and more. join the conversation with historian douglas brinkley, a professor of history at howard university, richard norton smith, presidential biographer and the chair of the calvin coolidge presidential foundation. watch washington journal live sunday, july 4, and before the program, go to c-span.org/president survey 2021 to see the full results of the presidential survey. ♪ we want to welcome back james jeffrey. i want to talk about recent airstrikes of the u.s. military

using targets in iraq, iran and syria. but recently, you were at the thursday -- the 30,000 foot level. and you say can bite into everything, is it an all or nothing endeavor. your point, in public affairs, can you explain? james: it was a reaction to people who are saying president biden is supporting a policy for the middle class but that means jobs, a sweet spot on immigration, that means keeping americans out of forever wars. i sympathize with that. but that does not mean simply turning our back on what is going on in the world. the problem is, aside from the immediate benefits, the american people since the 1940's have lived in peace and prosperity in a world that, despite what you see on the news, is far more

prosperous than it was in 1945. we don't want to go back to that. and this requires the united states to play a modest but critical role as a leader on conflicts and international disputes and to support the , international order. all in all the biden , administration seems to understand that, but the big problem is they cannot get us , tied down in every little dispute. some are important, and some aren't. and that is the statecraft, to decide which is which. steve: the headline this weekend from the "new york times," the

u.s. departing from afghanistan, essentially ending a 20 year war in that country are your thoughts about that move. james: first of all, this is no criticize him to the brave men and women, including my son and daughter-in-law who served. but rather, it is a reflection of the fact that our, if you will, recipe for how afghanistan is a state should be organized was not successful enough to defeat the others, specifically the taliban, on how the state of afghanistan and people of afghanistan should be organized. at the end of the day, we were not able to build up a sustainable system that could survive, not totally on its own, but at least just went american and allied support, some money, and some advisors. we have done that in other countries. it did not work in afghanistan. it is time to leave. steve: this week the u.s. , attacking iran backed militants. what was behind that move, and did the u.s. meet the objectives? james i am a bit skeptical but i : support the decision to strike. the american people have to realize that we are facing, in this important region in the middle east, in a ran on the

march in places throughout the world, yemen, iraq, iran and elsewhere. and the iranians are trying to take over these countries to dominate their own governments and peoples and push up the -- push out the international system, including the united states. it is an important mission that everyone supports. they are being attacked by iranian surrogates to put them under pressure. president biden is right to strike back. i have been involved with these tit-for-tat struggles with the iranians for decades. it is going to take more than that to get them to settle down. steve: you write about that in a recent piece for atlantic.com, the headline, the iran nuclear deal is not the problem, iran is. if and when an agreement is reached, you write, the biden administration will also need your counter iran's initiatives

in the middle east. james like withdrawing from : afghanistan, which is a way cutting our losses in something we can't really win, the problem is the larger context is a middle east that is being threatened by iran and, over the horizon, russia. this requires the biden administration to walk and chew gum, take these steps while also ensuring they don't signal that the united states is giving up on the region, that the united states is turning its back or pivoting to asia. asia is most important but we , are begin of and powerful enough to act in many different areas. and thus the question is, will , the biden administration mobilized -- mobilize the

israelis, the arab world, turkey, together to stop iran's march to the region and contain russia. steve: but as you pointed out with the recent airstrikes , against iranian targets that -- targets this past week, press secretary jennifer psaki was asked about whether there was any concern the airstrikes we are looking at courtesy of the defense department will result in any metallic tory attacks -- in any retaliatory attacks from iran. let's watch. [video clip] jen: the president's view that it was necessary, appropriate and delivered action. the strikes designed to limit the risk of escalation. he believes we should and will take necessary and appropriate steps to defend partners and allies in the region. certainly i would say that we continue to believe that, and have never held back from noting that iran is a bad actor in the region. and they have taken part in and supported and participated in a problematic, extremely problematic behavior in our view. at the same time, we feel we are

moving forward and seeking the opportunity to move forward on negotiations to prevent iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and that is in our national interest. but it was not linked to a pivoted by the president of israel, nor was it linked to any elections in iran either. steve your reaction to what you : heard from the white house press secretary in the view of the biden administration. james: you saw that jen ps aki was a little nervous why she was trying to explain why we have to deal with this bad actor -- nervous when she was trying to explain why we have to deal with this bad actor and assign a deal on a nuclear account. i support both, but it is complicated to sell to the american public and the international community. the strikes we took have not done any real damage to iran or its surrogate militias in iraq and syria. what they do is they send a signal, look, this was a

pinprick this time but i am willing to use force. next time, we might do something more serious. if the iranians except that position, they may be careful in what they do. they may not stop entirely but , will be careful not to inflict casualties on americans. that is one way forward. the other is they simply , increase their attacks. i have seen them do that before. we were in a cycle with iran in the early 2000 that resulted in the death of iran's main military commander in the region, and attacks on -- and military strikes on u.s. bases. steve: our guest has had a long and distinguished career, began serving in vietnam and representing the u.s. in a number of diplomatic posts including u.s. ambassador to turkey, albania and representing , us in iraq.

