and heard senator ashcroft had some positions available. so i center my resume. this was the '90s. i set it by fax. she called me up almost immediately after and she said something to the effect, i might paraphrase but holy crap, you have a ph.d? [laughter] based on that reaction i got the job in senator ashcroft office and ended up in the bush administration. it was a that combination of having a ph.d but also working in politics that led me to write this book, this book about presidents and disasters. while i was in the bush administration i was there during 9/11, the department of labor. i was at the white house during katrina in 2005. i worked on the flu plan that the bush administration workout throughout the 2000 that ended up being deployed by the obama administration in 2009. so i had a lot of experience. i also have a lot of doubts about presidential history for previous books and also my book about pop culture and the presidency. i have a good friend who said if you want to write a post to write a post about what was right about d

mel carnahan has been elected over john ashcroft. we're going to stay for a little while longer until we hear from george w. bush and vice president al gore. >> with florida results in question, and the presidency hanging in the balance, >> al gore's campaign strategist rushes to warn him not to concede. >> the only thing you could do because the vice president wasn't answering his phone was call david moorehouse. who was the trip director. he was told when he gets out of the car, you have to take him to the holding. so the car pulls up. gore gets out. he said, i'm going straight to the stage. david said, no, we have to go to the holding room. he said why do we have to go -- carter and bob said we have to go to the holding room. i arrived breathless in the holding room as he was wrapping up his phone conversation with george w. bush where he was withdrawing his concession. >> are you going to go out there like a man and say we're waiting for the recount? >> but there was a great moment where bush says, my brother says i won. my broth

mel carnahan has been elected over john ashcroft. we're going to stay for a little while longer until we hear from george w. bush and vice president al gore. >> with florida's results in question and the campaign rushes to warn him not to concede. >> the only thing you could do because the vice president wasn't answering his phone was call david moorehouse. so the car pulls up. gore gets out. he said, i'm going straight to the stage. david said, no, we have to go to the holding room. carter and bob said we have to go to the holding room. i arrived breathless in the holding room as he was wrapping up his phone conversation with george w. bush where he was withdrawing his concession. >> are you going to go out there like a man and say we're waiting for the recount? >> but there was a great moment where bush says, my brother says i won. i don't think your brother gets to decide if you're president of the united states. >> i just got off the phone. the vice president has not conceded. >> the secretary of state has al gore trailing the pr

mel carnahan has been elected over john ashcroft.e're going to stay a little longer until we hear from george w. bush and vice president al gore. >> with the presidency hanging in the balance, al gore's campaign strategist rushes to warn him not to concede. >> the only thing you could do because the vice president wasn't answering his phone, was call david moorehouse, who was the trip director, that was when he gets out of the car, you have to take him to the holding room. he says we have to go to the holding room. i was breathless in the holding room as he was wrapping up his on conversation with george w. bush where he was withdrawing his concession. >> tip was probably saying to al, are you going to kiss it goodbye now over 500 votes? or are you going to go out there and get a recount. >> my brother says i won, my brother jeb, and gore said, i don't think your brother gets to decide who's the president of the united states. >> it is in fact true that the vice president has called to recant his concession. >> the secretary of state

laugh laugh based on the reaction i got the jobless senator ashcroft and then ended up with the bush did ministrations and with that combination of the ph.d. working in politics that i wrote this book. while i was in the bush administration i was there during 9/11 and at the white house during katrina. i worked on the of plan throughout the 2000 and was deployed by the obama administration 2009 so have a lot of experience how government prepares for disasters in the lilac at presidential history from my previous books and also with pop culture. so i have a good friend who says then write about disasters. said the nitride to marry that with the presidential race. i came up with the concept for the book decided to look back in time to see what presidents have done over time with disasters and a founder of something very interesting. that is not always the case that the president should have to deal with as it is their constitutional role response ability but because of lack of modern communication, and they might not even know about disasters when they happened so i tell stories of 181

