sometime tonight talking about what i would suggest to you is avoid concentrating on

meaningless drama and focus in on the results. because i got rolled up and some of that. people said, how do you have such a good attitude? that drama doesn't matter to american history. to american history is the success or failures of this president. if you are a democrat you hated, if you are a republican you love it. but the nuts and bolts promises he made, he's delivering. leon: let me talk about the modern presidency. there's a great article in the atlantic by john dickerson that talks about the modern presidency as an impossible job. this is a quote. woman can represent the competing interest of 27 million citizens, perform the duties of the office. the most powerful man of the world is powerless to achieve many of his goals, for it by congress, the courts, and in him

is bureaucracy. is the modern presidency broken and is trump in some ways a consequence of that?" no, i think that's the wrong way to look at it. i think the president can succeed. if you go for a job interview and they will say, you are here for this job, what is the definition of the job? what is the definition of the job of president? and having thought about it through a presidents, now , forng on a book on trump me the job is the president is that role of stewardship. whatt's also figuring out the next stage of good is for the majority of people in the country. real majority, not just a base, not just one party or a bunch of interest groups. can be done through the

presidency and by the president that really make a difference in people's lives. and then the president has to say this is what it is. what is the strategy to get there? it may take years to get there. but that's the job of the president. shame when he gets misdirected or whether some of things seem trivial. but what i find missing from the trunk residency. -- the trump presidency. there was the campaign and is going to do this and do that, where are we going? in the 1960's, i served in the navy. i was on a ship and executive officer number two. i spent a lot of time in this office because i was a troublemaker.

a renegade. leon: i've never heard you called a renegade in the years that i've known you. bob: thank you. and he had a plaque glued to his desk and i never will forget it because i saw it many times. and it was " he who does not know to which port he is saying has no favorable wind." and that's true. there are wins that are favorable, unfavorable, and they can get you, but you need to know the port to which you were sailing. and i do not find enough evidence in the public discourse from the president or out of , whereton from democrats are we going? what is this all about. what are we trying to accomplish? the lack of clarity hurts the

president, hurts the country, and hurts all of us. i think it's a tragedy that there is not some mechanism. did you ever try to find which port donald trump was sailing? [laughter] i guess i respectfully disagree. if you look at the first year, you have the appointment and the nomination of neil gorsuch, which had a profound affect on the supreme court. at the same time, we tackled the health care bill unsuccessfully and then we moved into tax reform, eventually passing the first tax reform since 1986. and obviously moving into matters related to north korea, isis, stereo, i think that there is clarity. i'm sorry, but matters involving

north korea, there was all this fire and fury. carl: right. and it turned out that the -- i'm note the going to say for sure, but the critics have to be, they are on the short end of that stake. and the fact is, many people who are used to the conventional method of washington decision-making, and people like me to come a our people uncomfortable of how the president approach north korea. but like so many issues he pushes back on off the bat, whether it be trade or afghanistan or syria, north korea, he pushed and put all the chips on his table. people cried about it. out, unlike all the predecessors before trump, here he are, potentially on the verge of something dramatic and world

changing when it comes to north korea. i will take this agenda for another 2.5 years and run on it for 2020. leon: this president operates with chaos. and taking these kind of steps that he takes. but then i think he uses the chaos as leverage. that's 100% right. president trump made it very clear in the art of the deal when he talked about his style of management. his style of management is not the same process we are used to. he likes to keep things lose. he doesn't want to be overbooked, and he wants to come to the office and see what develops. what the president does, he puts people around him that don't

agree with each other on a whole lot, and you read about it every day. we're talking about trade, he will have the guy from goldman ross, riceur previous, steve bannon, all these guys that are different species, natural predators almost. and they will stand there in front of the desk in front of the president and they will have it out. lawthe president, like a school professor, will sit back and watch. and the president will talk about the fact that this guy said thisand reince and people were arguing and the camera with people screaming at each other. but the president uses the information and makes a decision. so i would challenge people, people who don't even like the president, focus on the results and forget about the process because it's a simple process. carl: i'm sorry about north korea.