the israel hamas conflict, is it a reminder that everything is connected, and whether we are talking about hamas rockets, the calamity in yemen or the iran nuclear deal, iran's stabilizing role in the region is the common factor. can you take a deeper dive into that topic? james: i certainly can. i have been enrolled as an army captain and was placed on alert to be deployed in 1973 during the conflict between israel and various arab states. compared to other regions, it is a particularly unstable region. we have been involved in one or another way in various wars and conflicts there. but nonetheless, at an underlying level, it is basically stayed stable. nationstates have not

disappeared. you have not had changes like russia's occupation of crimea, largely because america and most of the countries in the region want to have the stability. the one outline of the country that is causing most of the serious problems we can't seem to fix is iran. because iran is an aggressive, expansionist country with an ideology that pushes it to try to seize power, if you will, or effective power in arab countries, all the way to the mediterranean and beirut. and that is the problem, the underlying problem. the second problem, that makes it worse, is russia has returned to the middle east in a big way since 2015, first in syria and now in libya. russia is trying to create this instability created by russia's partner in some respects, iran, to offer deals to work with russia rather than the united states in some kind of regional arrangement. it won't work. russia is not a stabilizing factor anywhere.

steve: so how do you temper , iran? james first of all, by : contesting in every country where iran is active in its illegal and illegitimate and violent presence you do this by supporting local actors. you don't send in huge american armies. that is a mistake we have made it repeatedly. we cannot make it again. rather you work with local , actors. we work with, for example elements of the iraqi army, , counterterrorism force, we work with the iraqi peshmerga, we work with partners in northeast syria, the syrian democratic forces, also holding terrain. but then we also mobilize the arab league, the european union. we work with israel. israel has worked with the arab states in what has been called the abraham accords to build up an alliance to stand up to iran. we think it is going well, but

it requires continued american engagement, primarily diplomatic, occasionally military. james -- steve our guest is james : jeffrey. our phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for those of you who are democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. we have a line for independents , and we will also take your text messages and you can send us a tweet at cspanwj. let me ask you about the change in leadership in israel as the long-serving prime minister benjamin netanyahu is out. how cohesive is it? james israel has a 120 member : parliament. this government has exactly the minimum number needed, 61 members out of some eight parties to maintain power. so it is very fragile, but , israel has a long history of eclectic coalitions of countries with parliamentary majorities of 1, 2, three people without

collapsing, and we will just have to wait and see. for the moment, it is the government of israel. it is the government we need to work with. it is an important partner. steve: one of our regular viewers is saying, i did not vote for war with iran. is that where we are heading? james: absolutely not. one reason i support the return to the nuclear agreement with iran is, if iran comes close to a nuclear device, and they know how to build nuclear devices and we know that from intelligence, if iran comes close to that, it is very likely there would be a war. so therefore, in this sense, the biden administration is trying to preserve the peace. what we are doing in the region by contesting iran's presence is not getting involved in a war, although occasionally somebody on our side drops a bomb or two, but rather, we are working with partners in the region with this zone of conflict like

counterterrorism. it is not a war. it is of some concern because troops are exposed at times, but it is something that i think has been effective in the past when we do it right, and i believe we will do it right again. steve: let's bring in our viewers, let's begin with dan joining us from independence, oregon. we lost dan, so we will go to pat in keyport, new jersey. good morning. caller: can you tell me, are we going to reach a point where we are going to have to tell these sovereign nations in the middle east you have to defend , yourself? at what point, if you want to remain sovereign, why aren't they taking responsibility for their own defense? and do you know what the future is for the abraham accords? james: two good questions. essentially, that is what we have done with afghanistan by

withdrawing. throughout the rest of the middle east, i am far more confident that these countries can stand up to iran, stand up to russia. we are not fighting their battles. part of what we are doing is working with them to ensure they have backing from the international community. they will do any fighting when it has to be done on the ground. we will provide logistics, we will provide advice and we will provide international support. i believe the abraham accords will survive the change in government in israel. one example is the recent conflict in gaza that pitted israel against palestinians, hamas people in gaza, israeli citizens and -- israeli citizen palestinians and palestinians in the west bank. it is interesting that none of the members of the abraham accords took any serious action against israel. in fact the relationship is , good. the israeli foreign minister was just in the arab emirates.

