the 2008 american patriot award is presented to the 62nd secretary of state, the honorable james baker iiiand the 23rd secretary defense, the honorable leon panetta. this evening, our distinguished honorees -- [applause] are going to participate in a discussion on national and international defense, diplomacy and peacekeeping. please welcome secretary baker and panetta. ♪ ♪ >> the standing o. that's got to be a good feeling. thank you for doing this. this is a great place and we have some big issues to talk about. today was a breaking news day with iran deal. i guess i'd like to get your perspective on that move today and what potentially comes next with this administration and what happens pulling out of the iran nuclear deal. secretary baker. >> first of all, i'm not sure anyone can tell you exactly what's going to happen, because i don't think anyone really knows. i would have to say that in my opinion, the deal was questionable to begin with, and i don't believe that it is an extraordinarily great deal for the united states. having said that, -- and i think that because it doesn't cove

james bakere iii and leon panetta. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. ♪ announcer: 1968 was the yearf political assassinations and the space race. a fractious presidential election. riots of the political left and right. turmoil."8: american >> joining us from new york with his latest book "president carter: the white house years." more than 900 pages. thank you for being with us. why did you write the book? >> i broke the book because i wanted to have a reassessment of the carter presidency. his hero was harry truman. harry truman signed "the buck stops here" and put it on his desk. truman is now remembered much achievements than his failures. i wanted the book to have the same impact for president carter. a reassessment of his presidency. not just to be seen as a great former president. i make the case that he was one of the most accomplished one-term presidents we've had in modern history and accomplished more than many two-term presidents. hisress had much of legislation just under the legendary percentage that president johnson got in the white house. >> steve, you've read the b

ward.sent you the 2018 james bakere iii and leon panetta. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. ♪ announcer was the year of political assassinations and the space race. a fractious presidential election. riots of the political left and right. turmoil."8: american >> joining us from new york with his latest book "president carter: the white house years." more than 900 pages. thank you for being with us. why did you write the book? >> i broke the book because i wanted to have a reassessment of the carter presidency. his hero was harry truman. harry truman signed "the buck stops here" and put it on his desk. truman is now remembered much achievements than his failures. i wanted the book to have the same impact for president carter. a reassessment of his presidency. not just to be seen as a great former president. i make the case that he was one of the most accomplished one-term presidents we've had in modern history

baker the iii owould be over there.s. and one of the things that's so interesting about kind of the universal claim, nearly universal claim president reagan has in historical terms, most of the press thought as reagan himself once put it that he was a combination of the mad bomber and ebenezer scrooge in real time. yet i've always thought and this is why the character is destiny point is so important. i've always thought that we never fully appreciated that ronald reagan's most significant life experience coming into the presidency was less his actual movie career and more his labor union career because he negotiated that contract for what, 6, 7, 8 years and somebody once said what's it like dealing with the soviets and he said you've never dealt with jack warner and so he was able to you know, come out in that first press con for instance in 1981 and say the soviets lied and cheat but after he shot he write as letter by hand, you know, he gets a marvelous partner . and he's literally in red square kissing babies and th

baker iii. a president who was fully engaged, who had a sense of strategy, a sense of our own limits, as well as our powers. who wasn't guilty of hubris, who actually studied these issues. so we got through the end of the cold war because of the brilliant leadership of president george h.w. bush. and a well-functioning nsc staff and a great secretary of state. we don't have that right now in president trump. he doesn't study. he probably doesn't even know what's in president obama's iran deal. he just knows that obama's name was on it. and it's not clear right now if that team has coalesced, jim mattis, mike pompeo, it's a team of factions and it doesn't seem that they agree on some of the major strands of this policy either towards iran or north korea. >> absolutely. nick burns, thank you very much. >>> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll be joined by three members of the senate foreign relations committee, senators chris murphy, jeff flake and tim kaine to get their reaction to the president's