book we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. washington journal is next. host: kim jong-un has arrived in singapore for the upcoming summit. president trump is due to arrive in about an hour and a half. james clapper, is this summit a great idea -- a good idea? guest: i think it is. i have been a supporter since kim jong-un conveyed his invitation via the south koreans. host: what kind of prep does the intel community do for such a summit? guest: typically what would happen is they would be a series presidential daily brief

aticles about north korea undoubtedly, what we used to call expert briefs. i would anticipate the same sort of thing and perhaps reading i don't thinkough president trump is big on reading or studying. they would be a multimode approach to prepare the principles and his staff. host: in your new book, facts and fears, you write that there is an unwritten almost sacred writ of the intelligence committee that we should avoid engaging in policy formation. however, korea was one issue on which you let president obama know privately that he thought his policy rationale of not discussing anything else until north korea agreed to end its nuclear capability and ambitions was flawed.

i was influenced by my own visit to north korea in november 2014, to bring out does go americans who had been in -- incarcerated in hard labor conditions. ias the first cap beneficial to go to north korea since 2000 -- cabinet official to go to north korea since 2000. the mission was successful. i left frustrated because i felt we lost an opportunity to promote more dialogue. north koreans, when i arrived were anticipating to use their word -- leading to a change in a relationship. my first talking point i was to put to the north koreans was you must denuclearize before we will talk to you. that was a nonstarter with the

north koreans. they were not at about that time to do that -- at that time about to do that. i felt as though we lost an opportunity there, to engage with the north koreans. that is why i have been a supporter of this summit. it struck me when i was there that the north koreans at the time clearly stuck with their narrative and the americans got stuck on their narrative and the only way that can change is if the bigger partner makes the first move. host: how does a director of national intelligence of the u.s. get to north korea? a strange sequence of events.

i found out later, the north koreans had asked for me. the original proposal was for albright to go back instead of me to retrieve our people. the north koreans wanted someone who was active in the government, specifically a member of the national security council. i had a long history with peninsula ever since serving their in the 80's -- serving there in the 80's. when it actually happened, it happened rapidly. that is the rough background of how i ended up going. the new york times described it best. he explained me as a gruff rough relic of the cold war. what: what kind -- host:

kind of precautions did you take, knowing that they would be spying on you? guest: the big thing is no electronics. we did not take any of that with us because that would be a target for surveillance. we stayed in a state guesthouse, which is in an isolated parklike setting just off the river. we had minders there to watch our every move. in a recent interview, a lot of attention that you did for your book, russia turned election for trump and -- this is from your interview with pbs. russia affected the outcome of the 2016 election? guest: i believe so.

i have to make the point that the intelligence community assessment that we officially rendered. this was the combination of two dozen analysts from the fbi, nsa and cia and a couple from my office. judgment, no call whatsoever about what of the russian meddling that we reported had any impact on the outcome of the election. on the 20th of january at noon, i left the government as the dark -- as the director of national intelligence and over time, in light of what has since been revealed, and my own reflections amount the massive effort with the rush -- that the particularly, various sophisticated and broad gauge use of social media and the fact that the election was

turned on about 80,000 votes, to foolish to think that the russians did not have a profound impact and probably turned it. that is an informed opinion and it -- and is not an indictment or criticism of anyone who voted for credit -- for mr. trump. it is a criticism of the russians. one of the reasons i wrote the to do my part to try to educate the public as to the threat the russians pose. host: you mentioned that he left office on january 20, 2017. in your book, you write about how you spent those last couple of hours as director of national intelligence. i went to afe and brunch at david cohen's home.

he and his wife hosted. john brennan and his wife were there and his grandson. and turned ond the television. the clock wound down and all of a sudden, it was noon and we were done. host: what happens at that point? continued with i a security detail for a while. i had one for about a month. that is about the only remnant. you are done, just like that. that is the way it works. host: john brennan has been -- in his criticism of the trunk. what do you -- of donald trump. what do you think? guest: that is john brennan. he is subtle like a freight train sometimes and he wears his heart on his sleeve.

he will express his exact sentiments and beliefs in public. host: human michael hayden both have books out -- you and michael hayden both have books same message, that the intelligence community is working for you, president trump a possible danger to american security. theme, andnderlying this is specifically in my book about the assault on intelligence. a theme i speak to is the increasing difficulty of knowing the truth where we have alternative facts or the truth is irrelevant. this is a dangerous thing and mike is sounding the same concern. the danger to the country, when we have difficulty determining the truth. , theis what the things russians would love to play two, casting doubt on whether actual

truth is knowable or not. that is not a good thing. host: have you met vladimir putin? guest: i have not. host: does the dni structure work in your view? guest: i think it does. remember the origins of the dni. it was a recommendation made by the 9/11 commission in the aftermath of 9/11. their conclusion was that the nation needed a senior official whose full-time job was to promote integration, coordination and collaboration between the components of the intelligence community. that recommendation found its , signed bye law president bush on the 17th of december, 2004. it is memorialized in law, to be somebody who's fault -- whose full-time job is to champion integration. i believe it is needed.

it is a never-ending journey. a system is large and complex as the u.s. intelligence community, you need something like that. a harvard business schl grad would probably have designed things differently, but that is our system and i think it works pretty well. host: your first appointment was under president bush, wasn't it? guest: i was appointed, nominated and confirmed, just to finish the bush term with about 19 months left. he was held over by the oncoming obama administration and in turn, bob asked me to stay.

2010 to 2017, james clapper served as director of national intelligence. here is his new book. we will continue to go through it, as we take your calls. we will begin with bob in hometown, illinois on our republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to ask mr. clapper about a view he told joy behar, that america was spying on the russians during the trump campaign. did president obama authorize that? guest: i did express a version to the terms i. the point i was trying to make is that if we are collecting

and ingence on anybody this case it is on the russians, and that was a concern that we in the intelligence community have. ath respect to the informant least in the mind of intelligence professionals, there is a difference between spying and an informant which is the most benign form of information gathering. there is no tradecraft involved. the informant is not a trained clandestine case officer. he was not misrepresenting his identity or anything like that. or any president would not normally authorize the fbi to use an informant. they use hundreds of informants. it is a legitimate form of information gathering. it is highly regulated and overseen by the fbi. i did not know about this informant.

with -- nor would that be the normal case. michigan,k in independent line. like to ask mr. clapper why anybody should take him seriously. he sat before congress and lied to everybody. he is an embarrassment to this country. what has been going on has been humiliating for us as americans. there is no good -- there is no differential between spying and going behind someone's back, looking at them and not letting them know. why wasn't someone in the trump campaign informed? -- why didn't something similar happened to the hillary campaign? this is america, we have a right to the fourth amendment. it is in the constitution. guest: what the caller is referring to is an exchange i had with senator ron white, a

democrat of oregon. host: can we show that very quickly? this is 2013. what i wanted to see is if you could give me a guess or no answer to the question, does the nsa collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of americans? >> no sir. >> it does not? >> not wittingly. there are cases where they could collect,ntly, perhaps but not winningly. host: was that the truth? guest: what happened as i started to explain, there was a which is before the line that was shown on the clip. the bottom line is, i wasn't

thinking about what he was asking about. i made a mistake, but i did not lie and there is a big difference. the details get into the arcana of surveillance law. he used the term dossier a couple times, and you can find the entire text of the clip which was not included here on page 207 of the book. i just did not think about what he was asking about. was thewas asking about limited metadata storage program the nsa had of about 30% of the phone providers, which was put in place as a direct result of 9/11. that is a way of checking when they had foreign communicants, presumably terrorists, to with

--eone in the united states communicating with someone in the united states. that is what said no -- senator wyden was asking about. was i was thinking about the collection on non-us persons overseas which is governed by section 702 of the foreign intelligence surveillance act. my comment about inadvertent collection is only -- it makes no sense in the context of the patriot act. sense in the context of section 702. even if i had been on the same page with senator wyden and understood what he was asking about, i was still in a better place because the program in question that he was asking about was classified at the time. this was in march of 2013.

it, i have been going to the hill for 25 years, testifying dozens, maybe hundreds of times, answered in open and closed sessions, thousands of questions. illogic, i think a lie on one question on live television. given the nature of the hearing, a two-hour hearing that preceded this question, i was not under oath. i've made a big mistake which i freely at knowledge but i did not lie. host: here is page 207 from facts and fears. you can watch that full hearing at c-span.org, if you type in klapper, -- type in clapper, w

yden, 2013. cliff is on our republican line. komi leaked, he lied about it in congress. mccabe lied to the fbi, same as general flynn. the fire is a court was never told that hillary pay for the dossier. this was during a presidential campaign. the pfizer court was never told michael steele was fired by the fbi for lying to the fbi. very incredible source. hillary clinton the fbi were dealing with russia. that is where they got their dirt for the dossier. entire conversations between the trump and foreign leaders have been leaked to the press. michael flynn was unmasked. host: i think we got the idea. a lot of dots that need to be conducted -- need to be connected. as the ni, were you aware that -- as dni, were you aware?

guest: we try to write all of them down. the infamous dossier. the dossier is a collection of that were notmos drawn on the intelligence community assessment. that is not to say that some of what was in the dossier, what was corroborated in our intelligence community assessment which was drawn a lot of other sources which we had confidence in. the foreign intelligence surveillance court, authorizations are typically a very rigorous process with a lot of documentation and typically, they don't necessarily ride on one source of information. i will speak only to my

mccabe,ce with andy when he served as head of washington field office, which is the fbi local office and then became deputy director of the fbi. i thought andy was great. he did a great job. i found him to be a man of high integrity. i don't know about the specifics of what ensued after that. unmasking, another term that comes up frequently. protecting the identity of u.s. persons. engaged withsons valid foreign intelligence targets and that activity is reported on, there are minimization procedures which require that the identity of those u.s. persons the masked. asy are typically described u.s. person one, person to, person three -- person two, person three.

if you see these reports, and you need to understand the context, i did the unmasking's. i can understand the context or try to understand the context of what was going on between that u.s. person and a valid foreign intelligence target. that is the key point. i'm sure i have not covered a lot of those points since he brought up a lot. the one i could jot down. -- the ones i could jot down. guest: did you say that putin considers trump a russian asset in the white house? guest: i did not say that. given putin's background as a trained professional kgb officer, that he would approach our president or for that matter any other head of state that he would deal with as though they were a potential asset, meaning how could i co-opt influence or gain

leverage over this person. approaches way putin how he deals with other heads of ste. host: anthony is in las vegas, democrats line. you are on with former dni james clapper. caller: good morning. i read your assessment on russian election middling in the 2016 election and i noticed on page three, paragraph four, the paragraphnce of that states that there is no forgeries in the wikileaks emails. the media spins that and they don't tell that part, that there are no forgeries in the emails, but you did a brilliant assessment and the left media has really lied to us about the me house -- about the emails.

