lyndon johnson was unprepared. he was a great center, new so much about how the country ran, did medicare, medicaid, civil rights, but was extremely un schooled in foreign affairs. he was taught by the kennedy advisers, and then he was at a place where you had a humiliating withdrawal or an opportunity to extricate yourself in an honorable way. >> there were 16,000 americans in vietnam, all in advisory roles, not combat roles at the time john kennedy was assassinated, so a 550,000 american presence there. that is night and day, that is war and peace. >> i was on active duty at the time, we were sending people to vietnam under classified orders. it was a military assistance advisory group. the problem with lyndon johnson and the war, when he knew that we could not win, he knew that we could not win, and he kept us there. that is unforgivable p.m. richard nixon inherits the war. how are presidents kept from being a snake pit? >> a full pardon for richard nixon for all offenses against the united states. >> that cost

i assume you're white because you've written four volumes on lyndon johnson. y. >> (laughing) stephen: teddy roosevelt said walk softly but carry a big stick. johnson was known for his big stick. okay. what did he... he had a nickname for his penis, didn't he? >> i was hoping you wouldn't ask that. >> stephen: you shouldn't have told me. ( cheers and applause ) mr. caro, two-time pulitzer-prize winning author mr. caro what was the nickname l.b.j. had for his penis is. >> jumbo. he had a great respect for it. when he was president he liked to urinate off the back porch of his ranch. one night a secret serviceman said, mr. president, you want to look out for rattle snakes. he said rattle snakes, it is part rattle snake. >> stephen: mr. caro, on that high note... ( cheers and applause ) robert caro, the book is the passage of power. we'll be right back. ÷qwrwvrk ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: well, that's it for the report, everybody. now, before we go, i would just like to remind everyone in south

the lyndon johnson comparison is completely wrong.e had two-thirds majority in the house and senate. >> and still was opposed by a lot of the republicans just wasn't enough of them. >> that's correct. and after 1966, he had a lot of trouble because he lost seats in the midterm. look, this whole thing that's been created, maureen dowd started it, it's a total misreading of the situation, in my view. the president had a nice response to it at the correspondents' dinner. they say, why don't have you a drink with mitch mcconnell? why don't you have a drink with mitch mcconnell. these folks are determined not to change and steve israel who runs the national campaign committee, they are out there recruiting good candidates, raising a lot of money, they have to break this unprecedented gridlock with unprecedented gains and they are going to need the help of the obama organization to turn out those voters who don't normally turn out in midterm elections. >> bob, you wrote the best way for the president to get something done in his second term

lyndon johnson had the civil rights movement. i think we begin with that. this book comes out at a moment when the country sees the power and possibility of occupy, 99%, and how that has shifted. it is still evolving. it has shifted the center of political gravity of our dialogue. the issue has been off the radar for so long. >> roosevelt surfed and harnessed those movements. he used them to get legislation passed to initiate programs. obama is still getting on his wet suit. to read the essay she wrote in 2008, there was a sense of exhibits -- exuberance. you say that hope is not optimism that expects things to turn out well. it seems like he confused those two things. >> i will come back to what i write about in the book. the expectations were so great and high. go back to 2008. the back to the election and year when we are fortunate region were fortunate enough to be living with debates that were not cruel reality shows. every week, there were debates among the democratic candidates. barack obama embodied change. it seemed he brought into politics a gener

lbj, was very surprised to learn that lyndon johnson was a member of the zionist organization of america. she once told them, don't ever go against israel because israel is a nation that was given to them by god. they are the only nation that got recognized as on. they are god's people. if you read the chapter on lbj in my book, you will find that heat lived up to her wishes, so much so that he, like kermit, supported israel against the almost overwhelming opposition of his own cabinet. but it was not only his answer admonition that moved in. the russian leader asked president johnson why he supported israel, he replied because it is the right thing to do. shortly after becoming president, lbj was guest of honor at an austin, texas synagogue where it was revealed that as a congressman he had saved 42 jews from poland and germany and in what was known as operation texas he was said to have saved hundreds more, although the evidence to that is not conclusive. and it a now famous jew who claimed that lbj saved his life was erich leinsdorf became the conductor of the boston symphony jimmy ca

you know, lyndon johnson even at the moment of john kennedy's assassination, you would think that would have been the most horible thing for him to turn nto politics b said no memorial oration could more eloquently honor john kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of his civil rights bill. people thought it was very appropriate even if you're chris christie or mary fallon, i'm being crass, talking about the politics, it doesn't necessarily hurt you. >> it doesn't hurt you at all. we're talking about republican governors. they are more than theap to see washington represented by the president of the united states come to their communities. >> ifill: alexis and michael, thank you both so much. >> thank you, gwen ifill: on the rundown you can see more video r. oba and other presidents reaching out to communities in times of trouble. >> brown: finally tonight we spend a lot of time chronicling the hits and misses on capitol hill. author and journalist robert kaiser writes about a little of both focusing on how lawmakers reshaped wall street regulations after the 2008 financial