i thought last year, we were on the verge of war and part of that came from what the president said. reince: we are on the verge of war. he was launching a missile every 2.5 hours over japan. bob: exactly. but now we are on the peace track. reince: you just want to have it both ways. you don't want to have north moves.ake provocative you want the president to be a leader, but then he is a leader in the get to a point where north korea and south korea are hugging nle are critical of the president. bob: i'm not critical. i'm saying where's the port? [laughter] something disturbs me about this discussion. trump is al, donald legitimate president of the united states. and a paragraph. a muchof all, he had

better reading of the country than his democratic opponent did. he read the country brilliantly and ran a campaign with a kind of brilliance that was unlike anything we had ever seen and through his own kind of smarts, he won the presidency and i think we need to accept that. consistentat the hallmark of donald trump in public life and of his and --ncy is lying [applause] we have never had a president of the united states that has light with the kind of consistent, the basic methodology with the approach to the american people, his approach to governance, and is essential to who he is from every evidence we have. i'm not talking about being opinionated editorial writer here.

it is demonstrable, reportorial bowl fact that we are looking at a body of lies hold are the president of the does states with a kind of regularity that is so troublesome. that everybody, republican, democrat, whether they agree with the results or not, needs to be concerned about. because we need real leadership. that includes a degree of moral leadership, a degree of ethical leadership. [applause] and when other presidents have being aline in terms of to some of their acts. nixon again was a criminal president until the day he left office. he didn't lie every day. but when he did like it was the end of him. but nonetheless, this is something new in the history of the presidency and it's

something i believe has to be part of the discussion here both in terms of journalism, in terms of office, and terms of the president. [applause] i think i just want to say one thing though. on the issues he promised to the american people, i feel like he's fulfilling these promises. he's going to not isis -- is going to knock the hell out of isis, he did. he was going to appoint these judges, he did. he was going to cut taxes, he did. he uses the facts to his advantage. i do think that. [laughter] reince: i think you are all hissing and blowing over immaterial garbage.

tax cuts and moderate. [laughter] leon: let me move on. useddents in the past have speeches, have used fireside chats, oval office addresses in order to speak to the american people. usually prepared, well coordinated, talking points. this is a president who uses tweeting. we are in the era of social media and he basically wants to communicate the way he wants to communicate. is this what future presidents are going to be doing in order to communicate with the american people? carl? carl: i have no idea. i think the use of is probablyal media very likely that presidents will continue to do that. particularly, as a

reporter, and really grateful that trump tweets with the frequency that he does. [laughter] carl: but i also think that the tweets are trump at his most truthful. tweets wheren the his mind really is. and if you go back and you sort through the tweets, it really is a roadmap of the president's mind. it tells us a lot about what concerns him, about where his abilities lie and don't lie, and i think it's the best indication that we have of how to judge him as a person, as a president, and where he's going, who he believes in, what he's contemptuous of, and we are lucky that that is his message -- his method of communicating, because otherwise we would know damn near nothing. bob: there are contradictions in

the tweets. carl: absolutely. bob: in terms of listening to point in trying to think this through, there may be some strategy in this. on trump's part. two years ago, bob costa, who you know, and i interviewed trump. it was right on the verge of winning the republican nomination. and it was at his hotel in pennsylvania avenue undergoing renovations. , and isa and i said going to win the republican rub the nation -- republican nomination but probably won't be the president, so let's think of things that will ask him that will address what is inside. what is driving him? so we spent some time and one of the very interesting interviews in retrospect, but the most

important moment was, i believe, i asked, president obama is still president at this point had talked about power in the presidency -- and presidency is ultimately about power. and president obama said in his first inaugural that our comes to the united states from its restraint in humility. ,nd you could just see trump those words, i wish there were a video, because he was kind of -- and then we said, obama just said, real power is quoting obama to trump, real power comes from not using violence. and then trump, and i swear, it was almost shakespearean. it was almost like hamlet turning to the audience in one

of those a sides. here's what i really think. and trump said quote. is -- i don't even like to use the word -- but real power is fear." and i've gone back and thought about that in the context of a what he does. he scares people. he scared the hell out of kim jong-un. and you look at it and you follow this and the north korean leader is now going to meet. strategy ofthat's a mobilizing fear, i don't know. -- you start trying to say does that make sense to you? carl: maybe. but there is more to it than that, too.