there are a lot of things in those emails where mrs. clinton or thering her diplomats u.n. personnel to be compromised by getting their dna, getting their passwords. that is a mess -- that is a method of compromising people and making them do your bidding. i have to say you did a brilliant assessment. i don't listen to what the media tells me. i look at official documents, i read your document. i don't like how the media spins what your assessment was, because in your assessment, you did say that there is no forgeries in the emails. i think what the caller is referring to is the fact that the emails appeared to be valid. , best we could

tell, no evidence of tampering or manipulating or otherwise altering thetent. i appreciate the comment. host: edward snowden, 2009, you write the morning after snowden. the president never raised his voice or turned his frustration on me. how could you people allow this guide to jump around like this and not see that he was a problem child? my 50 years of experience mostly as the jr. guy in the room told me not to answer, just let him vent. i left the oval that morning, doging like an omega slicking away from a confrontation with the alpha, not quite sure if he is hurt or just feeling that way. host: that was -- guest: that was not a good day for me. briefinge short straw

oh -- briefing president obama when mr. snowden first turned up in hong kong. it was a difficult session. i knew it would be. we did not know whole lot of andils about mr. snowden just getting underway with an assessment of what he purloined. i realized that this assessment was not going to go well and it didn't. the president was very controlled. he did not yell or raise his voice. bad when i slinked out of the oval that day because i felt as though we had let the nation down and certainly let the president down. host: danya is in miami. caller: good morning. a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak with you.

i have a quick question with regard to the summit. i am concerned and i would like to know if you are as well, with mr. trump's inability to find or admit or understand the importance of being prepared for when he goes into a meeting with the leader of another country. as we know in this particular is a dictator, is no different than what russia lived in, in the past and to some degree in the present. have livedountries through with this type of dictator, a person who is clearly self-serving and ability toin his own rule, this perception of himself by the rest of the world, without regard for the people that he rules over or the other

countries that he may interact with. host: we are going to get an answer on the intricacies of meaning with the north korean leader. -- of meeting with the north korean leader. guest: the president self commented it is about the importance of attitude, and he has a point. that is an important dimension if you enter into a negotiation with a foreign head of state, particularly this one. attitude is important. preparation helps, too. i think president trump has had a lot of preparation. we began the brief when he was a on north korea, even then. that dni coates and then cia director mike pompeo spent a lot of time educating

mr. trump about north korea. i do think he understands the nature of the regime. his tweets would indicate that. it is a brutal regime. that we are in a much better place, negotiating and talking than we were, six months ago we were exchanging very bellicose threats -- when we were exchanging very bellicose threats. i don't think, or at least i hope, that this summit does not get into the gritty details of negotiating denuclearization, which is a very complex subject. theope would be that president might secure an answer to a very important question of kim jong-un. what is it that north korea needs to feel sufficiently secure that they don't need

nuclear weapons, and if president trump could elicit an answer, that would be a very good thing. what was the connection , allen the dni, the fbi these agencies that have a role in dhs? guest: the fbi is part of the intelligence community. a good many positions and the fbi are funded through the national intelligence program. crucial bridge between the law enforcement community and intelligence. bob mueller, when he served as director of the fbi and was succeeded by james komi, they were key members of the intelligence community. host: the next call is noel in new york, republican line. caller: good morning.

i appreciate you taking my call. say that i am so thankful that hillary clinton is not our president, because all of your deep state criminals would never be outed like you are right now. anybody that lies in front of of 13 and thench comes on the view and tells the view, that you admit you had a spy in the trump campaign and that you weren't spying on the hillary campaign. this is just such a mess. i hope you do time in prison for this. that is all i've got to say. host: a lot of callers bringing of march 2013. guest: as i explained earlier, i won't go through that again, but obviously i have a different view about it.

i made a big mistake because i was not thinking about what senator wyden was asking. it is as simple as that. i regret it. i admitted it. that is all i can say about it. the senate intelligence committee did not see fit to send a referral to the department of justice, which they would normally do. bearing it is not a because you are supposed to tell the truth all the time anyway, but i was not under oath because of the nature of the hearing. aboutller makes a point the difficulties that the intelligence community found itself in, with both campaigns. 2016, you were9, in -- and after that, you sent a letter to president-elect donald trump. the occasion was his

receiving the first -- his first presidential daily brief. weime-honored custom followed with presidents going back to kennedy. in that, i wrote a short note about ensuring him that the intelligence community was standing by, ready to support him with all the information we could, to help him make the difficult decisions that lay ahead and to try to reduce uncertainty and risk wherever we could. i further mentioned that i thought, i hoped he would abide by, follow and support the principle of truth to power, that not only would he allow the intelligence community to convey the truth to the best of their ability, but that he would encourage and protect it. host: and the phone call?

guest: the phone call was the 11th of january, after a news conference in which he characterized the intelligence community as not these -- as nazis. he felt malik the dossier, which -- he felt we leaked the dossier. i felt an obligation to the men and women of the intelligence community to speak up for them and defend them. what i tried to do in the phone call was appeal to his higher instincts, by pointing out the fact that he was inheriting a national treasure in the form of the intelligence community, composed of a lot of dedicated men and women, many of them in many hazardous and risky conditions trying to make the nation safe and secure. host: all of those stories are detailed in facts and fears,

james clapper's new book. jim is on. caller: a quick question. please give me a little bit of time. thet, i want to know earliest communication you had about trump or a member of his campaign where any member of the national security council or foreign intelligence board, the national intelligence council or community management staff. that i want your thoughts about this guy, tommy robinson. he was smart in england, they silenced him. i think the state department should have offered him political asylum. happen here, too because president trump was under attack by use edition nests. brennan, rosenstein, mueller. you will try to censor the internet. you are trying to take away our

ability to assemble over the internet. the next time to grab power, i know you are going to pack the courts. you did it under obama. host: we are going to cut it right there. we got your point. a lot of anger out there. way shapeified in any or form in your view? guest: not in my mind. it is hard to know where to start. me andortant thing for it gets back to why i wrote the book, was the threat posed by the russians. the russians have interfered in elections for forever, in their own end in other people's. they have interfered in our elections going back to the 60's, but never as directly as they did in 2016. to me, that is what is important.

some of these other allegations and conspiracy theories are pretty hard to respond to. the intelligence community does not censor the internet. i don't know who tommy rawlinson is. the earliest time he began to notice all of this with the russian interference was at least in 2015 and built up over a period of time. in the late summer, early fall of 2016, i have seen a lot of bad stuff in intelligence but never anything like this that struck at the very pillars of our political system. host: juliana sans, then america have the right to know some of the information that he posted ange, did ass americans have the right to know some of the information that he posted? directorthink of cia

mike pompeo's characterization of wikileaks as a nonstate hostile -- exposing secrets and classified information that could potentially be quite damaging. ofet it about the idealism exposing government wrongdoing and being transparent, which in itself i agree with, but when you expose things that he is -- that he has exposed the potentially puts people's lives at risk, that is another matter. host: paul, orlando, republican. caller: thanks for taking my call. mr. klapper, i've -- mr. clapper, i've got some questions for you. you have a real credibility problem with me and i will tell you why.

you -- iday, i saw all saw you before a congressional committee. i don't know if it was house or senate, but you were asked if there was any evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and the russians, and you said you had not found any. a few days later, sunday on meet the press, check todd asked you -- chuck todd asked you and you said you don't know. ifsecond question for you is there was an informant on the trump campaign to protect the trump, why wasn't there one in the clinton campaign? on the first question on collusion, what i said and i think the caller is referring to an appearance i made on meet the press in march of 2017. i stand by that statement that

when i left the government, we saw no direct smoking gun evidence of collusion. that is not to say there wasn't, i don't know if there was. someone argued that there had evidence. hopefully that will be resolved one way or the other by special counsel robert mueller. whether there was or not, but is a cloud hanging over the country and over the presidency. with respect to the informant, these are tactical judgments that the fbi makesbout informants and where to recruit informants and why. i am not in a position to , aond-guess an investigation law enforcement investigation that the fbi conducted. in the case of the informant

that has been revealed, the target here was what were the russians doing? were they trying to infiltrate the trump campaign or any campaign and if there had been evidence that russians had tried to infiltrate the clinton campaign, i would hope they did the same thing. virginia,ce in west democrats line. caller: i apologize for all the people who have attacked you this morning. partl like fox news may be of russian propaganda and part of this scheme to make americans go against the intelligence community. i would like to remind the public that we have a president who is acting like a traitor. it is not respect the fbi. the same people that if you have a child missing, you will call these people and ask for their help. i have nothing further -- nothing but the respect -- nothing but ultimate respect for the people who protect this country.

when they leave their homes, they don't know if they are coming home. some of this immature stuff going on in our government, we have to come to some kind of solution. i really don't see why anyone would trust president trump. he could n past -- he could , yetass a background check we have him as president. have a great day and bless you for your service. guest: i appreciate that. i think the caller makes a great point about the damaging effect that the assaults on our institutions are having, particularly a great organization like the fbi which has thousands and thousands of great men and women all over the world who are doing what they can to keep this nation safe and

secure. have theot help to president attacking as he has been, this great institution which includes rank and file people who do great things for this country. i appreciate the caller's statement. host: what do you think of the term deep state? guest: it is a term i never andd of until the campaign the aftermath. i guess it means there is a cobol or conspiracy -- a cabal or conspiracy in the government or in the intelligence community that is devoted to undermining president trump, which is just not the case. there is no organized or disorganized deep state. it does not exist. host: rick is in springfield, illinois, calling on the independent line.

wondering what the gentleman's thought would be on climate change and how that might affect national security. i know that the military is very concerned with it, considering all the bases that are located on the coast. guest: the caller raises a great point. climate change is happening. you can argue until the cows come home how much of it is caused by mankind, but it is happening. climate change has profound impact with respect to national security. it has all kinds of side effects. for example, food availability, water availability. i think he is quite right to bring this up because it does have a major national security implication. d with the steady

to with theed steady rise in sea levels around megalopolis's,-- many of which are on the coast, we are going to have a real challenge. i say we, but i mean the whole globe. host: somebody up -- somebody who appears in your book relatively often but we have never heard of before. stephanie o'sullivan. stephanie was my deputy for six years. she was phenomenal. favor line i used to describe stephanie was the one i borrowed from bob gates. stephanie's 8 -- spoke for me and in the not spoke

whole six years, we never had a disagreement. she was a superb leader. she was recognized at e ke award on friday night -- by the baker award on friday night. well-deserved, it is for lifetime achievement for decades of service to this country. she is a phenomenal person. host: fort lauderdale, public in line. -- republican line. caller: thank you for your service. what type of information gathering techniques is the -- does the nsa or any other agency undertake on united states citizens whether wittingly or unwittingly and what is the nature of the information gathered? does any agency have the ability to review or analyze the substance of an email or telephone communication of the average citizen?

guest: that is a great question. i should explain something that gets into the technology realm. if you go back to the heydays of the cold war, when essentially there were two mutually exclusive telecommunication systems, one dominated by the soviet union and its orbit and one dominated by the united states. if you saw anything on u.s. in the soviet dominated telecommunication system, it was a rare event. then we have the internet. now we have a single global telecommunication system in which everything is all mixed up. you have hundreds of millions of people, innocent people conducting billions of innocent but allions every day

mixed up among those innocent transactions by innocent people are nefarious people who include nationstate entities and knocking -- non-nationstate entities who are doing various things. ncaa, how to find those needles not just in one haystack but thousands of haystacks without infringing upon somebody -- upon the privacy of the individual citizen. the intelligence community goes to great lengths to ensure that they only doubt the nefarious needles among all those haystacks. metaphormi once used a that i thought was accurate, that the community is supposed to be able to discern when one hay ise straws of morphing into a needle.