. >> ashcroft lost to the first deadman ever appointed to the in the. senate. >> as news coverages overwhelms the news, one of the biggest drug busts in u.s. history is under way at an abandoned missile silo in rural kansas. >> at the time i don't believe anyone else in the country knew what was going on here. they were probably watching the election results. it truly is a very similar to the breaking bad tv series. i mean they had the capability to make 2.8 billion dosage units, with a b. that's enough lsd to get every man, woman and child in the entire western hemisphere high. >> the biggest story can become no longer the biggest story in a matter of seconds. >> candidates spi s sprint for finish, it is a blitz indeed. >> each stumping in the battle ground states which could determine the outcome of tomorrow's election. >> after the clinton years and lewinsky and white water, there was this partisan fervor. >> it was a red-blue thing going on at the time. i was told to ditch the jacket, roll up the sleeves and we were full bore into presidential polit

. >>> and john ashcroft another top officials the sue was filed by dozens of noncitizen, many of themuslim who were arrested and obtained after september 11th for violating immigration laws. they claimed they were denied due process. the government argues it was indisputably lawful to arrest the immigrants. >>> getting worse before it gets better. just amazing pictures here. national guard troops called in to save stranded people. rescues still happening here. we'll take you there -- next. who says i shouldn't have a soda everyday? my doctor. my dentist. definitely my wife. wait, i know what i want. make sparkling water at home. and drink 43% more water every day. sodastream. love your water. >>> north carolina is realing in the aftermath of matthew. in lumberton swollen rivers will continue for days. thousands of people have been stranded inside their homes and rooftops. national guard rescuers are working around the clock to save them. sometimes airlifting people to safety. >> reporter: hey, john and christine, the floodwaters, believe it or not are still rising. particularly here i

. >> mel carnahan is running against john ashcroft in one of the most watched senate races in the country. >> 2000 was quite a year. had some interesting quirks. i guess you could consider electing a dead man an interesting quirk. >>> one state over in kansas, the drug enforcement agency prepares to launch one of the biggest busts in history. >> in dea we always try to work with the state and local police as much as possible. but when you have a case as big as this one, sometimes we wait until the last minute just so somebody doesn't accidentally say something. we didn't start the coordination with the local police there until we were getting ready to conduct the raid. >> the dea's target suspected drug manufacturer william leonard pickard. >> he was truly an anomaly. this was a man who was a buddhist monk. he had a master's degree from harvard, was a vegetarian. just not what you typically picture as a drug lord, especially one who is producing over 90% of the world's supply of lsd. with lsd, it is considered more dangerous than a meth lab as far as chemical contamination. we didn't want

bush white house, ashcroft to approve a controversial wiretap program. raced to his hospital bed to back them down. >> i was very upset. i was angry. i thought i'd just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they'd been transferred to. >> secretary clinton said i did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail, there is no classified material. is that true? >> there was classified material e-mailed. >> reporter: comey was just as steely when he announced no criminal charges against hillary clinton. republicans rage he was covering for the obama administration. comey's response -- >> i lead an organization that is resolutely apolitical. >> reporter: he was a registered republican most of his life, although he says not anymore. president obama is offering at least a little cover from democratic fire. >> the president doesn't believe that director comey is intentionally trying to influence the outcome of an election. >> reporter: but does comey even want such support

attorney general ashcroft, and while he made the right decision, even thehe went too far this summer in not indicting the secretary, what he did here was just wrong. something the fbi director needs to exert extreme control over themselves not to get involved. he just made a mistake and i think he should resign because he's damaged the fbi's reputation. >> many democrats supported even praised director comey when he announced there wouldn't be an indictment of hillary clinton. now many of those democrats including you are obliterating him. couldn't you say, well, you liked him when he wasn't going after hillary and now you hate him when he's not? >> i don't hate him. i like jim comey. i think jim comey is a good person. but i think that he went too far, and i think that in the position of fbi director, with a ten-year term. we give a ten-year term to the director so they can do their job and not be involved in politics and not feel pressured, he went too far. justice told him not to get involved. it violated department of justice procedures. everything he knows as a lawyer, a courtro