there is part of the equation and different pieces on the chessboard that is moving. he also has an incredible inlity of engaging in people one-on-one settings that you can't fully appreciate watching the news every night. gracious withly people, meaning i don't know how to describe it, but some people have the ability to meet people one-on-one and become instantaneously tight. i saw that with president abbe. clinton was good like that. i saw that with president xi. and he uses these relationships, and they are genuine, to form these bonds that are necessary in order to get this situation in north dakota under control. bob: north korea. -- north korea.

right. [laughter] what did i say? there's a hockey team over there. you look out for north dakota. but if that relationship wasn't i, we the president x just wouldn't be here right now. so there is a genuine god-given skill there that i don't think the media is gives the president enough credit for. leon: what you shut up for a second? 46 years, i've never said that. [laughter] carl: the middle finger. leon: let me ask you this. you are chief of staff and you have a president who's tweeting at 5:00 in the morning. president and he did that, it would drive me crazy.

how could you deal -- reince: also two years during the campaign, right? i was the guy who is constantly calling the soon-to-be president saying, don't say that, you can't do this. and he did it way he wanted to do it and he became president, which, if you look at president trump, you cannot deny the fact that he's a man who achieved incredible success. a little sneer engineer -- sneer and jeer. he is a billionaire. he is president of the united states. [booing] reince: he's got more money than we all do. he is president of the united states. a barely some people don't agree in this room. and he's done it while people like me told him don't do this, don't do that. and it turns out he did it and he won and on election day, he

was at 37% and he won. and so it's harder, to get to your question, when you are chief of staff six months later, to say don't do this, don't do that when he's heard it all before and those people in his mind were wrong and he was right and he was affirmed by the american people. leon: we are at the halfway point but i want to adjust this issue. which is the role of the press. since both of you are in the press, both of you use the press to check the power of the presidency, and yet presidents have always had rough relationships the press. but it's pretty bad right now. and we saw it over this last weekend at the correspondents dinner. comedian got up and attacked trump. trump was in michigan attacking the press before his crowd.

and so there's a lot of questions about, what is the role of the press today? has the press lost its credibility or is it still an effective check in our system? carl: i think we are in danger of using -- losing our credibility and the criticism that trump has offered very aggressively, 45 years ago covering watergate, carl was 11 years old, i was 12 at the time. we were kids. [laughter] leader of thethe free world, ron ziegler, saying our stories are full of lies, that we are character assassins. something i think trump has not yet called the media. and the message to us from our editors, the great ben bradley

and others, was keep doing the work. don't yet consumed with trying to fight this. [applause] so, i look at some of the coverage. i think the coverage by the new york times and the post and the wall street journal, you aggregate it. it's been very good. some mistakes and so forth, that trump -- but trump has such an ability to set people off and he's done this to the press and people have taken the bait and have is too much -- people lost their equilibrium in the media. and i think you have to take the ben bradley rule. he always a, here is what you do. slowlywn, ass up, moving

forward. just a quick comment on the role of the press. where are we today? carl: trump has tried to make the issue his presidency and nixon tried to do the same, the conduct of the press instead of the conduct of the president of the united states. and he's had even more success and nixon was successful at it for a good while in the early stages of watergate. people were bleeding nixon, not what we were writing. -- believing nixon, not what we were writing. this is a different time in america. we are in a state of a cold civil war in this country today. donald trump didn't cause it. of, evolutionary in terms it was perhaps inevitable we

were going to be at a place like this with the president who appeals to part of that cold civil war and indeed tries to stoke the cold civil war. appealing to a base rather than trying to appeal to a united vision of the country that most citizens can appreciate. that that's his methodology. be -- he'ss us to called us the enemy of the people, as joseph stalin once used the phrase. it's extraordinary and we are faced, and bob is really right here. the reporting by the new york times, washington post, i believe is the best reporting on the american presidency on a daily basis that i have seen since i went to work.

in 1960. [applause] carl: there also is the fact as ben bradley appreciated, we needed the kind of reporting what reporters step back and take two months, three months, and look at the presidency with that kind of distance and care and you are not on a daily deadline. venturedthat we have sometimes too far into the pejorative. because the partly press" does something now that it didn't traditionally at the time of watergate and we've seen increasingly in the last 20 years, and that's reporters, myself included, bob included, we go on television and talk about what is going on beyond what we write online or in the paper or even in our books.