i am convinced the abraham accords is an important step forward and interestingly, while it occurred in the trump administration, the biden administration is warming quite obviously to it, and that is a good thing. steve and to dan, i apologize we : lost you, but try to call back in and we will look for your call. another question for james jeffrey, i know iran funds has below but do they fund any other terrorist groups? james they fund more terrorist : groups than i have fingers. i'm trying to figure out how many that is, but let's start with hamas, the islamic jihad in gaza. islamic jihad funded by iran, they are funded by numerous militias in iraq, they fund certain groups in syria. they fund militias all the way from afghanistan who are

fighting against the syrian people as i speak now. it goes on and on and on. i ran was not behind 9/11, but they have had relations with the al qaeda group. iran is a major supporter of anyone in the region who wants to pull down the international order, create terror, and basically scramble everything. steve: so why still try to , rejoin the iran nuclear deal? james: because that is one area where we believe that, with the right controls and the right inspectors from the international atomic energy agency that we can postpone any , kind of final action on the iranian program for the better part of a decade now. it is not a particularly good agreement, it is just better than the alternative. and that is where we often are in diplomacy. i wish i could reassure your viewers that we have magic solutions to everything. the best we have is mediocre

solutions, frankly. steve: jan on our twitter page says, we want their resources and that is well we are -- why we are in the middle east. follow the money. next is david. good morning. caller: good morning. and i would like to join the course of wishing you prosperity and peace and all good thing as you go forward in your life, because i have been with you since the inception of c-span for all these many years. but to get to my comments, look, this guy with his so-called conventional wisdom for these governments interfering in the affairs of the world, but in particular the middle east, we

bomb iraq under a live. we destabilized and overthrew the duly elected government of iran. we assassinated nasser. his conventional wisdom of how to do empire is coming home to roost now. we cannot do empire and remain an economic, viable, functioning nation. and we look at the money we squandered on the lies and this conventional wisdom this person is sharing with us today, and it is like they just spew out, put a label on something terrorist. and then they build the whole cadre of propaganda around it to justify just these strange

interventions in other people's countries. host: david from los angeles, thank you for the call. let me add to david's call. this is a tweet similar, from victor coming in at the same , time. he says, how does anyone opine about iran without first beginning with the 1950's. what with the middle east look like if that never happened? you cannot want war because a country is advancing in science in technology. this is insanity. the sanctions have not worked. your thoughts in response? james: these are good concerns, other than the assassination of nasser. the present is the bigger picture. this is like taking a winning football game, the last few

games, say the boston patriots, and pointing out a ball that was fumbled, a pass that was intercepted, and opponent scoring two or three touchdowns during a part of the game and saying, nothing works, look how bad that team is. you have to look -- we are not running an empire. what we are trying to do is to preserve order, because we had very bad experiences in the 50 years before 1945, where we got involved in two wars that we were not really able to avoid. remember the second, we had our fleet bombed on december 7, 1941. that is what happens when you ignore the problems of the world, they come to you on december 7 or september 11.

the argument is how you deal with it. you try to deal with it not by running an empire, or spending 10% of gdp on defense, we only spend one third of that, but rather working to build up a system to defend countries against those natural aggressors. sometimes it goes wrong, and we have a few examples of it, just like in a football game, passes are accepted. on the whole since 1945, the world has avoided major war. it has avoided any of the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in arsenals all of the world ever being exploded. that is not an accident. that has happened because we have been on the ground with partners and allies around the world. i would not want to see the alternative because i have been , in country after country that is not gotten this equation right, and i've seen hundreds of thousands of people removed from their homes and large numbers killed. steve: and you just gave away

your loyalty to the new england patriots. [laughter] let's go to earl in atlanta. earl turn the volume down. , we will get an echo otherwise and will be able to hear you , clearly. caller: i muted it. i agree with the last two callers. that this guy is promoting antiquated ideas. we haven't nuclear apartheid right now in the middle east. israel is allowed to have nuclear weapons and nobody else. , technology advances, like transistor radios. everybody is going to have a nuclear weapon at one point. so it doesn't make sense to have the abnormal separation that you want to impose on the middle east. they are all going to be nuclear someday. so you have to deal with them now. host: thank you, earl. james jeffrey?