that is very hard to do. there are -- all branches of the government are involved to ensure that the privacy of americans is not unduly threatened. , givenre mistakes made the magnitude and complexity of this operation, but i can assure you that we go to great lengths to ensure privacy considerations are considered and no one is unnecessarily affected. there is controversy surrounding the use of this data through law enforcement investigations. there is a lot of oversight over this, to ensure that there is no abuse. host: a recent headline on breitbart.com. need regulation for social media, something akin to the fcc. is that correct? guest: we set up the federal communications commission which is active today, to regulate

media of thesocial day, meaning radio and television. socialy belief that media platforms need something comparable to the fcc to regulate it. i think the recent testimony of ,ocial media platform companies executives, kind of illustrates why that is necessary. host: facts and fears, the desk -- did this have to go through a vetting process because of your position? guest: it absolutely did. anyone in intelligence or in government that has -- the rights of book has to take sure is no classified information divulged. i went through that and thanks to the great people at odni, it went pretty well. we did not have the change too

many things or make too many deletions. host: ron is in new hampshire, independent line. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask you about privacy. i am with the united amendment, we had a lot of work on that. we have a whole section in the amendment that deals with privacy. the question i wanted to ask was what is privacy, and why is it important? guest: that is a great question. ishink the notion of privacy keeping your own affairs unto yourself, without undue outside monitoring. the problem, given the , if you dotoday emails, mickey television call

-- make a telephone call, there is a record that ensues that is -- prior tof that the internet is very different and i think the caller raises a great question about what is privacy and how can it be protected, given the technology with all of its advantages, one of the downsides to it is the loss of privacy. host: a few minutes left with our guest. rachel in tennessee, democrat. caller: i just wanted to comment in the i find disturbing bipartisan group think of

.nti-russia hysteria to me, it is xenophobic. it is racist. it is like russians have become synonymous with evil, treason phobia, becameam a huge issue we are still trying to overcome after 9/11. ifs is what is now accepted you are xenophobic toward russia or russians, that is excepted and i find that truly disappointing and disgraceful for this country. we should not be ramping up tensions unnecessarily with russia. we should be partnering with and building up on their borders with nato and wanting to

permanently stationed troops in dangerousis is very and i want to go back to jfk -- host: we are going to get a response. we want to get a response to your views. after the demise of the soviet union, we made a lot of russia and engage prior administrations certainly attempted. the obama administration attempted to quote, reset the relationship. snatching back from me and their invasion of eastern and their crimea invasion of eastern ukraine, propping up a murderous regime in syria and other things the

russians do, particularly under the tenure of vladimir putin, and we will have six more years of vladimir putin, who sees czarlf as a latter-day with a strong personal animus against the united states and what we stand for. you have to consider the facts of their behavior. of thent the shootdown malaysian airliner over ukraine, which they did and did all kinds of things to try to evade responsibility for, just like they shot down the plane in 1983. russians have h -- have a long track record of bad behavior and we have to be in a mode of being very careful with them. i might also add that the russians, something you don't

talk about now, the are now involved in a very aggressive and is serving -- and disturbing modernization of their nuclear forces. if you soft putin's speech in the first of march where he five disturbing weapons, all of designed with one adversary in mind, and that is the united states. yes, it would be great if we got along with them and could find ways to agree with them, but we need to be in a ronald reagan mode of trust but certainly verify. it is hard to ignore their bad behavior. not: at what point do you meet with north korea, knowing of the executions and policies there. at what point do you not meet with vladimir putin, knowing about the malaysian jet? guest: that is a great question. we have diplomatic relations

with the russians. we have diplomatic relations with lots of countries whose orman rights terrible, as it is in russia. judgment about when to meet with somebody, some andhat is an opportunity with respect to both countries, we are in a much better place if we are both talking with them and negotiating, rather than saber rattling. host: brian is in west virginia, republican line. clapper, would ask mr. apper a question, but it seems like he dodges it. i am going to make a prediction. most of the time i am right on this. there were going to be some people that go to jail, and i would hope that mr. clapper

would come clean on this. host: why would these people go to jail? is a known fact that aey lied and they set up group of people that are against mr. trump, ani don't know where the outside influences coming in from, if they are being threatened. gaine soros or the clinton or what ever, but i hope that these people in these last days of judgment would come clean. host: that was brian west virginia -- brian in west virginia. guest: i am not quite sure how to respond to that. host: is there a group in the intelligence community that wants to see donald trump fail? people in the

intelligence community and law enforcement community all have their own political views. that is part of our system. the important thing is, whatever their political leanings, there are many who are in favor of president trump. the important thing is to keep separate ones politicals -- one's political views from one's professional endeavors. large, the intelligence and law enforcement community, with exceptions, these are human beings mind you, they do that, they keep separate their professional responsibilities from their political views. host: let's go back to north korea very quickly. china hosts russia and iran for a summit as u.s. tensions rise. a summit being held in beijing. does this surprise you? guest: it doesn't. -- it is probable

quite understandable and we should not be surprised when we appear to be abdicating our position since world war ii, and others are going to feel -- phil that vacuum -- fill that vacuum. as we drop out of the transpacific partnership, china will jump into that void and this summit is another example. presidenthis were obama, would you be traveling to singapore with him? guest: probably not. he would have someone with him from the odni. that is what i understand in this case. we would have intelligence representation, but not the dni personally. host: howard -- how confident are you on our intelligence over

north korea? guest: i am pretty confident in it. andh korea is a hard target it is a hard target because we are not there. that is why i have been an advocate for establishing intersections between pyongyang and washington, to have double medical presentation, well below the level of ambassador, just like we did in havana. establishing a-- normal mechanism, the normal apparatus for double medical dialogue would be a good thing -- for diplomatic dialogue would be a good thing. host: everything we had discussed with james clapper is contained in his book, fact and fears. we appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up, former whitewater independent counsel ken starr will give us his

coming up, ken starr will give us his take on the robert mueller investigation. after that former n.b.a. star and author will be here to talk about the importance of athletes and their voices. but first, this week's "newsmakers" guest is congressman jim jordan the cofounder of the freedom caucus. he talked about the caucus' views on immigration legislation and discharge petition that some republicans will use to potentially bring mmigration bills to the floor. >> build the border, chain migration, stop the visa lottery system, reform our asylum laws, when we do all those things the president has been clear we can address the daca situation. but when we address that daca population, those individuals, we have to do it in a way

that's consistent with the rule of law that doesn't give those individuals a different, unique, special path to citizenship. they have to get in line like everybody else, they can't jump the line, have a different path. that to us is just fundamental. so that's the kind of legislation we're pushing for. that kind of legislation mirrors closely the bill that chairman glat chairman of the judiciary committee has introduced and we've supported for a long time. u guest: we are hours away from the discharge petition. if that happens, what does that mean for speaker ryan and for the broader house republican conference? guest: what it means is there will be four bills on the floor. unfortunately the likely outcome will be a bill that a handful of republicans support along with all the democrats and that is not the outcome that was the mandate of the 2016 election. what it means for leadership, for the inside baseball game here in washington, i'm not really focused on that.

i say this all the time but i say it because i believe it. what i'm focused on doing is what we told the people we're going to do. what they elect us to do. that outcome the discharge petition outcome will likely be something contrary to the mandate of the election. that's what i'm concerned about. that's what i'm trying to stop and get a good bill that we can get republicans to support, that the president is supportive of and that is consistent with what the people sent us here to do. host: you can watch that full interview today at 10:00 a.m. nd 6:00 p.m. eastern time.

guest: i have a sense of dejaview all over again. host: in your view was the mueller investigation necessary? i'm in no position to judge that but i know rosen stine is a person of integrity. i think under the department of justice regulations, governing the appointment of a special counsel, it was appropriate to do it. if there are issues of wrongdoing at the highest levels of government there has to be an investigation. the question is who carries it out. under our present situation the attorney general or the acting attorney general in this case then makes that judgment. we need to is have someone independent of the justice department come in for this

essentially special assignment. host: what's the difference between a special investigation and an independent investigater or counsel? guest: well, the big difference is who appoints. under the independent counsel statute, which i was operating, i was appointed at the request of the attorney general not that she requested me but i was appoint bid a three-judge panel called the special division of the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia. everybody wake up. so that's the mechanism that congress chose in the immediate wake of water gate. ow the special counsel has a different name. it's the same function, appointed by the attorney general. sounds technical. huge difference under our separations of power system. host: but the same function, the same rules, the same power? guest: the same function except in this instance bob mueller or

any special counsel has to go to -- i'm just going to say the attorney general. makes it simple. goes to the attorney general to secure approval f an expansion. right? of the investigation. any major investigative step. i'm going to be now looking at this. i wasn't originally looking at this but now i'm going to be looking at it. he has to go to rob rosen stine. >> host: your investigation started without with a corporation or real estate development called white water. right? guest: much more but that was at the heart and core. i investigated the investigation from a great man. bob was appointed essentially as a special counsel when the independent statute had last. so this interim period. and bob got to little rock and found any number of things that he was looking into. webster hubble's billing.

the death of vincent foster, jr., possibly violations of banking laws in the gubetorle campaign in arkansas in 1990. i was surprised with the breadth and range of his activity. at's what i inherited. the white water land deal was part of it. >> these tnd to grow. don't they? these investigations. the president got g peached over something unrelated to all of this. goo guest: the relationship there -- and we were authorized to conduct that part of the investigation by the attorney general and the special division. so there's this two-step shopping process. so when we brought the information as to what we understood, that might be under way, possible perjury, subnace of personalry, a very serious crimes, we ran not waubd to the attorney general of the united

states janet reno. she looked at it. she sent over the head of the fraud sbs of the justice department. he reviewed the evidence. sh agreed. janet reno agreed. but we now know is lewinski had to be investigated. she goes to the special dwiss. the three junls, they agree. so there was a kind of double cheb process under the independent count statute. now it's just the judgment of the attorney general. host: aslk with ken starr we want to get your views as well. judge star, does this special ounsel independent counsel statute work? guest: it's very hard when it comes to investigating the crimes of the united states. we go back in time to the grant

administration. we see in each and every instance there's been some sort of question about the legitimacy of the investion because it becomes very controversial. people line up on one side or the other when the president is being investigated. but i think it works. does it work? yes it does work. it's not pretty but i think it does work. as a mechanism for asshuring the independence and integrity of the investigation, and then the check. we all want honest government. well we really do. do you want honest government? and do you want possible -- possible wrong doing to be ferretted out? most people would say yes we do. host: you've become an unelected official, however, and basically the second most powerful person in washington. guest: i would depiss agree with that. there are nine justices on the

supreme court. but there's also the chair of the fed. the secretary of state. so i would debate that one. and i think i would win that debate. but it certainly is an important responsibility and needs to be carried out with as much alackty, as much speed as you possibly can. host: but yours was five years. guest: it was. it kept expanding. we got for example the travel aufings, the f.b.i. files. how did the f.b.i. files of republicans get over to the white house? and we were asked to look at these things. so there is a natural perhaps at times odd evolution of the way the work is in fact expanded. but here's the check. there's not a rogue prosecuter out looking at anything he or she wants to. there are checks in place. and i think that's the basic civics lesson that got lost under the independent counsel

statute and i hope it's not getting lost now. that bob mueller reports to the attorney general of the united states. he is an officer temporarily of the justice departmen host: so when you're reading in the papers about the mueller investigation you see now that paul man forth is -- seems to be investigated quite a bit. is he getting permission to follow that trail? guest: presumptively so. that's the way read the rglations. obviously i don't know what's happening on the inside. but as i read the regulations under which bob mueller is appointed and operating, yes, he would go to the acting attorney general and say here is the information that we have. you get that second look by the attorney general who we need to be reminded in terms of our system nominate bid the president confirmed by the united states senate ensures hat the will of the president. host: what's it like to depose

a president? guest: it is a professional responsibility that you simply say i have a job to do and for purposes of this activity he is a witness and so i must carry on that responsibility. so you try to just shield out the fact that he is the president other than just making sure that as best you can, to treat the presidentsy and the person who occupies the oval office with dignity and with respect. host: when you heard the line it depends on what the definition of is, is, did you know that was going to play out in some way? guest: no. i did not. because it's in the give and take of what's happening during a four-hour period. i thought it was an odd answer. but i did not really pause to assess it. and certainly not its public significance.