that's something new. and in the process of that, i think we've invited some trouble for ourselves by being sometimes to pejorative. ,ut it's particularly difficult and this is not an excuse, because there is so much lying by this president of the united states, so much of what the press has been doing is to reportorial he point out those lies. those untruths, to parse what the president -- and it didn't start incidentally, with this president -- but to parse what is truthful, what is not, and in the process of that i think we've conveyed a sense of self-righteousness that has led toward some undermining of our credibility and has been perhaps interpreted as were mistakenly interpreted or not as

adversarial without any relationship to trying to get to the truth, when i would say the purpose of it is to try to get to the truth. a second.st hold on leon: let me get this done because we have to recognize our question review team and the people who select the questions. i will ask you to hold your applause while i give the names. chelsea, a local news editor, fran gaber, our review team member, david kellogg, and doug zuknight, the reporter of ka radio, if you would thank them for what they do. [applause] we had a great turnout of students, over 600 students today at our session with the speakers. [applause] and some great questions.

it was a wonderful turnout. we could not do it without your and the so sylvia, i, institute board of directors are very grateful for the allows thesehat students, high schools, colleges, universities, military installations at from throughout the central coast to be able to participate. so please thank those sponsors. [applause] reince: i was is going to say. and we will move quickly, but i think these gentlemen here are american legends and they view the press in a way that what i dealt with and the west wing and what i dealt with with six years at the iron see was many times timesn sea, was many reporting based on anonymous sources and this person said

that this person said the resident is an idiot and we are running with it. what you have to say about it? and it's a bunch of inconsequential garbage. i most stories we have to deal with are like that. granted, there are real stories that need to be covered that are serious and i understand that. and i'm not actually saying that most of the reporters that workday in and day out in the west wing are good, decent people. i don't think they are making up quotes. i don't think it's out of midair. but i do think there are troublemakers and nefarious people that if you get two or three of them -- granted, you can create a story and pop it up and get a lot of clicks -- what i think is missing in the press is the discernment to decide whether a particular story of very little value is worth the the filth that it

creates. i don't see the discernment. i see massive competition, i see click bait, i see headlines that don't match the stories beneath, and that to me is where most of our fights occur. and by the way, the press' pol ling the public is below congress, by the way. something is wrong and they feel the press is not being honest with them. saturday night, they just made president trump the winner again. [applause] bob: there is partial truth in what you say, i think that's true. of course you contradicted the president and saying the press makes up things. reince: i think they do. bob: you just said you think they don't. reince: i don't believe they make things up and thinner. but i have been -- thin air.

situationsbeen in that matters that are reported by the press are not as they have appeared. that andrew mccabe story is a classic. bob: true. reince: and i won't repeat it. total classic, no job, and they knew it. bob: but here's the interesting thing. there needs to be self-examination and introspection on the part of the press. we need to produce a better product. how do you produce a better product? [applause] opposedused to have, as to the low -- to the little signs we put below the screen and somebody's computer. it was faa. that didn't mean federal aviation administration, it meant focus, act aggressively. gotwe got to focus, we've to act aggressively, we've got

to be fair, we've got to improve the product. if we don't, go tell people who have been in businesses with a have had product that is not selling very well. and they are not in business anymore. [talking over each other] leon: let me ask you this some questions, will you please? [laughter] other]g over each leon: ok. you were involved in watergate. what was the differences and similarities between watergate and the russian investigation, and will it end the same way? reince: first of all, we don't

know what the russian investigation is going to go. what we do know is there has been a cover-up, that the president has attempted to cover up and an untruthful about many elements about what we have seen and what has been reported. that he has tried at various turns to undermine lawful investigations. that doesn't mean he has committed legal obstruction of justice. that remains to be seen. there's a big story the new york times put out about an hour ago with 48 questions that meuller wants to ask the president of the united states. it's an interesting list that gives some indication that mueller is very much looking into questions of collusion, that that matter has not by any means been put to rest. but we don't know where it's going to go. watergate was about a series of