former attorney general john ashcroft.e think about the quid pro quo, what does think about the state department. we're going to get his take on the war on police, you're seeing it again today. the second hour of "varney & company" coming up. .. stuart: one of my teams on this program has been media bias. i've never seen anything quite like this. stand by because we have two new items that show how extreme the bias is. i know one from leaked e-mails. glenn reporting from "politico" submits his column to john podesta, chair of the entire clinton qb. he's asking the clinton people to approve his reporting. he wants to make sure you get the ready. and please don't tell anyone i'm doing this. item two, thcenter for public integrity reports journalists have given $14,000 to donald trump. 382,000 hillary clinton. journalist money goes to hillary. some of them gave money on the campaign. the media fix it then. they hold the dirt and release it for maximum damage to term. they choose what to report in what to ignore and it always

it's called ashcroft in america, ashcroft from the united kingdom, they're doing focus groups all overthis question, but this is a global phenomenon. this manifested itself in the brexit vote. it will play out with the french presidential elections which are the third of these four globally kaungs conventional elections and the german elections in september. increasingly, the divide is between the elites and everybody else. the permeability between a solid wall that runs idealogically down the middle of the field that separates right from left, now there's a hole in it because a trump voter and a sanders voter are united in the belief the system is rigs, that there's one set of rules for people at the top and a different set of rules for everybody else. that defines politics today. though i will say i was gratified to hear after he lost the election that bernie sanders was able to acquire his third home, which generally speaking, is a lot of houses for a socialist. >> okay. so mika, you know, something i found that's fascinating also this election cycle is every four years i always kno

john ashcroft was ill.to get him to endorse a warrantless ease dropping program. when he found out about the plan, he rushed to the hospital and stopped it. >> i was very upset. i was angry. i thought i just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. >> the program was dropped. he dealt with a terrorist bombing case. following the attack 20 years ago on u.s. in saudi arabia. he prosecuted members of the mof ya. >> we are here to announce three separate indictments against 14 alleged members and associates of the gambino's. >> martha stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but because of what she did. >> reporter: in july, donald trump tweeted the system is rigged after the statement regarding hillary clinton. >> we are expressing to justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case. >> reporter: today, as the news continues to develop, trump said this -- >> it might not be as rigged as i thought. right? right? the fbi -- i think they are going to right the ship, fol

john ashcroft, thank you very much. do want to take a quick peek at oil if you don't mind because it's the reason why stocks are up. oil is the dominant them within the dow. a dominant team within a lot of market averages. it is a period it has doubled in less than two months. gas prices will follow if you live in nature's e.u. could be looking in short order another 23 cents a gallon to pay for roads and bridges. i live in new jersey and they poured a lot of money prison bridges and roads and bridges are as overly horrible. this should just do the trick. more after this. [ beep ] but you'll be glad to see it here. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be. does your mouthg prescripoften feel dry?s, a dry mouth can cause cavities and bad breath. over 400 medications can cause a dry mouth. th

comey's boss john ashcroft was gravely ill in the hospital.o get him to endorse a warrantless eavesdropping program. comey was acting attorney general. when he found out about the plan he rushed to the hospital and stopped it. >> i was very upset. i was angry. i thought i just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. >> reporter: the eavesdropping program was not endorsed. as a federal prosecutor, comey dealt with the terrorist case of the cbart bombing case in saudi arabia that killed 19 service members. he prosecuted 19 members of the mafia. >> we are here to announce the unceiling of three separate indictments against 14 members and associates of the gambino family. >> martha stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is but because of what she did. >> reporter: back in july donald trump tweeted, the system is rigged after comey's statement regarding hillary clinton. >> we are expressing to justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case. >> reporter: today as this news continues to develop, trump said

he -- the famous incident with ashcroft, interfering with card and gonsales, made him legendary in the world of folks in washington who care about fair justice and standup guys, and then i thought what he did this summer was good. thought this side bar about the secretary was wrong, but i overlook that because i thought he was put in a difficult position because he had to made the decision whether to indict or not indict, but getting involved this -- >> you're talking about loretta lynch, the attorney general -- >> excuse me. right. >> go ahead. >> and getting involved in the election this close, is just wrong. there have been bipartisan groups of former prosecutors, number two people at justice under clinton and number two at justice under bush, have -- the "washington post" wind --eder toal said it was wrong, and called on justice to -- >> would you feel that with a if he made it july 5th decision, congressman, on friday? you don't get involve in the elects. it's as 11 days is just too much -- >> quietly he could be doing this and could have pursued this, but not to make a public cas

