we're talking supposed deathbed confession by lee atwater, passed on more than 25 years later by another guy who thought he was dying. and what they spell out, according to james fallows tonight in "the atlantic" is this, atwater's claim that the whole monkey business weekend had occurred at his direction, contriving an invitation for gary hart to come on a boat ride when hart intended to be working on a speech, ensuring that young women would be invited aboard, arranging for the boat hart thought he would be boarding with some unmemorable name to be unavailable so, the group would have to switch to another boat with the very memorable name of monkey business. persuading gary hart's host on the boat to forget to check in with customs clearance at bimini before closing time so that the boat unexpectedly had to stay overnight there in bimini. and then, of course, the next day, organizing an opportunistic photo grab, which ends up on the front page of "the national enquirer" which ends gary hart's race. this is new reporting. it involves dying and/or old guys reportedly confessing well afte

it is a continuation of the story i told about lee atwater and mistrusting him. george w. bush, at that point he was out of the oil business. he was relatively free. when he expressed some mistrust to atwater about how his father's campaign would be run, atwater said, if you don't trust me, why don't you -- he said to george and jeb -- why don't you come to washington and work alongside me? watch me everyday. george w. bush did. he went and worked alongside lee atwater for over a year. he actually moved to washington and helped. his role in the campaign -- his first role, he called it, was loyalty enforcer. with all these politicians and political figures running around, he was the guy watching out for his father's interests. i am sure atwater was, too, but he wanted to double check. his own ambitions -- i think -- i became convinced and wrote that he had his own ambitions at the time. to move ahead for a second, in 1992 after his father lost, he is running for governor of texas. everybody says that he developed his ambitions after his father lost. no, i think he held his a

people like roger ailes and lee atwater played that role.an: why did you believe george bush when he said he did not know about the ad? >> i have seen no documentation that he did and i have seen documentation from people like atwater is that we made a point of not discussing such things. this is not to alleviate bush of any complicity or guilt. he was in charge. he is responsible for what happens with his campaign. but it does give a sense of the tone he wants to set. he told his people, we're going to go for the win, we're going to do whatever it takes, we're going to play dirty, play the race card and emasculate michael dukakis. he wanted those things done, but he wanted somebody else to do it. brian: many stories have been written over the years that when ronald reagan was president, george bush, his vice president, was not invited to the private quarters. the have no time together except their lunches. is that a true story? did u.s. the president? -- did you ask the president? dr. engel: i did not ask because the more interesting questi

lee atwater would be so pleased. >> perhaps he might.what i said at the top there, the president seeing a need to do some triage in florida looking ahead two years from now still. what does that say about the role he's playing in this campaign generally as you watch him crisscrossing the country, going from state to state to state. about his effectiveness as a campaigner, as somebody who has successfully galvanized his republican base. >> he's somebody to your point, too, yes, republican politicians have been using race as a dog whistle and for decades. but what donald trump did even before he started campaigning, before he became president when he was pushing further conspiracy theories is he used the election of the first black president to then the ferment more of the us versus them. it's something he just keeps going. ron desantis said andrew gillum is monkeying up the election and donald trump is still supporting him. so the president continues to send a strong message with the people that he chooses to go out and campaign for and w

herbert walker bush and not discounting 1988 and some of the campaign tactics that were use and lee atwaterd in 1992 and elsewhere, there was a level of respect for what is proper in politics, and political discourse discourse. >> absolutely. on the other side of the campaign, governor michael dukakis fired his campaign manager john sasso for leaking damaging information. i think about joe biden. and so, it is almost as if we are talking about thermopoly when we talk about that the era and not the sentimentalize it at all. the redemptive thing about george h.w. bush and so many american politicians is that many of them would do a lot of unattractive things to get power. to me, the test is once you have amassed that power, do you use it for the good of the country or continue the use it for your own good, and in president bush's case, at every point when he amassed power, he did things against his political interest that one might not have guessed from the campaign. that is the nature of the reality. i was chasing president bush around once about these issues, tough campaigns and opposing th

lee atwater admitted that but not as overtly as donald trump does.e has torn off the mask and says i'm not going to even pretend not to be racist. i'm going to say it out loud. and you don't even have to hear it. >> he's going to say it but then a say i'm not. >> he's going to deny he's racist. he's going to more blatantly racist than the previous people are. >> just after election day, chappelle delivered "saturday night live's" opening monologue. he said we should give president trump a chance. >> i'm wishing donald trump luck and i'm going to give him a chance. and we the historically disenfranchised demand that he give us one, too. thank you very much. >> all right. so then he told christiane amanpour that that was the right thing to say at the time. has president trump squandered all that goodwill, do you think? >> well, first of all, i agree with you. i think chappelle was right to say that at the time. i think when we get a new president, all americans should give the new president a chance. i think the president still has some runway left in

lee atwater, roger ailes, people who would play politics -- dirty may not be the right word, but as toughs possible. ok, i use the word dirty. bush would have a sense of remove it he could say, i did not know about that plan, i did not know about willie horton, despite the fact that his campaign clearly knew the willie horton ad was going to run, a racially charged advertisement the bush campaign ran in 1988. there was always someone around who could be the hitman. ailes and atwater played that role. brian: why did you believe george bush when he said he did not know about the ad? dr. engel: i have seen no documentation that he did and i have seen documentation from people like atwater is that we made a point of not discussing such things. this is not to alleviate bush of any complicity or guilt. he was in charge. he is responsible for what happens with his campaign. but it does give a sense of the tone he wants to set. he told his people, we're going to go for the win, we're going to do whatever it takes, we're going to play dirty, play the race card and emasculate michael dukakis. he wa