crimes that there was evidence from the beginning of that was quite clear about the criminal acts. and then it was a question of well, who committed these terminal acts? -- criminal acts? ,nd it turned out step by step that richard nixon, the president of the united states, had presided over this web of criminality and the cover-up of the criminality. where we are now, it's unclear what the criminality was. in the case of watergate, it was extraordinary tempt by the president of the united states to undermine the most important element of our democracy, and that is our collect oral process. -- ournd those under him electoral process. nixon and those under him wanted

to know who the nominate for the democratic party would be through a huge campaign of political espionage and sabotage of which the watergate bugging and break in was a small part. and the object of this was to undermine the strongest candidate for president in the democratic party, who nixon thought would be senator muskie of maine, and to see the democrats nominated the weakest candidate, who may have been a great man but was a really weak candidate, and that was george mcgovern. and then we in the press were able to establish some ties that nixon had indeed and those closest to him had engineered this. you then had a real vote byation by a 77-0 the senate of the united states, a bipartisan investigation of the president was undertaking.

vote indn't get a 77-0 the senate for anything today nor could you have a bipartisan investigation. [applause] carl: that is one of the big differences. one of the other big differences is the response of the republican party, that the blind defense of this president of the toted states without regard the facts as they been developed so far by the republicans in congress particularly, is very different than what occurred in watergate. [applause] bob: really quick. the internet age is very different and patience and speed drives it. and i talked to a reporter and i said when you go out for an interview, and he said i never go out for interviews. what?

he said i do it on the internet or sometimes the wonderful intimacy of the telephone. we are notht, getting out. and a quick anecdote of working on the fourth bush book, there was a general who wouldn't talk. i want it to, emails, intermediary stuff, i found out where he lived in the washington area. and i thought, ok, i'm going to appointment -- on her an appointment. this is a technique i learned from carl. you just show up. and i have a technique from the cia that says let the silence -- carl: that was you. [laughter] bob: so take this finger and stick it over the little finger and janet down into the

fingernail -- jam it down into the fingernail so it hurts and it's a reminder to me to shut the fuck up. believe it or not. [laughter] bob: so knock on the door and first of all, you have to go at the right strategic time. you have to go 8:15 on a tuesday night. carl: after a drink. bob: after the generals had dinner and so forth. and he said, are you still doing this shit? [laughter] bob: and i just did this. poker face. not anything. and he then gets a disappointed look on his face. i think not because of anything i did, but because of what he was about to do, which was, come on in. set for two hours and entered most of the questions. why?

somebody showed up. we are not showing up. [applause] good point. president trump has reportedly discussed not having a chief of staff. what do to former chiefs of staff have to say about that? [laughter] is having a chief of staff absolutely necessary with this president? youthat may add to that, if could also comment on the fact that there really has been a great deal of turnover. we've had almost half of the staff turnover in less than a year. a lot of reasons for that. but give me your sense of white you think that's happening. reince: well first of all, president trump was the chief of staff when i was there, i was chief of staff. [laughter] -- chief of stuff.

[laughter] reince: in terms of what i did. but the president is chief of staff. he's the cons director. ford called it the spokes on the wheel, that idea the president is really in charge and he has these director ports coming to him. and i think he's a person that likes to be involved in every step of the way. he's not the guy who's served dinner. he will be the guy on the grill. he wants to be involved in everything going on. and that obviously begs the question on whether he needs the chief of staff. i think that's a legitimate question and i know it's been debated in the press and most traditional chiefs of staff think that's crazy and you can't do that. is, getting to your second question, he's a person that governs by, like i said before, he governs by allowing people that agree with

each other on very little to get in front of him and argue it out with the best a game that they can possibly have, which then also causes some of the articles that you read about. and some of the things that obviously i had to deal with, including, as i said earlier, walking off that plane and reading a tweet. and heading back to the west wing. so i think that that kind of drama is sort of part of the decision-making process that he uses. traditional people don't like it but i think again, looking at the results, that is the process. that will always be the process. it's not going to change and i would argue that it works for this president and it works for the promises he made to the american people. leon: it's likely we are going

to see a lot of turnover in the white house staff. reince: yeah, i think you will. , wethat's sort of why mentioned this earlier, don't you remember what happened to you when you are in the west wing? that's because that drama, my drama, whatever it was, doesn't matter to american history. and i believe the results of what he does matters to american history. leon: let's talk about the president, now as commander in chief and dealing with this issue in north korea. how confident are any of you that north korea will completely denuclearize? , give mee add to that your sense of what a kim jong-un trump summit is likely to produce? experienceon my own