staff and white house counsel actually got in a rue at the bedside of then attorney general john ashcrofti think there is a consistent pattern with comey which is that he does like to insert himself in things. he was very definitive in that case where he didn't quite have final jurisdiction, but he threw himself in. he got up in the obama administration's face about mandatory minimum sentences not long ago, he weighed in on whether there was a ferguson effect. i mean, i'm not saying he is a camera hog, he's anything but, but he does have a tendency to insert himself in a way that other fbi directors have not. and that i think is kind of what led us to where we are now. >> interesting. thank you both so much. armed with this new information, can donald trump take advantage and win votes? we'll talk to our political panel next. you both have a perfect driving record. perfect. no tickets. no accidents. that is until one of you clips a food truck ruining your perfect record. yup. now, you would think your insurance company would cut you some slack. right? no, your insurance rates go through t

i've been going around the country with lord ashcroft polls and doing focus groups in battleground states what i heard repeatedly is how the clinton years are remembered fondly in terms of how our economy is doing, the country is making progress, but people are sick of clinton's scandals. so this only brings back the very worst of what the memory is from the clinton -- >> we're all sick, but sick for different reasons. >> we can all agree on that. >> i mean -- >> look, i think that this underscores that the republican party right now doesn't have an agenda that it wants to pursue. its agenda once again, this can be a -- >> they want to pursue scandals and -- >> that's becoming an agenda. the party, this is part of what contributed to the rise of trump, to be honest, which is what they did to obama. they couldn't unify around a message, they unified around hating him. he was less compromised in some way than she was. so the investigation element -- >> you don't have a message, always go for some mess. joan and elise, stay with me. more to come. >>> up next, why so many republicans can't de

in april of 2004 attorney general john ashcroft testified that the 9/11 commission and he says and this is a quote the single greatest structural cause for september 11 was the wall. it's the wall memo that prevented the cia and fbi the fbi from speaking to each other. i should note that steve on guard ahead of the missile team that i mentioned protested loudly about the wall in the run-up to september 11 and he went public with this. he said and we can't look for them as an intelligence issue? two weeks after he said that because people are going to die. two weeks later 18 of his buddies hijacked the four planes and killed 3000 people because of the wall. so full disclosure compels me to inform you that due for memorandum is a member of this commission. the author of that memo was missed jamie gorelick. as the nation learned in the aftermath of 9/11 the wall that was preached obtusely to protect the secrets of twa 800 help off to for me when it came to protect in the security of united states and that's where we are today. now i'm going to close with one last anecdote because this is a

programs in which they wanted to try to authorize in an improper way when the attorney general john ashcroft was in the hospital. so in a way he is a type of person we're not used to in washington anymore. a kind of in the middle, public servant republican who does maybe try to tend to the public interest. and so that's why, my guess is, that maybe he's protecting his own backside here, but maybe he also thought that it was better for him to control the flow of this information rather than for it to come out in another way, perhaps through partisan hands. >> let's consider what options he had here. jonathan allen, we discover both in his letter and in his message to the fbi employees that yesterday investigators briefed him just yesterday. there's an ongoing investigation here in new york city by the fbi in new york city and the u.s. attorney in new york city of anthony wiener. totally unrelated to hillary clinton's e-mail investigation. those investigators briefed the director of the fbi that we found something on what appears to be anthony wiener's computer that he apparently shares with h

ashcroft's polling company and that is what the voters are saying. they're saying we want the vote for donald trump. >> right. >> we really don't want to vote for hillary. why does he have to do this after the debate. it was the fact that he just couldn't stop it. it's so incredibly difficult to get donald trump off the ballot at this stage of the game. >> we're going to go to -- >> there's a -- >> we're bog to a higher legal authority on this right now. we have mr. ben ginsburg. mr. ben ginsburg is joining us by phone. he has provided legal counsel to the romney, bush presidential campaigns. he knows this stuff. ben, race car we tonight if donald trump decides he cannot cannot to campaign for the presidency? >> well, under the rules of the republican party, lawrence, they -- the republican national committee can reconvene and vote for a new nominee. now, that's the rules. the practical problem is the ballots are printed in most of the states and early voting has started in any number of states. so the practical itseities of t are really, really stee