james the more countries that : have nuclear weapons, particularly irresponsible countries like iran or north korea, the more dangerous the world is because that will encourage more countries to have nuclear weapons. and then, a nuclear weapon goes off, a missile is fired nobody , knows where it comes from and the world is thrown into chaos. i agree, it would be better in a world without nuclear weapons. the countries that have them have so far been acting responsibly. they have not been threatening countries that don't have them with the exception of russia in , the past. we are in a situation where one of the most important goals of our whole foreign policy is to stop additional countries from gaining nuclear weapons. and one way to do that is to work with other countries to try to preserve a general are of

-- general aura of peace instability so countries won't want to gain more nuclear weapons. steve: -- james america doesn't need the : saudi or other oil because we have enough here. but the world economy that we are dependent on does the oil from the saudis. the saudi oil fields are essentially a float back that allows prices to be controlled as demand goes up and down. so it is very important for that. it is also seen as the leader of the islamic world because of the locations of the two holiest sites of islam, mecca and medina, inside saudi arabia. so it is an extremely important player. steve should the crown prince be : further punished for his involvement in the death of washington post columnist khashoggi?

james: the first thing is, we need to uncover exactly what happened. it is still murky. i have had discussions, i can't say with whom, but at the highest levels of the saudi government and i was with the state department. we are still not at the bottom of that. we know the saudis were responsible, we just don't know the details. this does keep a cloud over the relationship, but it is an extremely important relationship and we have troops in saudi arabia today, and they are there for an important purpose. steve: if there is a confirmed connection, can or should the u.s. look beyond that? james we have important : interests with saudi arabia. we also want to know what happened to khashoggi. there is no doubt that the saudis were involved and people who report to the crown prince were involved in the action that took place in istanbul several years ago. steve allen is joining us from : hawaii.

caller: good morning. steve, i am going to be missing you. you are very good moderator. i am hoping you have a great extension to your career. steve thank you. : caller: i am interested in how we can use the jcpoa mechanism without really bowing to the concessions that biden appears to be making which unfortunately seemed to be painting the wrong picture for the new very conservative administration in iran, and the fact that they have been deceiving the u.n. watchdog and will probably continue to do that. we really don't know, other than sources from israel, exactly what type of technology they have been developing unobserved. they won't even disclose the videos until the deal is what he dashed deal is pretty much done in vienna.

so i would like to hear about those tangents. i appreciate your time. thank you. james you have everything : exactly right. this is why it is a complicated negotiation. iran will cheat whenever it can. between the intelligence of our friendly partners, our own intelligence, and inspectors on the ground, we have a good idea of what iran is doing in the nuclear field. it is not perfect, but it is one of the better things of the jcpoa nuclear agreement. in terms of the biden concessions, that is an interesting point. the whole idea is that when , president trump pulled out in 2018, we then began imposing sanctions that we had agreed to stop as part of the original agreement in 2015. the core of what we are supposed to do and the iranians are supposed to do, because they are violating it, as you noted is , for everybody to set the clock back to mid 2018. iranians will stop doing the

things they are not supposed to do, and the united states waives sanctions. the question is will president , biden, because he is under pressure from the iranians, grant concessions under what the original agreement requires? that is not yet settled. the administration has some sanctions that are legitimate against iran for terrorist activities and those may also be lifted. that would be problematic but we don't know and are watching it , closely. steve: donald in pennsylvania, you are next. caller: thanks for c-span and for your performance all these years. i have three points. i am not a iran lover or anything like that, but the second point is that iran is shi'aa muslim and the sunnis, saudi arabia, and iran is

protecting the shi'aa, they are protecting the christians and the druze in syria, which are against the sunnis, and they are protecting the shi'aa in the south of iraq against the sunnis in the north. that is one doubt that is never discussed. the third point i want to make is that biden said he was going to return to the jcpoa he was running for president. his secretary of state when he was being confirmed indicated very clearly at his confirmation hearings that he was going to impose conditions that were going to make it prohibitive for iran to return to the jcpoa. which he has still done, preconditions. for instance, he implied anyway that iran was going to have to return to the nuclear deal before the united states was going to lift the sanctions. that was an acceptable. iran had negotiated a deal with

china in the summer of last year that was going to give an economic and security 25-year agreement. when iran realized they weren't going to get that from the jcpoa because of blinken's negotiating position, they signed the treaty this spring with china. this opens up oil sales to china, oil sales for china receiving oil from iran, iran receiving weaponry from china, and it was china into the strait of hormuz, a chokepoint for the persian gulf for all of those arab countries and all the oil out of the middle east. we are in the process of losing

the middle east oil to china. steve: i will stop you there because you put a lot on the table and we have just a few minutes left. ambassador jeffrey, your thoughts? james again, your viewers get : the facts right. i can only dispute them on the conclusions. let's start with iran protecting the she a throughout the region -- the shi'aa throughout the region. before iran started their march throughout the region, sunni and shi'a lived under relatively good terms. while saddam was a sunni arab it