-- reince: good question for you to answer. leon: well you have summits, you have a lot of work, you basically negotiate for a year or more before the principles .ome in and get an agreement just because this is a complex issue. this is about, how do you denuclearize, how do you stop a the missile tests? how do you do the verification that needs to be done along with 100 other complex issues? so i guess the question is, is he going to go into this thinking he's going to get a deal? or is is going to be a photo op? or could this be a disaster? in: there's partial answer the intelligence, which is classified and not public. subject,rking on this the intelligence agencies tell the president that kim jong-un

will not get rid of his nuclear ,eapons for the obvious reasons that's his leverage. that's what got him to the point he's at. himwhat could be given to that would be some legitimate trade off? ok, you getity is, all the u.s. troops out of south korea, 35,000 when you measure everything. and maybe that would be desirable. but the united states has a separate fleet, an aircraft carrier fleet, planes and so forth. leon: basis in tokyo. bob: bases all over the place. conclusionsligence quite recently has been, you will never get him to give this up because it's his weapon.

that's what makes north korea a major power. leon: ergo, what happens? bob: you see, this is the problem with people trying to put it the future -- to predict the future. who knows? [laughter] there is also one big unknown. we don't know what is going to happen and one of those unknowns is, as bob was saying, that the existence of the north korean state, like the existence of the pakistani state to some extent, and some other places, is dependent on the nuclearization question. if north korea is a nuclear believe, kim jong-un, is that there is a permanence to his state.

so one of the questions being debated, and bob, i think you can elaborate on this, people in the intelligence committee, is there a possibility that if somehow the south koreans, the chinese, and the americans guarantee in some meaningful way the continued existence of the north korean state, is there a possibility that he then would disarm? but we don't know the answer. bob: it's only a piece of paper. and the value is only the value of the piece of paper. national security advisor was on -- john bolton was on television this sunday. and he was saying, look at libya. it's a wonderful example. they gave up their nuclear weapons. that example because could off he is dead. carl: that's exactly right.

and on this, i think you , because what happened last year on north korean debate within the administration after look, kim jong-un almost or maybe does have an icbm with the nuclear weapon that could reach the united states. and the argument to the president by the people who were saying, we've got to act, was a simply do you want on your resume, mr. president, that the most volatile regime in the world got the capacity to strike the united states with the nuclear weapon? what would be your answer? no, i don't what that.

ok, what do you do? president has said this quite openly. there are some options that are jacobian. carl: -- draconian. add, i would also president obama met with president trump and told president trump very clearly and the president would repeat this often enough oval office, that your number one issue is north korea. and you should also be assured that there is not a day that goes by -- at president has an intelligence briefing every single day -- there is not a day that goes by that there isn't a portion of north korea. every single day there is learning and teaching and things that go on. ok, but answer the question. in a few weeks, they are going to sit down. for the life of me, i cannot

imagine that they can cut a deal area -- cut a deal in terms of specifics of what needs to be done. reince: sure. leon: so what i anticipate is the best scenario is that they meet, they have a broad agreement on a framework of what you know, some, agreement on denuclearization, an agreement on some other broad things. but the specifics of that are going to have to be negotiated out. reince: i'm sure this will take a while. multiple meetings. president trump if he's inclined, you know this well, he's going to proclaim the victory. reince: and he probably should. bob: yes, maybe he should. maybe he will get it. maybe peace in our time. is at hand.

to mix and old historical metaphor. [laughter] leon: all right, keep your fingers crossed, folks. reinceprevious -- priebus. what aspects of the republican party is important to you and what principles have changed with trump? reince: to the second part, i say no, president trump is so unique to himself. i think that he's a person larger-than-life. i don't believe that any of that is true that people debate, the party is permanently changed. say changed i would for the better. we've had opportunities if you look at michigan, pennsylvania, ohio by 10 points, i think without the president and