perhaps more importantly, larry thompson, former deputy attorney general under johnish kro john ashcroft under the bush and r administration. striking about the letter. it's not just democrats attacking it, because this norm that josh earnist was talking about is snag really is ingrained at the department of justice, which is that you stay out of elections. that is something that -- even a lowly assistant u.s. attorney like me, when we were investigating members of the city council or low-level political officials always under investigation by the justice department is that you stay away from the election time and the idea that director comey would do this when he didn't even have any specific evidence against hillary clinton, when he just said there were these e-mails out there and we don't know their significance, that set off a backlash that transcends just democratic officials. >> tom fuentes, you served in the fbi your entire career and got to the ranch of assistant fbi director. what's your reaction to what we just heard from the white house and we heard from these other officials?

in april 2004, attorney general john ashcroft testified to the 9/11 commission and he says this is a quote, the single greatest structural costs for september 11 was the wall. this is the wall memo that prevented the cia and fbi from speaking to each other. i should know that steve -- the head of the missile team protested broadly about the all in a run up to september 11. he went public with it because it was a terrorist afoot in america and we can't look form because where the investigators have an intelligence issue. this is nuts. two weeks after he says that he said people are going to die. two weeks later, this fellow joins a team of his buddies and they hijacked the planes and kill 4000 people, because of the wall. and so full disclosure ashcraft continues compels me to inform you that the author of the wall memorandum is a member of this commission. the author of that wall memo was missed jamie correctly. so as the nation learned in the aftermath of 9/11, the wall that was pre-shell to easily to protect the secrets of twa 800 held firmly when it came to protecting the security

attorney john ashcroft on what he makes. what do you think in the fallout of this? >> first of all, i'm deeply saddened by what happened at the justice department. that begins with the attorney general of the uned states meeting with the spouse of the person that is subject of a substantial investigation in a private way and then yielding to say i will not exercise the judgment. i'm going to turn this over to the fbi which is an investigative agency, not a prosecutorial agency. there has been a pervasive of the justice department is over and over again and recent reports like in "the wall street journal" that suggests the letters that the justice department has denied investigative tools to be used in investigations related to the clinton foundation and frankly the absence of the use of tools that should have been used in the initial investigation of hillary clinton did. no grand jury. the idea that there were subpoenas that people are invited to testify. there were substantial grants of immunity to individuals. these are all highly irregular. neil: help me with how

i just don't like the way john ashcroft has applied it, and we're going to change a few things. the chairman of the republican party thinks we ought to change a few things. no child left behind act, i voted for it. i support it. i support the goals. but the president has underfunded it by $28 billion. right here in st. louis, you've laid off 350 teachers. you're 150 -- excuse me, i think it's a little more, about $100 million shy of what you ought to be under the no child left behind act to help your education system here. so i complain about that. i've argued that we should fully funded it. the president says i've changed my mind. i haven't changed my mind: i'm going to fully fund it. so these are the differences. now, the president has presided over an economy where we've lost 1.6 million jobs. the first president in 72 years to lose jobs. i have a plan to put people back to work. that's not wishy- washy. i'm going to close the loopholes that actually encourage companies to go overseas. the president wants to keep them open. i think i'm right. i think he's wrong. i'm going to

bush and john ashcroft , almost dying and alberto gonzalez and another henchman came in the hospital to get him to sign some legal papers to force him and comey went right there, right there. he lost favor with the bushes and the republicans but he's an honorable man. if he would have come out after this, comey, with the information, i believe they have something. it's connected on that computer. anthony weiner's computer, that's what he said. he said there's thousands of e-mails and there is a connection. if he would have waited after the connection, people would have screamed. why would you wait? hillary lied. he said colin pau told her it was ok to have a private server and colin pau said no, i didn't say that. now, huma, her assistant, her husband, anthony weiner, for him to be on a computer, sex texting underaged girls with his baby on his chest, if he had any integrity, huma, she would have grabbed that baby, told him to hit the road. but look who she works for. there's no integrity here. host: all right, melissa from florida. jason from san diego, california, calling on the li