host: was it important to videotape that deposition? guest: it was in terms we need to make sure our grand jurors were able to see it and there was one grand juror who was not going to be able to see it because it was a special setting of the grand jury. so we worked out through a very elaborate set of discussions here's the deal and part of it was videotaping. host: do you think president trump is going to meet with robert mueller? guest: only his defense lawyers can make that assessment. host: was it a mistake, do you think, if you were a defense lawyer would you recommend that he meet with robert mueller? guest: i don't know all the facts. it's as simple as that. but out of the recipe book of criminal defense lawyers, you never want your client to be exposed to the kinds of questions that could lead in a direction that you don't know including perhaps charges that

you were not forth coming and so forth. the so-called perjury trap. i think the perjury trap is terribly overemphasized and -- it's a perjury opportunity let's say that and so one has to be very careful. the criminal defense lawyer doesn't have complete confidence in his client's ability to answer truthfully then the wise course is not to. host: judge star, why are you ongeno lpresident of baylor? guest: i was fired and then i resigned as chancellor. and it erose out of allegations , violations of title 9 interpersonal violence is the term that the department of education used. so to my -- i was not fired as chancellor but changing of the guard in light of the report of possible wrongdoing. i was not implicated in the wrong doing but i was the captain of the ship.

host: do you think it was legitimate, a legitimate firing? guest: i am under an obligation not to criticize those who did fire me. i certainly have opinions but i respect the judgment of the board of regents that let's have a fresh start. and they have a new president with whom i had served at pepperdine. she was dean of the business school when i was dean of the law school. she's a very fine person. i have great confidence in her. host: what's your take on the current me too movement? guest: well, it's something that was sort of overdue. and any movement can have its successes. and sometimes i think we need to be sober about -- and i mean serious and cautious about rushing to judgment. in my line of work as a judge here in washington for many years, as well as a law clerk for several years, i learned early on don't make snap

judgments. gather all the facts, assess those facts carefully, as fair-mindedly as you possibly can and then come to judgment. and so any movement there may very well be excesses but in terms of the fundamental moral relationship and professional relationship people of power, people who may then be the objects of that power, we need transparency. we basically need to treat everyone with human dignity. host: let's hear from the callers. independent line. you're on with judge ken starr. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask you, sir, during the investigation of water gate, you made a comment now in retrospect. i may be misquoting so that's why i'm asking you to clarify. did you or did you not say that hillary clinton did not break any laws? guest: that we did not come to

any charges. by the way we're talking about the whitewater investigation. we made a careful assessment of the facts as we understood them and we chose not to go forward. i don't think i said anything beyond that. host: next call from california. mentioned the vince foster investigation. you were involved in that. can you add anything new to that that we didn't hear about before in terms of what were the theories why he committed suicide? i'm not a conspiracy theorist just out of curiosity. i didn't hear much at the time. guest: aptly -- a terrible tragedy because vince foster whom i never met was a very talented and respected level.

he gave and you can pull it up a very poignant graduation speech just two months before he took his life. he gave that graduation speech at his alma mater the university of arkansas law school where he did very, very well and a fine student and lawyer. one of the very poignant things that mr. foster said in that speech was in our profession if you lose your reputation you've lost everything. we produced a very comprehensive report. it is available publicly. it's over 100 pages. we looked at every dimension of what happened frensically, psychologically, and so forth, and we did conclude that -- and i'm convinced 100%, not even 99.9% -- that he did take his own life by his own hand using pistol that was in the family

overlooking the potomac river. it was a great tragedy. ut we looked very carefully at including i should say i had a very confidential interview. we had a more public interview so to speak with his widow lisa but i personally met with her privately at her request and received further information that simply confirmed that vince foster took his l host: tweet to you mr. star. w many investigation guest: we had 14 criminal convictions. and that was then sitting governor jim guy tucker. james mcdoogle who is deceased. and susan mcdoogle. that was after a very long

almost three-month jury trial in little rock. we also had a number of guilty pleas. there were other indictments including one of susan mcdugele for obstruction of justice and criminal contempt and then of two bankers in a small bank on who owned the small bank outside little rock for banking violations. those did go to trial and resulted either in acquitals from some towns or a hung jury, a divided jury in others. host: north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. that wanted to say myself and many, many of my friends think that -- and it's pretty obvious, that all these can hes, commissions, -- committees, commissions, what

have you, are so porous that any information of any consequence -- any consequence -- leaks out. do you really think, after all this time and millions of dollars spent on this charade or lack of a better word, that mueller and his minions have any sort of apocalyptic information on donald trump that hasn't already been played out in the press 50 million times? guest: well, thank you. well, i do have a different perspective but first of all i'm behind as we all are the vail of ignorance. and it will surprise you that as these dramas unfold, new information does in fact come to light. and that is not in fact made known to the public. first of all, prosecutors operate under grand jury

secrecy requirements, and that's of course operatives and applicable to bob mueller and the prosecutors on his s so i surmise or i'm just going to speculate that they know a lot that we do not know and will probably know in the fullness of time. you are right, there is a porousness and that's frequently to be regretted that there is porousness. but that's really up to we've seen by the way a recent indictment just this week of a nior counsel to the senate sngs committee. now, an indictment is an indictment and happily in our country a resumption of innocence. so we will see. but i wouldn't assume that you know that we the american people know nearly as much as bob mueller and his staff know. host: president trump june 4 tweet the appointment of the

special counsel is totally unconstitutional. despite that we play the game because i unlike the democrats have done nothing wrong. is it unconstitutional? guest: no. i have to respect -- respectfully disagree with the president. and it is not because he is not a lawyer. he is a very successful business person and obviously has accomplished a lot including the winning the presidency. but i don't think anyone would agree with him. but why is that? what's the basis for that? that goes back to the mechanism of the appointment. it seems so technical but who appoints? so just imagine the chief justice of the united states walks out and says i think we need to have a prosecuter appointed to investigate. and you name it. some official in the executive branch. not within the judicial branch. right? we say where did you get that power? that's one of the beauties of

our constitutional structure. power is checked. so we have separation of powers. something i hope we still learn in civics. so the appointment of bob mule bir the attorney general rod rosen stine acting resolves all the constitutional issues. it's the power of appointment. that's the key. that the wrong branch appoints someone to carry on a governmental function. it sounds odd but that's our structure. it's the president or his designees who get to do the appointment perhaps subject to senate confirmation. host: where were your offices? guest: right across kitty corner from the justice department. that was our washington, d.c. office. and i inherited that from bob fisk. again, i can't say enough good about bob fisk and all that he did in really laying the ground work. and then in little rock -- little rock is a beautiful

city. a great city. we were on the west side. i inherited -- i shouldn't say inherited. i took over peacefully bob fisk's offices on the west side of little rock. two financial center and center is spelled with an re. host: did you have security? guest: not for the first four years. in fact the people of arkansas were terrific. so i guess i had no death threats but as soon as then the controversial phase -- not that there wasn't controversy, there certainly was in arkansas. but there was controversy with a capital c, in fact all caps controversy, when the monica lewinsky phase broke and almost immediately the u.s. marshall service with the f.b.i. constantly surveying death threats and threat assessments came in and said you now have 24 hour security including your family. host: next call from florida.

caller: i just wanted to ask what his thoughts were of how far the mueller investigation can go outside of the realm of russian involvement and collusion leading right -- if they uncover other nefarious or illegal acts can they investigate that or does that have to be handed off off or do they just forget it? guest: no, they will not forget it or at least i don't think they will. and so what would happen is bob mueller having assessed the information coming to a judgment would then go to rod rosen stine the acting attorney general in this matter, and say here's what i have. and this is what i would like authorization to investigate. or, here's what i have and i don't think we should be the ones to investigate it. there's no reason for us to investigate it. but then you want to have the

folks in the criminal division or united states attorney's office as the case may be. but it's your judgment and not mine. so it will be a collaborative reporting relationship up the chain of command to the attorney general. if i could just add one thing. when i was an independent counsel, information would come to me, would come to our f.b.i. agents who were on assignment from their regular duties, whether philadelphia or whatever they would have a temporary assignment to little rock. information would come to them. someone comes to me and says hey there's this really crooked corrupt deal that's going on involving a state facility. i won't go into the details of it. you need to look at it. i said, well, thank you. this happened to be a woman. and i will report that as i did to the f.b.i. but i knew immediately that that was not within our realm

even remotely. it was a separate kind of concern about public integrity. so i reported that right away to the f.b.i. and i knew -- don't even know what happened with that. but there are mechanisms in place to keep and to check power. power is very important. so when there were accusations that yours truly was not acting within the province of his authority, that became part of the conversation, part of the public debate. it so comes back it's very important for everyone to understand that there are checks and balances in place in our governmental system. it doesn't mean there's not going to be abuse of power but there are checks and balances just as we learned i hope in civics class. host: as a reagan appointed

judge a as solicitor general was it a mistake to appoint a republican to investigate a democrat president? guest: no. in fact that's our tradition. beginning with grant and the so-called whisky ring running out of st. louis. so as we have been remind bid ron's recent biography of general grant, he was honest but he had some real dishonest folks around him. they were a bunch of crooks including in the treasury department. so when the scandal broke, general grant said ok this has got to be investigated. we can't do it with our justice department. he personally made the judgment we're going to appoint a former democrat senator from missouri to investigate. ditto then. that's ancient history. spring forward to watergate. the decision was made by the attorney general of the united states serving under richard

nixon to name a solicitor general who served under john kennedy and who had served brilliantly. so that was our tradition. but during my tenure, all of a sudden everything got turned totally upside down. he can't investigate because he as republican. now it's a law. i've been a judge and solicitor general of the united states but all of a sudden the president's partisans are -- i'll just say suddenly it became a bad thing to be a republican to investigate a democratic president and that was our system. host: michigan, republican line. caller: thank you. nice to meet you. my first question involved vince foster but one of your previous caller, you answered it. so i'm going to replace it with i've been listening to you and set me straight. did bob mueller have parameters