, was complicated. in the case of iran's justification for what it does and the reason to protect shia, cash protect shi'a, the glass is one third full. it is mainly dominating archer societies i have seen this in iraq, where the shi'a population is 50%. certainly it is true in lebanon and yemen as well as the fighting continues. in terms of what tony blinken put on the table, there is no doubt that he had a robust set of demands for iran, such as iran had to return to the agreement before we would take any steps. but it is clear in the negotiations he has fallen off of that. the administration has also said that it wants iran to agree to further negotiations for a better nuclear agreement sometime in the future, also to negotiate its role in the region, missile programs, and such.

this is a nice wish list. the administration is not really going to get any of it nor is it , going to stand in the way of the return to the nuclear agreement. that is my prediction. so the iranians had her own , reasons for signing the deal with china. you got the details absolutely correct, but the motive wasn't wrong. it wasn't to stymie blinken. the iranians today are considering whether to return to the agreement. i think they will. blinken will maintain his demands for them to do the other things the iranians won't do it, , and we will find a way to get around that, i'm pretty sure. steve: we will go to clifford joining us from new london, connecticut. good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. i am concerned and think a lot of americans are concerned about the lack of congressional involvement in the war powers act with respect to these wars in the middle east, specifically

it sounds like your guest is ready to go to war with iran. what is to protect the american public from waking up someday to find out we are in a-scale war with iran, strictly on joe biden and the secretary of defense without any role of congress declaring war? we are performing war activities in iran, we are bombing them and assassinating military leaders. at what point does mr. jeffrey think we need to declare war on iran? he seems comfortable with the presidential movements like that we had the authorization for use of force in 2001, 2002, that led to the 20-year war in afghanistan and iraq. at what point does congress get involved. i will take my answer off the air. thank you. steve clifford, thank you. :ambassador jeffrey: the answer is, when there is significant,

any significant ground engagement of the united states, that is where we are losing a lot of people and when we are actually fighting as most americans would understand that word. in every case, not in the korean war, but in every case since then. in vietnam, it was the gulf of tonkin resolution. in afghanistan, it was the authorization of military force in 2001. for iraq, it was authorization for use of force passed by both houses of congress, and on and on. in the gulf war in 1991, it was a resolution by the u.s. congress as well. so in every case where we have engaged in serious combat, the administration or whatever administration has turned to congress i think that will , continue. the problem is, i think you have -- and i can think of hundreds of them where the united states

, has had to react in a fast-moving situation when someone is shooting at our troops and we are using right of defense, article two of the constitution, which the president cited in this most recent engagement, or we are trying to calm the situation by taking gary, very limited military action -- that is a gray zone. i understand why people aren't comfortable with it. it has not gotten us in a war over hundreds of such incidents. when we have gone to war, even for mistaken reasons, we have done so with one or other approval from congress. steve: i want to ask about syria , a war that is 10 years in length and now the death toll in excess of 80,000. how does president bashir al-assad maintain his grip on power? ambassador jeffrey: he has very little power. most of the oilfields at the arable land is not in his hands.

it is neutral or is controlled by various opposition groups, american troops and turkish troops. he also does not control the air. he has driven half the population -- 12 million people -- from their homes, 6 million overseas as refugees, 6 million more into areas he doesn't control. he is using chemical weapons. has hundreds of thousands of -- he has hundreds of thousands of people illegally imprisoned or disappeared. it goes on and on and on. this is the worst geostrategic and humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. we have not been successful dealing with this campaign. assad cannot take back his country. he cannot win. but right now we are in a , stalemate. there is very little fighting right now, which is good, but it is a volatile situation. it is something i urge our