without, i think his brash in-your-face style, some of that wouldn't be reality. but i also don't believe that the party benefits from the growth that trump has brought long-term. just like i don't think the party is injured by anything that you might consider to be dangerous to the party because trump is so unique to the party himself. leon: but look, the republican party that i know, the party of reagan, were for less spending not more spending. reince: sure. leon: they were for balancing the budget. reince: reagan had huge debt, too. leon: i know, but -- debt,: if you want less the american public will have to decide whether or not it wants to tackle medicaid, medicare,

social security. .here is no trajectory i'm not advocating it. i'm just telling you the numbers. there is no trajectory that can get us to a place -- leon: we have a $20 trillion debt. reince: exactly. i don't disagree with you. but when i think about the party and i think about opportunity and i think about freedom and i think about the choices that we have in this country, obviously every president is going to have their own stamp and their own style of what that means. but i don't believe the platform , i don't believe the core principles have changed at all. leon: but the republican party was for free trade. reince: i think most people in the party are for free trade. but the president isn't lockstep with every single piece of the platform in the republican party, just like barack obama and bill clinton were not in

every lockstep with the dnc that form. that's what made the president more competitive. you guys know, we had 16 people running for president. i'm a pretty traditional republican. i'm who people call the establishment. but i don't believe that anyone of the other 16 will have actually beaten hillary clinton. so while some of the other stuff is bizarre for people to listen to, they don't want to believe it, he brought forward a potpourri of beliefs, some of which had most of which came from the republican party, but some of those police came from president trump. -- believes came from president trump. it's not just an american thing. it's happening in the u.k., france, italy, all over the sick ofth people being being lied to and sold a bill of goods and getting nothing in return.

[laughter] let me ask this question based on where the party is now. because we are looking at an election in 2018. and predictions right now are a strongcrats are in position to take control of the house, perhaps take control of the senate area -- of the senate. let me ask all three of you. what do you think is going to happen in november, 2018? carl? carl: i don't know. i think the demographics, conventional wisdom is democrats will take the house. probably a better than even chance that that's the case. i'm going to try to frame the question a little bigger. and back to the theme of your institute here. and that is about democracy working. this discussion and what is going on in our politics, is taking place in a context in

which our institutions of democracy in this country are not working. and i've never heard it expressed more eloquently than reince did this afternoon. with the students in an earlier session. bob: that was a rehearsal. carl: which he talked about the single two structural elements that are keeping our democratic processes in this country from working. gerrymandering, and the electorate system itself, which means that really, as you put it -- reince: the conclusion is different. [laughter] carl: go ahead and say what you did. what i said also, i've never heard a democratic chairman express as eloquently as you did. this is not a partisan matter and what you said was so important. lay it out again. reince: we talked about a couple of things earlier today and one

of the questions a student asked was, she felt her vote didn't count in california. and i said i don't disagree with her. is the electoral college such that when you run a national campaign, when you are chairman of the national committee and you are dnc chairman, you are basically raising $1 billion each to be spent in seven states. there is no national campaign for president. it's like having seven governors races in seven states and us putting all the data, all the ground game, everything we have in those states to win that election. so that is the electoral college that we have in place and that's what we use. but the other piece of this was, we were talking about bipartisanship and whether or not bipartisanship was alive or dead. i tended to believe it's more debt. the reason is quite simple. state are looking at

legislatures or house seats in the united states, if leanne and i were best friends and we had a , 80%together every night democratic, 80% republican, we have no incentive whatsoever to ever work together because we would lose and we would never get anything done. that's the short version. we can talk more about it later. leon: ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about obviously a divided country at a time when we are facing tremendous amount of challenges. and challenges with regards to leadership. i said to the students in democracy we govern either by leadership or crisis. what is needed today more than anything is leadership, political leadership that is willing to take the risks associated with leadership in order to deal with the issues that we have discussed here today. and a lot of that leadership i

might say, also arrests with this audience and the participation of this audience in our democracy. if you continue to participate in our democracy, i'm confident our democracy will not only survived, but it will thrive in the future. thank you so much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] is next with&a author robert kurson. discussing his book about the

apollo eight mission. that is followed by theresa may taking questions from members of the house of commons. later, a discussion on brexit and the future of u.k. foreign policy. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," robert kurson discusses his book ."ocket men ofan: robert kurson, author rocket men. when did you know you had a good story? robert: i was walking through the museum of science and industry in chicago, showing some friends the u-boat on display. they have the u 505