around what he was supposed to do? and number two, i've been hearing that there had to be some kind of a crime to actually install a special prosecuter. and my second question involves a young man who was found dead back in 2015-2016 and we've never heard much about it. he was connected with the democratic campaign at the time. i'm just wondering if you know anything about that. guest: thank you. i love the great state of michigan and i'm not running for office. our daughter and son in-law and four grandchildren spend about four weeks up there in that beautiful neck of the woods because we all live in texas. as to the first, as far as we know -- and when you go back to the appointment, the memorandum

or order of rod rosen stine back in may of last year, 13 months ago, we see what the original job was. the original job was to pick up on what then director james comey had testified to and his saying here is what we're looking into in terms of possible russian connections to the campaign and that is what he is to do. so it began with that. so some have said well that's a counter intelligence investigation. and i don't know. maybe it was solely counter intelligence. but i just want to say we don't know what we don't know. and he is such an experienced person. by the way, i should say i served with him in the whitewater investigation. host: rod rosen stine? guest: rod rosen stine. so rod rosen stibe is a

card-carrying republican but he checks his politics at the door. he is a person of rep tude and total integrity. doesn't mean i agree with every judgment but i don't have the basis for assessing the judgment because i don't have all the facts i'm not going to jump to any conclusions. but the control mechanism again that i think should provide assurance to the american people is that a duly appointed by the president of the united states official is ultimately in charge. host: did you read about yourself during your five years as independent counsel? guest: i did. host: we all did. i was wondering. guest: what an unfriendly question. i read some. but what i encourage my colleagues to do was shut it out. it's self-discipline. and i would violate my own sermon from time to time. we had to be aware of what was

being said out in the third or fourth estate, whatever estate you're in and so we would be aware of it but i didn't have a public communications officer, public information officer until right toward the end when it just became utterly impossible with monica beach having been established outside the courthouse just a few blocks from where we are right now. so i said -- our audience, and this is way i would put it. our audience, my dear friends, my dear colleagues, are the juries and the judges. the grand jurors and the pet t jurors we call them. and the judges. especially the chief judges who control the grand jury. when i say control, who supervise the grand jury. that's our audience. so we didn't do too well out in the public domain but i want to add within the media there were

lots of truth seekers, not just echo chambered types just parrotting whatever was being said out on the courthouse steps or what have you or a communications office by a -- from a partisan perspective. they really wanted to know the truth. and sometimes we would get calls from the media saying do you know something? and they would bring something to our attention. and i don't mean to be unpleasant but now that we're seeing the me-too movement, president clinton's interview and so forth recently, one of the people who is now being talked about a lot is broadric from arkansas. as far as i know, her allegations were uncovered by nb news. not by us. host: by lisa meyers. guest: good memory. and her producer.

and we knew then to be -- they were truth seekers. they were out seeking the truth as opposed to simply echoing whatever anyone might be saying. host: have you had any contact with the clintons or monica lewinsky since 1999? host: not with the clintons. i've been asked several times would you be willing to meet with the president? i said any time, anywhere. that has not happened. and then i ran in to monica totally by happen stance on christmas eve. that was the first time -- host: this past year? guest: yeah. i was on my way to church we were leaving one restaurant she was coming in to that restaurant with her family. so it was brief encounter. host: did you talk? guest: briefly. host: larry, new york. caller: judge star thanks for

your service. i have two quick questions. number one why did you replace bob fisk? was he fired? nuerwo, did you have the option after when you reported to congress to suggest that they hold off on impeachment and that bill clinton simply be tried after he left office? guest: great question. i was chosen to replace bob fisk because bob had been appointed by attorney general janet reno. so it's sort of like the system is now. then congress on june 30, 1994, radio authorized that provided for that different mechanism of appointment namely by the special division, three-judge court. so according to the order that the three-judge court issues f issued, replacing yours truly with the great -- bob fisk,

there was absolutely nothing that was critical of bob fisk. nothing whatsoever in the order. it was simply the structural anomaly so to speak that he had been appointed by the attorney general who roorpted to the president who was under investigation. so it was sort of made a clean -- the clean break. the second question? guest: i apologize i didn't write it down. caller: ost: we apologize. debbie. while my neighbor's -- clinten was secretary of state that her husband bill went to russia and got $500,000. she says that's unlegal and the .o.j. knew all about it.

so what do you say? guest: again you're going to hear me say this a fair amount. i don't know all the facts so i'm not going to jump to judgment. but here's a control mechanism that i think we all need to be mindful of because i think it's going to happen this week. that's what we're told. that is within the justice department there is an office called the office of inspecter general. and i have a feeling your audience knows full well that michael horowitz with the inspecter general of the justice department has a great reputation for total honesty, total integrity. and he is going to be coming out with a report we don't know the scope of the report and so forth. and within the f.b.i. is the office of professional responsibility. our audience will likely recall that the office of professional responsibility did a report did

a report with respect to andrew mccain and also as i recall made a criminal referral. so even within mother justice, main justice as i call it and within the f.b.i. which is part of the justice department, there are these checks. so let's just say that there may have been something questionable, something illegal about the transaction you just mentioned. that information i have every reason to think -- i don't know but i have every reason to think would be evaluated and assessed by the professional men and women of the f.b.i. and the justice department. host: second question by that caller. guest: larry, great. host: should the indictment have waited until after bill left office? guest: that's a very important question. under the statute that congress passed and then reauthorized, i was duty bound or any

independent counsel is duty bound to report to advise is the statutory term, advise the house of representatives when -- let's get legal just for a second. welcome to law school -- substantial and credible information. substantial and credible information comes to us that -- and impeachable offense may have been committed. now, we're not to go into constitutional law and say ok what is high crimes and treason and so forth. an impeachable offense may have been committed. in our view, which we think is solidly based in law, is that the crimes of perjury -- the potential crimes of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, obstruction of justice all found in the nature of the kind of offenses that congress might

very well believe, constitute impeachable offenses. it becomes a judgment for the house of representatives. now, we should know that at the end of his tenure president clinton on his pen ultimate day in office did enter into an agreement with my successer bob ray, robert ray, to resolve the issues in terms of his responsibility under the criminal laws of the united states. ost: georgia, democrat's line. ller: i have a main question but i'm very hard of hearing so i depend on the closed captions, which is always 30 seconds behind what people are saying. this is not the main question.

i understand about two years o mr. star, judge star, that you had regretted some of the things that you had done in the investigation of the clintons. i wonder did i hear right? is that true? but that's not the main question. the main question is mrs. mcdugele, i understand, that white water -- that the clintons invested's something like $53,000 in what was supposed to be a development of probably for tourism. my husband and i did the same here in north georgia, invest it into an area that had no roads just jeep trails and nothing had been laid out. we got three times our money back. in this case, i understand that the clintons lost their money but that susan mcdugele was put in prison most of the time in

isolation not able to see her other even until she would swear to what you or the republicans wanted her to say about whitewater. host: we're going to get an answer to both of those questions. guest: let me turn to susan mcdugele first. susan mcdoogle was convicted after a very long trial by a federal jury of felonies. those felonies arose out of her stewardship with respect to madison guaranteed savings and loan that she and her husband, james mcdoogle who was also convicted, owned and ran. so that's just the facts. now, let the record show she was pardoned by president clinton on his waning days in office. so the blotter is clean.

but she was convicted. now, we then asked her, she was subpoenaed to testify before the little rock grand jury. these are her fellow citizens nd she refused to do that. -- directed her ordered her to testify truthfully before the grand jury. and she declined to do that. o she was both civilly found guilty of contempt. that is to say all you have to do is go in and testify and you can be released. but at the same time she was serving her criminal sentence imposed by the late judge george howard who was an appointee of president carter. so politics aside, in terms of

the conditions of confinement this is the first i've heard of that. i doubt that but i had no control over the conditions of confinement given my function as a lawyer and independent counsel. with respect to the regrets, i certainly said and continue to say that i regret that the entire investigation came to us. i wish there had been another alternative because i had already been serving for several years at little rock as well as then peter the washington, d.c. venued prosecutions. the white house travel office files, the f.b.i. files. whether there was political interference by senior officials of the treasury department with what the resolution -- there's a whole host of vincent foster. so we had a very full docket and i thought that we were coming to the end of the arkansas phase. not at the end but coming

toward the end of the arkansas phase of the investigation. so i regret that there wasn't enough bob fisk ready sort of calling out the reserves that the attorney general could say, ok, special division you got five people who are ready to go so that we don't lose any time. so i wish it had been given, it being theewinski phase of the investigation, to another independent counsel but it just wasn't practical. or at least i think that was the attorney general's assessment. host: john in tennessee. ller: i've got a couple of questions. the reason we voted for donald trump because we're tired of what sort of, like what's going on right now.

do you think hillary broke the law? and the people -- and and i could see they're mad because they lost tomp but the people that's against him but everyone else like the ohio guy the people that -- guest: i think we got the point in tennessee. thank you. guest: and i understand your political point. and this happening really around the wes democracies, that the people not the yiltse alone said we want a totally different call it disrupter as our prime minister or what have you,. with respect to hillary and breaking the phones and so forth, i find that troubling

and i would hope that anything of that nature without in fact be investigated. but as you probably gather, i don't jump to conclusions until i know all the facts. so let's get all the facts. we do have mechanisms in place to ensure there is honest government. i think one of the things that's happened, the american people are rightly, as i say, they're skeptical of power and that's good. we need to be vigilant about liberty. but i'm not saying that john is cynical but we need to just say we want honest representatives in government. we want honest presidents. we want honest senators honest judges and so forth. that's sort of bedrock. we can disagree on policy. what's the right approach to immigration? we can all have our own views but we want basic honesty, noncorruption and so forth. so that also means not violating the law. so if there were violations in

the law we need mechanisms to bring people to account. and the message i would like to deliver is those mechanisms exist and i would just urge our udience not to suck m to sin innism. be vigilant friends of liberty but don't be cynical. host: i had a tweet up and lost it. did bill clinton ever threaten to fire you? guest: not that i know of. but of course janet reno did have the authority to remove me for good cause and i never gave her good cause. host: what was your relationship with her? guest: it was extremely good the first four years and then it was not so gentle during the ewinski phase. host: how valuable was linda trip? guest: she was extremely helpful on vince foster.

there's these different connections, six degrees of separation. so we knew linda trip. she was the cleef confidential assistant to vince and she is the last person we know in the white house complex who saw him before he left the complex and headed across the river. in terms of she brought us the information based upon her friendship with monica lewinsky and then she had the tape recordings of the conversations with monica and those conversations suggested to us the possibility not only of monica being involved in rule of law issues but also the president of the united states. ost: good morning.