leaders to look more closely at and engage more in. now president biden seems to be , doing that and he raised it with putin. we will have follow-up conversations this coming week to see what we can do on initial steps with russia. russia is key to the whole thing. it was russian intervention in 2015 that saved assad bid as long as the russians and iranians are there, assad is not going to go away, and that was not the policy. what we are trying to convince everybody is to simply accept a compromise political solution the u.n. is trying to negotiate. steve is assad a murderer? :ambassador jeffrey: he is absolutely a murder. -- murderer. he is a murderer 1000 times more than putin is. steve our next caller, good : morning. caller: i am very interested in mr. jeffrey and his portfolio being ambassadors to iraq and turkey. and he mentioned that iran has aspirations of connecting themselves with their people all over the middle east and kind of

making a big united area. but i think turkey wants to do the same thing with azerbaijan and all the way to the silk road area. they have had those aspirations. and also with azerbaijan and the oil power, there was a recent conflict between azerbaijan and armenia, and i am armenian, so i are not a fan of mr. jeffrey am being an ambassador to turkey . and also being a vietnam vet. his credentials are pretty immoral. steve: why do you say immoral? caller: because you are. i have no respect for him. i will take my answer offline. you are not fooling me, my friend. or my enemy. so have a good day. and let me hear your comment off

the air, mr. immoral. ambassador jeffrey: it is one thing to disagree on policy. it's another thing to besmirch millions of americans who served in vietnam. i am not going to answer this question. next question, please. steve turning for policy in the : middle challenges for the biden administration, we have talked about the iran nuclear deal, the fighting between hamas and israel, we talked about the nuclear deal and iran. what policies can they do? ambassador jeffrey we are very : politicized in american today and it is similar to the policies the last administrations have followed. it is not to get decisively engaged in the middle east. we learned that lesson quickly

in iraq by 2006, but rather to work through parties and allies and build up, use diplomacy, use our economic strength and when necessary, again through partners on the ground, use military force to defend and to preserve security. that's not a bad model. it has worked more or less for the last 40 years in keeping the middle east, frankly, from deteriorating into total chaos. but we continue to -- it's groundhog day and the middle east -- in the middle east every day. there is a new dictator and a new expansion of power and you have to go back in and work with partners in the region. it has succeeded good the region has contributed to global growth. it is critical for energy and for other reasons. and i believe this policy, all in all, can work. the problem right now is, if the biden administration does completely withdraw from afghanistan, which i believe it

will, and probably signs the nuclear agreement with iran, people in the region will wonder, is this the beginning of an american withdrawal? that opens the door to all kinds of nightmares. thus, it will be important and imperative that the biden administration take action to show, again, not with huge armies but with diplomatic presence, that it will stay engaged in the region and work with partners and friends to preserve stability. that is key. steve: an earlier caller made reference to the a umn -- a um -- aumf. >> it is the authorization for the use of military force.

it is one of the cute ways congress gets around the constitutional law of declaration of war which requires massive majorities in both houses. we have two active right now. one is the post-9/11 one. that will remain in force. we still have al qaeda and other terrorists such as isis and the islamic state. they are also in afghanistan. that campaign will continue. the one that will go away is the 2002 authorization for use of military force in iraq. it is obsolete. we don't need it to do the things we are required to due to fight terror in the region. it is pretty clear in the weeks ahead, i am sure it will go. >> he is the chair of the middle

east program. he served as a u.s. ambassador in turkey. thank you very much for spending part of your saturday with us. ♪ >> c-span washington journal. we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day. we discussed policy issues that impact you. historians discuss the results of c-span's historical survey of presidential leisure -- leadership. watch us live at seven eastern on sunday morning. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. >> sunday night on q and a. a look at american presidents through the look of book favorites with famous journalist

and historian. you saw it in that piercing quote that he was the one pulling the strings. that is not true. jack kennedy wanted -- won the pulitzer prize. he told another historian that he would rather win a pulitzer prize and be president. because he had the strong desire for literary frame, -- fame, in new york city and washington dc, that he really write that book? i wonder how much money they are getting out of those royalty checks? the pulitzer change the equation. it made it a moral question and an ethical question. leaders realize this, too. i look at the letters he was receiving in 1957 and librarians were sending him letters. did you really write this book? they were responding to the interview? he would not accept the award if he did not write the book. >> you can also listen to q and

a as a podcast wherever you get your podcast. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> eight conversation from the mccain institute with senator rob portman and former british premised or theresa may. >> my name is kristen abrams, i am the senior director of the human trafficking program at mccain institute. i would like to welcome this distinguished panel today. we hope this will be an action oriented conversation about how we can create a shared, global commitment for addressing and hopefully preventing modern slavery in global supply chains. i would like to welcome on the