caller: what continues to surprise you about the investigations and also what advice would you give to mueller right now? oiveragetsdz thank you. i try not to be baffledut i in ciate that description your question. but i try to be patient and just say ok i don't know everything but let's just take it a step at a time, be orderly, be methodical. just call it the scientific method. so as i say i try not to be baffled. i would say curious. but i'm not baffled by my own investigation but i'm curious as i think we all are. host: advice to robert mueller. guest: carry on as quickly as you can and try as best you can

to steel yourself against all of the noise in the media. just get your job done as honestly as you can. host: steve twitter. guest: i believe that a sitting president can be indicted but that is not the policy of the justice department. my own view is that no one is above the law. that includes the president of the united states. in the clinton versus jones civil litigation involving the allegations of paula jones, that the then governor of arkansas had engaged in sexual hairsment of really rassdzer grotesque way, that is the allegation, never proven. the case was never tried. it was eventually settled. but a unanimous supreme court concluded that the president has to respond to civil litigation, does not even get a postponement until the time he

is through with his office. that he leaves office. that's the basis for my view. however, the justice department official position embodied in the office of legal counsel opinion from 2000 is a sitting president cannot be indicted. and bob mueller i believe has to follow that justice department policy. host: kathleen, colorado. caller: hi. you mentioned that there are mechanisms to bring people to account and you also said that the american public should not be cynical. i say that where many of us are cynical about our judicial system based on reality we watched you investigate a president who testified under oath about lying, having to do with an extra marital affair. yet we did not witness bush and

cheney and that administration held accountable for the wmd lies in the run-up to the invasion of iraq, we did not watch bush and cheney be held accountable for possibly being deeply involved. with watch obama and holder dismiss the ees pannage upcoming trial some years ago. so we hear people like yourself and many others of our leaders say things like no one is above the law. yet we witness reality about very serious issues never -- and people not held to account in upper level positions. host: i think we got the point. ken starr. guest: well, i am going to push back because the very fact that you're able in a very articulate way to say you have concerns about the lies, wmd, dimension ot every

of our public life should result in criminal charges. the key is bring facts to light and then hold people accountable in other ways. not every political judgment that may have some legal implication is necessarily a crime. my own view and people disagree with this, welcome to democracy, is that we overcriminalize things in the united states. i wish there were less reliance on the criminal laws and more on democratic checks such as oversight hearings and so forth. my own view but i don't know the facts that rod rosen stine knew. it would have been better for us at this stage in 2018 to know definitively was there collusion between the russians, russian interests, and the president's campaign?

i still don't know that. we can say there's no evidence or there's lots of evidence but we don't know the views of robert mueller. that is not a criticism of bob mueller. it is, however, just a necessary fact call it an opportunity cost. the expense, when we go the criminal function. rather than an oversight function by congress. host: texas. republican. good morning. aller: good morning. with the report coming up from the ig this week or next week, i would assume is going to create quite a comparison between the clinton investigation hillary clinton d the trump investigation or mueller investigation. one of the things that vexed me about the hillary investigation more than anything, i think was the use of immunity. my understanding that five or

six clinton people were given immunity. the one that probably vexed me the most was botting a lano. the it guy. it's my understanding that he s a relatively high up in it management at the state department and the -- he went to work for her privately and installed was responsible for installing h.r. server at home. my experience -- guest: host: where are you going with that? we're running out of time. guest: knows the rules about how the security associated with it and whether government rules or corporate rules is going to know it better than the guy whose are going to have to implement it. and there's no way a management or executive in that position even if they wererules or corpoe would know it better than the

guys who have to implement it. orre's no way that a manager executive in that position, even if they were to do something that they were asked to do that was not appropriate, there's no way to -- host: we're going to have to leave it there. any comment? waco, so weve in are sort of neighbors. immunity as a tool that prosecutors use, and like any tool, it can be abused, or the result of a miscalculated judgment. i would say that i'm concerned with -- but i think the kind of things that reallyraising go to honest government are, in fact, eating reviewed and analyzed by professional people of integrity. i don't know that, but be patient. let's wait and see. the ballgame is not over. right now in it is

the seventh inning. think ofid mrs. start the five years you were an independent? guest: she was supportive. the hard part became when we had round-the-clock security at home, and our daughter, who came out fine, had security in college. host: do you think your reputation took a hit? guest: big-time. lots of torpedoes. --ad been known as a log i as a law guy. -- andk times praised my then two weeks later called for me to resign. the effect of a presidential's anyunications apparatus, president, any white house will be able to muster at least 45% to 50% of the american people around the flag and say, here's what i think, and people are

going to tend to follow. host: after baylor, you remained at waco? what are you doing? we have seven grandchildren, so that's fun. i'm working a lot on religious liberty issues. i'm working with the justice department and immigration judges there it there are several issues around the world in terms of religious liberty. i've been involved in the training of -- who will be here early next week, practicing law, and i'm also doing a fair amount of writing. i show up at baylor every chance i get. ken starr has been our guest for the last hour. coming up next, the author of matter -- "we

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> monday night on the communicators, former fcc chair tom wheeler talks about the end of net neutrality, interviewed by david mccabe, technology reporter for axios. >> the conversation has shifted to legislation, or some would like it to. do you think it is possible to legislate this issue question ? >> it's fascinating that the republican position has been that it is for congress to decide. congress has the opportunity to decide with the congressional review act that has passed the senate in a bipartisan way and is now

pending in the house, the republicans in the house and .ndustry say no look. if the chairman of the fcc has the courage of his convictions, that what he has done is right up toerica and will stand a vote in congress, he up to pick up the phone, call speaker ryan and say schedule it for a , and let's seese what the representatives of the american people have to say. >> watch the communicators, monday night at 8:00 eastern. on c-span 2. the u.s.-north korea summit is set for tuesday, and book tv will feature authors with books about the region. today, starting at 5:00, with yeonmi park. book, withouter

you, there is no us. -- and his book, america and the rogue states. henriksen. tom thomas, if you were staff curry, would you go to the white house to see the president as the new nba champs? guest: i probably wouldn't. and i have a lot of respect for -- no matternd which team won bank the championship, that the decision was they would not attend. i have to say, i have no notlems with tom brady going during the obama administration, because i think that is their right.

in a democracy, you aren't going to be forced to do something. you have the ability to express what itnion, no matter is, even if i agree or disagree. host: what about the concept of -- bysional teams being the president or the white house? a history of it and there's a reason for it. i enjoy seeing players using their voices to be able to bring to light what their feelings and disagreements are, or their agreements, and dealing with the sitting president of the united states. when athletes interject themselves into this conversation, it brings an entire new light to it, because we have -- 32 million twitter followers saying, what is he talking about? discussion that wouldn't happen. host: here's a cover of your

book, "we matter," when did you become an activist in your career? guest: it kind of started for me when i was young. middle school and high school. i started to realize the power that athletes have, the voice they have. i was into speech and debate in high school. i had a situation where i was stopped by police, and i made a speech about it. all over tulsa, it got a lot of attention. it got i was an athlete a lot of attention. but it was something that happens all the time. people were telling me, thank you for speaking up for us. thank you for putting out there, something that wouldn't get put out there otherwise. people wouldn't cover it if we got pulled over by the police. host: you write in your book that you had a picture of john carlos on your wall. guest: it is an honor for him to be one of the people i've interviewed. athletes like bill russell,

kareem abdul-jabbar, john carlos, harry edwards. to interview them for my book, and then for them to complement my work and say they've been foowing me, it is amazing. i'm thankful for carrying on the tradition of athletes in activism, using their positions and platforms to speak on different issues that benefit the community, which is the whole point of activism. format of "wethe matter?" guest: i interviewed a lot of athletes from the past, to the present. from dwayne wade, russell westbrook, the 49ers, torrey smith. athletes from all over. and journalists. janel herrell, chris hayes. we are all talking about activism from different perspectives.

with adamith coaches, conductsbout how he and treats activism in the nba, which is a lot different from the nfl. there's a lot of different perspectives. what i want to do with this book is have it be an outline for future athletes to look at and be inspired. i want wnba players to read about -- and everything they did for the collectively, to continue using their voices. and i wanted to hear from the families of victims of police brutality, like trayvon martin's philando castile's sister and mother, eric garner's daughter.

brother said,'s if it weren't for athletes, nobody would know his brother's name. when he said that, i didn't really understand. he said, when trayvon martin was killed, they were trying to get media -- to get the local to cover the story, and they wouldn't. this is just another young black man being killed, this is a newsworthy. when lebron james and the miami heat started talking about trayvon martin, people said wait a minute, what has got lebron james and dwayne wade going? it shows you the power of athletes to get the conversation going. i played in the nba for 11 years, for the wizards for six years. host: what about laura

ingraham's advice to just "shut up and dribble?" guest: oscar isaacson was told the same thing, it is not new. if somebody disagrees with what you're saying, they want you to shut up. if they agree, listen to this athlete, it's so wonderful, and they'll have them on the show. but when they disagree, you need to stay in your lane. -- killing thea messenger to destroy the message. because then you immediately saw her saying, not only should they shut up, they aren't qualified to speak. it becomes a different thing. it's not new, and it wasn't shocking. there is a particular base that is always going to say that. they said it in the 60's and now. host: you interviewed john wall. i want to ask you about the ncaa.

do you think it is a fair system? john wall: i definitely think they should pay them, and no, that system is nowhere near fair. people keep saying we should be grateful for the opportunity of the college experience, and that is really a slap in the face. that is like "shut up and be grateful." years ago it50 might have been a scholarship for playing basketball, for playing football. but you look at the numbers now, just from an economic standpoint. it is a billion dollar industry,, with a b. the amount of money they are making, they are like scrooge mcduck swimming in dollars. they are making so much money and they don't have to pay any of their employees. and everybody associated with athletics in every university is being paid, but the athletes. i don't know the justification

you could have when you look at the economics of it as to why you shouldn't. host: what was your college experience like? guest: great. , had a great there experience. i remember my teammate, jason hart, looking through papers and seeing how much syracuse made off of the tournament. it was like, wow. just off of this tournament, by if you remember michigan, those are the people i grew up watching. they really changed the entire landscape. i interviewed them, and they said it was all fun and games, their freshman year, they are all starting. then they started looking around and saying, wait a minute, they

are making a lot of money off of spirit have our jerseys selling but we don't have a piece of that. stands have thousands of people with our jerseys on, and we reached for our pocket and we can't even go on a date because we don't have money? it became less fun, which is what we discussed in the interview. host: numbers are on the screen. our guest is, thomas. eugene is in maryland. hi, this is dr. eugene williams, senior, from maryland. i've been looking forward to reading your book on alexa. i'm so impressed -- got the nba teams to sing the nigro national negro national anthem. i have a question, etan, what do

you think about the sinking of the negro national anthem along with the national anthem? and i want you to know, your visited on february 28. i was there in washington, d.c., and we sang the negro national anthem. i was interviewed by the associated press, but i want to know what you, the author, have to say. guest: i think that would be really powerful. if you go and play in canada, the national anthem there. is something that adam silver, just from interviewing him in the book, that is something he would be open to. the nfl is completely different, but i think that would be different. host: why do you think there's a difference? many reasons. so

when i interviewed chris hayes, that was what the interview was supposed to be about. we were fascinated by how different it actually is. , we havet right now the nfl trying to acquiesce to the desires of trump, saying we need to do something about these players with the national anthem. they kind of place themselves. when you given 28 -- when you bully, he's never satisfied. the next day,ck he'll take your lunch money and your shoes, and your hat, and your shirt. to try to act we has to trump, they said, we didn't even negotiate with the players. they weren't even involved, as they reportedly said. they said they would try to come up with a compromise. well, it wasn't a compromise for the players. you didn't negotiate with the players. you negotiated with trump -- you compromise with trump.

the compromise was that all players would stand and show proper respect, whatever that means, which could be up for interpretation. trump wasn't satisfied with that. he said that saying in the locker room wasn't good enough, either. he said that anyone who doesn't stand for the national anthem shouldn't be in the nfl, but in the country. he takes it further and further. , thatot like the nfl there were a handful of players taking a knee. it's something where the nfl has a completely different mentality , totally, from the nba. i went to interview people in powerful positions in the nba, the gm's and coaches and ceos, and adam silver himself. i asked them about their activismr viewpoint on with athletes, and they said they have a respect for it. they know the history of it, particularly women bradley deal

castilet after philando was killed. he got a lot of backlash. he talked about how athletes have this platform, and why athletes usehave their voices? we asked them to do everything else. to getuldn't we ask them involved in their community? but i don't think you'd hear the same thing from any of the nfl ceos. maine is the, city. stephen is the color. caller: i was just wondering why someone would think that a four-year paid college education isn't enough to play basketball? it cost my son $25,000 per year to go to college. at the end of four years, that is one hundredhousand dollars. why don't you think that is enough?

host: i got the point. guest: that is a good question. thatsaid earlier, i think 50 years ago, it would have been a good trade-off. but you have to look at the television contracts, the merchandise. syracuse is now building a hundred million dollar facility, which already -- there don't already seats 35,000 people. numbers to look at the they are making, and there is just no comparison. it's a billion. it's a perfect business. and i think there are different ways they can institute paying college athletes, just like they pay everybody else. none of the coaches are working for free, none of the compliance people. nobody in college athletics is working for free except the college athletes. gary in fletcher, north carolina.

of "wewith the author matter: athletes and activism." ller: i called in a few years back, and i am the "prejudiced color -- "prejudiced caller." i spoke with heather mcghee. it went viral. a lot of things have happened in my life, and ivory's -- i've been researching black lives matter and things like that. i've learned a lot. i was wondering, what is a healthy balance from keeping people from becoming hypersensitive or getting into whens prejudices or racism they are bombarded with so much negative news all the time, how to people get distracted,

see that just because someone is walking behind you and they are a different color, you should take that as a threat and turn around and attack them, or getting into situations like where trayvon -- was being victimized by somebody walking behind him. whatever his reason was. he felt insulted. -- a responsible person to keep a healthy balance. got: hold on, we're going to to mr. thomas to respond to that. gary called a few years ago and said, basically, i'm prejudiced and racist area heather mcghee was our guest. -- metve met at the time in the meantime. where are you two years later, and are you still in touch with heather? yes, in fact, after the

-- for making changes in my life as an individual in america. i do talk to heather. she is with her family, getting ready to have a baby. i't ow if that's public or not. host: it is now. theou still have flashes of old, what you would refer to as the prejudice and racism? caller: i do. and i would like to feel back the layers, the onions, and see how i got that way. a lot of times, i would justify it by saying, i have a hard time accepting a behavior or a cultural difference in somebody else that i wouldn't except in my own behavior or my own cultural thing. so i have a different -- different sensitivities.

my experiences were opened up by going into the black community and talking to people, and i was culturalat the differences are't necessarily a bad thing. we talk about diversity and being different and proud of who we are, but we have a hard time tolerating that. host: thank you for calling in and giving us an update. these continue to do so. , what would you like to say to him? guest: i appreciate your call and appreciate you admitting where you are. what i want to do with this book is show people the personal side of these cases. just athletes interjecting themselves into a conversation because they want to. these are personal stories, personal accounts. trayvonade talked about martin and how that case affected him personally. how you look at his sons afterwards, scared for them.

and i did the same thing. howne wade talked about when he put a hoodie on his son and zip it up, he looked just like trayvon, and i did as well. and you heard a lot of like people say tha a l of athletes say that, because that is the situation we are in. sons, we are bigger by nature. i'm 6'10", my wife is six feet tall. my son is not a typical-sized kid. so when this happened, he was six years old, but everyone thought he was maybe 10. now he's 12, and everyone thinks he's a teenager. so i had to have conversations with him earlier that i really shouldn't have to have with a six-year-old or any-year-old or a 10-year-old about how society .s going to view him you mentioned the trayvon martin case, he was walking in a neighborhood. why would he even be viewed as somebody doing something wrong

in the first place? would he have been viewed that way if he were white? walking in a neighborhood? hoodie or not, had poor do rag, or a cowboy hat. would he have been viewed differently? i also interviewed athletes about personal situations they've had with the police. the nypd broke his leg. and if you are james blake, the former tennis player, standing outside the u.s. open, outside and the police come tackle him because they thought he looked suspicious. sterling brown for the milwaukee bucks. he was, in the middle of the night, going to a store. host: walgreens. guest: and i'm sure that -- he

was barking in a handicapped parking spot, but he said, there's no handicapped people out here at 3:00 in the morning. and in a run in and out. and they end up teasing him and andsting him --tazing him arresting him and stomping his ankle on video. athletes are suing, not just for themselves. sterling brown said, and when i interviewed -- and james blake, they are suing not just for themselves, but because this happens all the time. the same way that when i made my speeches in also, oklahoma, at 15 or 16 years old, so many people came up and thanked me thesaid this happens all time. when an athlete says it, people pay attention to it. there's an interesting aspect that i think is missing. that's what i want to do with this book, to show you the

actual stories and the reasons behind the protest. they have nothing to do with the flag and the anthem, which is what it's been hijacked and turned into. was bothered by all of these unarmed black man and women being killed by police with no accountability and he couldn't take it anymore, he had to say something. i interviewed his teammates about it. they feltd about why they had to protest, that they had no other choice but to make this known. that's what i want to do with this book, is to show a lot of thinking things that are completely different with regards to the protest. host: trayvon martin, you write that at that time, i had to ruin rosy view of the world. there are going to be people who view you as an enemy. you will be harassed and accused. if police stop you, try to get to a well lit area.

don't make any sudden moves. make your hands visible before putting them in your pockets. orally broadcast your actions. always get a receipt. actually being guilty has nothing to do with being busy -- being guilty. next call comes from rich and ultima springs, florida. caller: thank you. tan, i couldn't agree with you more. i wanted to ask, if you've thought about, as -- for all navy pilot a former -- i never did get shot down. in any case, i want you to realize that back in the day when i went to college, college wasn't so expensive for one thing. the reason it wasn't was because the states were paying for most of it. all ofthey are spending the money on prisons, mostly situation where

super rich people pay almost zero and taxes. trump won't even show his, so go figure. to makeot people trying us have equality, but how can you do it when you have so much inequality in the way money is taken in? host: were going to leave it there. guest: i agree with everything you said. everything is about money. when you look at the nfl and why they are so hell-bent on putting ,n these military displays because they were paid by the department of defense to be able to do that. i don't know the exact date everything changed, but the national anthem wasn't even played. players weren't required to do anything, but then everything changed. everything revolves around money, and that is the nature of the business. and it is such a big business. people need to understand, to

look at the numbers and see billions being made. they sell it as "the value of an but economically, it is a big business. host: there are several tweets like this. they don't play the national anthem at the start of concerts, plays, and movies. so why sports? guest: i couldn't agree more, but the reason the nfl is doing it is because they are being paid to do it. host: derald is in washington. go ahead. caller: -- peter. you are insightful and it has been a pleasure listening to you. guest: thank you. caller: in terms of whether college athletes should be compensated, you've opened my eyes to something that -- i was in sales for 53 years in the auto parts industry, and i

retired today. i considered that i'm considered by some people to be a deep thinker. so when i listen to people, i put it in the perspective of how this could play out. incredible, excessive student loans, wouldn't this be a good way to pay back those student loans by paying the people who are not only athletes, but other people that go to college also, especially in a day and age when mr. isself, which i'm all for, making changes in everything. but when he's advocating tariffs on other countries, not inequality, but equality for all. host: we'll leave it there. a lot of dots to connect. guest: definitely. it is hard to speak about fair aenne secon is making

billion dollars for your company, and another section having to pay tuition, it is kind of hard to compare. but they are comfortable making billions of dollars. they are going to change unless they are forced to. host: president trump has offered to meet with athletes to talk about this issue. if you were invited, would you go? guest: i wouldn't want to go as a prop. don't kanye west me. i would want to know exactly what we are discussing. and he has to get back to why said why he was protesting. kaepernick was protesting. he needs to stop hijacking the message. eric reed, who i talked to in the book, we went over the

reasons we were protesting, over and over. police brutality, police killings without accountability. stemic racism, the political process. trump has never said any of those things. he said they are disrespecting the military and the anthem. how are we going to discuss this if you aren't even recognizing in the first issue place? we can't discuss based on your created fiction of the reasons of my protest. that can't be the starting basis. next call is sarah from new york. my name is sarah. i totally agree with mr. caper kaepernick. mr. president of the united states doesn't have the right to say that we can't -- it doesn't matter if you are a

football player, basketball player, tennis player, or who you are. that is our right. all of these people being killed because of their color, the i won't say -- "dumb," because -- the world is made up of more than white people, more than black people. the world is made up of all people. host: thank you very much. any comment? guest: i think the president knows what he's doing. even when, just recently, he chose to uninvited the super bowl champion philadelphia eagles to their white house visit, it is interesting because -- the first thing i thought , with my happened was 10-year-old daughter, she has

.er friends, her classmates they have their birthday parties, and sometimes one girl puts out that she's not going to girl's party,her so they uninvited her. that sounds like what trump did. then he made up a reason as to why, because they are all kneeling for the national anthem. and i believe everyone should stand up. but if you look at the facts, none of the philadelphia eagles actually took a knee. he made the whole thing up. the issue is, no matter what people -- matter what he says, he will take it as gospel. you have to be able to fact check. he's very good at repeating something over and over until people believe it is true, and then fox news picks it up, sean hannity and bill o'reilly say it over and over again like with

the protest. no matter how many times players, and the nfl eric green, seo we are taking a knee, not against the military or the national anthem, but because of police brutality, systemic racism. it's like they didn't even say that. that is something that is unfortunate. with this book, i would reiterate the reasons they are protesting, and tell the personal reasons. we have athletes here, personalizing their stories. when you read it, you will see how these things affect athletes like they affect everybody else. when you hear about a case of police brutality or you are a victim, or someone close to you is, just because you are an athlete doesn't mean it doesn't hurt the same. that you don't have the same fear for your children going out. old.n, malcolm is 12 years

every case, i have to have a conversation with him. even when he was younger, six years old or eight years old, i shouldn't have to have this conversation with a six-year-old or an eight-year-old. but it is a matter of life and death. i'm driving him and his teammate , for example.tice i'm his coach. i coach youth team. we get stopped by the police. we're driving, and immediately, i rolled the windows down, turn in the cupff, put -- holder, put my wallet on the dashboard, and i sit at 10 and two. they look at me like, what are you doing? how are you doing, officer, license and registration. i'm going to my glove compartment to grab my

registration, is that ok russian mark and he shone the light on my hands while i slowly got the registration, and slowly reached for my license, here it is. meanwhile, the partner is in the back,ight on kamal. it turns out i had a taillight out. they could've just given a warning. but they mr. tye: >> were running everything through to make3 >> sure i was >> clean and that everything was all right. that situation -- that situation could've gone completely differently. that blacksson people in general, but definitely young black men and young black women have to be told. oft it is not a situation what should happen or what shouldn't happen. it is a matter of life and death , because depending on how that this situation,

i have to deescalate something i didn't even escalate in the beginning. i did nothing wrong, but doing something wrong has nothing to do with being perceived as guilty. you have to know that when police come to you, they have all the power. they have the authority and everything. they are the ones who are scared, scared of you, because -- even though you have done nothing wrong. they don't see a syracuse graduate, father of three. they see a big, black men with dreadlocks that could potentially be dangerous. that's the reality. you have athletes telling that reality, having to explain that to their children. it opens up a whole new world to mainstream america. white people don't have a conversation with their kids, and we shouldn't have to, either. you, ifuld it surprise

i said, or if one of your white teammates said, i would've tried to find a way to chart my way out of a ticket? >> we hear that all the time. guest: we talked to teammates about it. i do a lot of speaking , speaking in different universities on a university tour. i spoke at penn state, sitting there is a big group. maybe a couple hundred people, most of them white. they said that very thing. we don't have those experiences. it's not necessarily our first reaction -- there's more to the story than that. when they hear bill o'reilly say, let's think about what happened before or after this, the part we didn't see on the video or what led up to this -- no. what you see is what happened. so in some ways, it is opening up a whole different world to an audience, that that is not their

world. not their experience. i've seen what people -- seen white people cuss out police. my son chose me videos. like people posit reaction -- reaction is, oh my god, how do you get away with that? meanwhile, we'll keep fighting the system and trying to put haves within, but when you your son or daughter or yourself being stopped by police, the main goal is to get home safely. that's the main objective. matter" is the name of the book. caller: i want to say one thing. i was in new orleans in 1941 during segregation. i'm 77 years old. i've experienced racism my whole entire life.

my point is, i went to vietnam and965, went back in 1968 1969. the only time in my life, walking around in the jungles. equal, equal, my friend, that i felt at peace. can you believe that? that's amazing. people won't say why trump wouldn't select few. it's because preserving white supremacy, whether you believe it or not. about what is interesting my grandfather, who i spoke to a lot before he passed away, he thought of the korean conflict. that was what it was called. he talked about athletes speaking out. when i was with the wizards, i spoke out against the war in iraq. --t's what i was known as

becoming an athlete-activist. he would say, and all the time, you're right to be able to speak out is actly what we are fighting for. to beu to have the right able to. if we weren't a democracy, you wouldn't be able to say any of this. but the fact that you can say something they disagree with, even if it is something the president of the united states says, he should have the right to say that. we had discussions and debates all the time. is so much power in a healthy debate. not in a shouting match were both sides aren't listening to -- iother, but they are think there's a lot of benefit to having a healthy debate and discussion. i just wish we would get more into that instead of just trying

to shout your opinion and your side, to get the other person to switch over, instead of just explaining your position, explaining how you came to your conclusion, and then listening to the other person. tom brady didn't go to the white house during the obama administration. i think he had that right. there were different things he disagreed with. but he didn't want to go to the white house. i can't just say he doesn't have the right to cause i disagree with it. he has the right as well. host: etan thomas some of the people you talk to include carmelobdul-jabbar, anthony, etc.. how long did you work on this book? how many people did you interview? did you talk to anybody who disagreed with you? of great had a lot discussions.

i think that me and michael eric dyson, going back and forth on the history of activism and where it is now. a lot of times, we would be comparing things that people like to do as far as the nature of the activism in the 60's versus the activism of now. they put me in a different category. you were somebody who always used your voice, always spoke a throwback like athlete to the 60's. what's going on with your counterparts? and i would point out to the different athletes who were speaking out. but now you have this resurgence after trump and all of these .olice cases but if you go back to two years ago, it was not as much speaking out in the athletic world as a whole. so we kind of went back and forth.

a great debate. i love debating with him, and he doesn't mind, so i think that was great. i interviewed a lot of people, and it up interviewing 49 or 50 different people, from athletes, commentators, to the family of the victims of police brutality. i really wanted to encourage young athletes to continue to use their activism, to use their voices. , he was watching lebron james and carmelo anthony and dwayne wade at the espys. talkingned up the show about black lives matter and about police brutality and things of that nature. he talked about how inspired he was watching them. i want other athletes to be able to be inspired, hearing their contemporaries speak. russell westbrook spoke after terence crutcher was killed in

oklahoma. oklahoma,ying in speaking out about this particular case in oklahoma. i thought that was really admirable. i grew up there, a very conservative state. you have a lot of people supporting the thunder games, but after that, they might go to the trump rally. so, for him to speak out in oklahoma the way he did, i want other athletes to be encouraged by that. wade,d about dwayne carmelo anthony. -- after freddie gray was killed. literally marching with the people in baltimore. then you hear all of the , theyent critics saying should just shut up and dribble. this is in their place. they shouldn't use their platform that way. so i was really proud and

athletesd to see these using their voices, and i wanted to show everybody that. somebodysomebody -- is automatically suspect if they voted for president trump? guest: suspect of what? there political views, their views on race. them, whatked exactly do you agree with and do you disagree with, and we can start their. if you agree with -- there is a long list of things i could say as far as the sexist things, the racial things, the things about religion. what exactly is it that you do agree with? so when i interviewed mark cuban, who said when trump first started, he was supporting him. .hought he was new, fresh ideas trump quoted him in his book because he was supporting him. but then he said, the more i got

to know him, the more i got to know him. .hen my opinion quickly changed he explains exactly why his opinion changed when i interviewed him, and why he went from supporting him to actually the human league being against him -- to actually vehemently being against him. host: saundra from alabama, good morning. caller: i wanted to let you know racial with a lot of these police officers. jeffersonrandson, county just got one officer and a detective who are real biased against a lot of people. ofker county, there's a few them that are totally out to get the localand officers, i think it is in every police department.

grandson -- i'm all he's got. horriblyen treated since he was 15 years old. on a littlea -- motorcycle. host: thank you for calling in. classhomas, is there a aspect to this? guest: i think each department is completely different, and that is something i was glad to -- torrey smith. he was with the 49ers when k aeper was taking a knee. -- when kaepernick was

taking any. then they said, then what? and i'm surprised they didn't get as much coverage. why aren't we hearing about this? what he said was after that, the team supported the players. and a group of players at almost every away game, they met with different police departments. they had big seminars, brought people from the community. and had these discussions used their position to alter those discussions. they pushed for different things to be instituted, things that they came to an agreement about. to d.c. to lobby for different laws to be changed. these are tangible solutions and tangible actions to solving this issue. say, whatimes, people is taking a knee? what does that actually do? that was the first step. then they went and implemented

this as well. i thought that was really powerful. a biges have such platform and are able to do so much. using that position and platform to foster change within particular police departments, i think that is admirable. i still don't know why we haven't heard more about that. color from ohio -- caller from ohio. caller: i don't know where to start, ethan. you've got somewhat respect. you are a great person to listen to. i have so many things i want to say to you. host: why don't you say one, and then we'll move on. we are an all-white community, for people. we all were farmers, not around many black people. we actually try to search them out when we're out. the things that the blacks are going through, i'm ashamed of.

feel some of that from the police in our area, too. i enjoy people like you. we need more of you and thank you. guest: thanks a lot. i appreciate that. i think one of the things we want to do is to bring different exriences to people who don't know. athletes are hear protesting, they understand why, because they've read these personal accounts of athletes telling these reasons. so they aren't caught up in thegs like protesting anthem or protesting the military. we hear athletes saying exactly why they are protesting, and it often has to do with the situation with trump or police brutality. how long did you work on your book? there's a lot of interviews. guest: interestingly, it wasn't hard to get a lot of people as i

thought it would be. they have busy schedules. they have people changing their entire schedules, because when i told him the topic, they wanted to talk about it. , rightarmelo anthony after a game, with the reporters sitting and waiting to talk to him. of course, there is a syracuse connection there. but dwayne wade as well. when i told them what we were about, it really wasn't hard to get the interviews. , likebaton without the "b." caller: mr. thomas, when i first heard about colin kaepernick and his protest, i didn't know what to expect. but then one sunday, on tv, i saw a solemn looking man taking knee because of the

injustices in our society toward men of color. as for me, i could say that about everyone i've seen taken the. -- take a knee. a solemn looking, almost sad face. it seems to me like these are deeply held beliefs by these players, and i salute them for the respectful manner of their protest, mr. thomas. host: that was carmine in new york. next, ron in elizabeth, indiana. caller: i just want to say, i wordsthat mr. thomas's are eloquent and shine the bright light of truth on an injustice taking place across the country. it is my understanding that a protest is to cause a disruption in something that is taking place in order to shine this light. why do the players not take possession of the ball, and then

prevent the games from going forward until their views are heard? guest: well, that's definitely a strategy. i agree with you that the purpose of a protest is to agitate, and to create an environment where people are going to hear you. during thethem national anthem. that's why you heard so many people say, that's not the time. do it on your own time. which is interesting, because a lot of players express in the book, if we do it in our time, how are people going to see it? we want to do it while people are watching. and since you made the decision to broadcast this national anthem at this time, this is what we've chosen. i interviewed bill russell for the book. everybody knows him. we talked about how everybody loved him in boston when he was winning championships and everything was great. then he started talking about racism, talking about things

that he saw and experienced. then he went to kentucky for a ,reseason game, and they said the white players can come here, that the black players can't. kentucky was segregated. here,aid, if we can't eat we won't play. it changed,out how when he and the black players leftnd didn't play. it changed everything, they didn't want to listen. he told the story ended perfectly -- told a story and it perfectly answered my question. what i learned is that people who are dedicated to misinterpreting you and not listening to you, no matter how you say it, they aren't going to be happy and they aren't going to want to listen to you. if you save when the ball is being hiked, if you say it after the game, during the national

anthem. no matter how you say it, they are going to purposely try to misinterpret it. ,olin kaepernick, eric read they have repeated over and over again. we are protesting police , injustice.acism purposely misinterpreted to be about the anthem. caller: next color, 15 seconds. in 2006, the justice department did a report that an hadhe kl infiltrated the police. so that needs to be followed up with what local police departments work affected. and -- released an open letter to players to strike because of this. guest: i have a lot of respect for shawn king. one of the things he continues to do, why he continues to press

the police department to change allowed in not being different departments. remember, police departments don't act federally. each one is completely different with different rules. what torrey smith talked about in the book is just how different they are. he might meet with the nypd, then the chicago police and then the indiana police, they are completely different in the structure and when they do things. what we have to keep pressing is that they are not allowed to do the things they are doing. it is hard to change people. you talked about the klan infiltrating the police department. it's not like we can change their mentality. that is difficult to do. but to make it illegal, to make them not be able to inflict the actual things they are trying to. by etan thomasr, . the cover of the book.

thank you for joining. ahead, -- ofe week the ap and washington post. along with the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. thanks for being with us. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] . >> next week, live coverage from the u.s.-north korea summit between president donald trump and north korean leader