they composed most of the party leadership, lake sam rayburn of texas and later lyndon johnson of texas. because the capacity of the south, nothing could pass into law in the 1930s against the wishes of the southern members of the democratic party. after 1938, democratic party republicans begin to make a comeback, democratic party was composed by southern majority in the house and senate and in the 1940s, everything that passed into law, not done to the preferences of the southern members of congress. in that sense, it was the south that was critical in making the new american state that denies take an foreign-policy state, national security state. there was this out it was critical after that came the modern new deal. i don't know this is a morality tale, though it is ethically charged features. this was the way things were in the 1930s and 1940s. as historians and social science is to think hard about the implications of that and the implications of the capacity of the american south in the last era of jim crow. that capacity had more than one kind of impact. let me just briefly illus

capitol hill today than it used to be for any president there are sometimes analogies made to lyndon johnson and he should be more like lincoln-- lyndon johnson, you know, breaking arms and legs and twisting everybody. the fact is that doesn't work the way it used to. this is a different time. the congress is different. the country is so divided, red and blue that it's just hard for any chief executive to operate that way. and as we've seen for congressional leaders to get their way sometimes. >> woodruff: glenn, we heard the president say today, he said it's not my job to get members of congress to behave. he said it's their job because they're elected to do what is right for the american people. he said and they ought to be thinking about five, ten, 15 years from now and not right now. is he right about that? does he have a point? >> well, maybe the juice we're talking about needs to be in the form of a cattle product. i think he is-- he's partially right about that. i think, you know, to a certain extent as dan said, the president is facing this incredible division. he has come up, howeve

i would say lyndon johnson.ave been a few president--jimmy carter did not lose one person to combat, which is admirable. some lost their lives when they tried to rescue the hostages, but lbj with the civil rights act, voting rights act. it's very complicated because of the vietnam war, but i think he has done more for the country. >> no more greater pieces of legislation than the civil rights acts, but because he lied to get us in vietnam war, that makes it a horrible answer on michael shure's part. but i would throw out dwight eisenhower. because in 1957, sending troops in little rock and using the power and muscle to enact silver rights change and then a speech when he leaves hoves about the military industrial complex which every progressive american could get behind. >> that was a speech. that wasn't him being president but a speech on his way out. >> cenk: i've been watching "the untold history of the united states" by oliver stone and it makes you hate all of our presidents. >> who do you late the least. >

and she told us the story of her great grandmother, lyndon johnson's grandmother, who again, came from a genteel family in the east, moved out into texas where a number of her cousins had moved for the land. and they had one of their neighbors, the couple was killed by comanches in a raid, and all of the men went to search for the comanches that had killed those neighbors. and she was alone with her baby, and she heard the horses being rustled out outside. she rushed down into her basement and covered the floor opening with a rug, put a diabetesser in her baby's -- diaper in her baby's mouth so that the baby wouldn't crew. and sure enough the indians came in. she heard them smashing her china and everything she had in the house, and then there was silence. and then the next thing she heard was her husband coming home, and he was just, obviously, devastated. so she emerged from the basement and said, you know, i think we're going to move to zahn marcos. [laughter] san marcos. so they did. they kept the land, but she also rode trails with her husband. and there's a letter from one of the

my brother tony and his wife are back with lyndon b. johnson. mendon at the wheel. bless him. we never could get it in sports clothes. that is my sister-in-law. tony was in the back seat without a shirt on. that is the house on the cliff. he is an air of sugar whose father was kidnapped in a very dramatic fashion. there was a delightful cable car that goes up to that house. there is beaver. he always likes to be there whenever linden is. many of our weekends were spent on lake and lyndon b. johnson. there is jake. there is abe, jacqueline de -- jack valenti. and there is bill. >> that is, movie footage from 1965 the oil shock and later merited by of our program. businesses gritty comedy is from the johnson library in austin texas. the president to historian -- what is this next hour like? >> we are going to see the lyndon johnson that, frankly, the public did not see very much, and in many ways, i think almost to his detriment, partly through the eyes of his wife and others as well. and of course, lady bird johnson's role in this story is absolutely pivotal. not only is a histo

and another example of this is fallen to the history books is another lavigne picture of lyndon johnson showing the scar in the form vietnam. one of the scars suggest about cartoon and caricature, they can live on long after their initial exposure. and they have a permanent sei in the culture that words sometimes do and sometimes don't. and in that respect, to me, they are like poetry. they both resist para phrase. they capture a lot in a short way. so how does one deal with the question of -- next. how does one deal with this question of using words to answer a cartoon? i finally found the answer to that question. might i just put to you, but the answer is not in words. here is the answer of how one deals with the paradox of using words to answer a cartoon. this is a a -- [inaudible] -- it says a lot. i can't say what it says. i don't have the words to say if. so that's it. if one takes the first serious, a content theory that people get upset because of the content, the most famous american cartoonist was thomas who stimulated -- this is one of his drawings or who stole the people's m

tell me everything single thing wrong i got about them, and the first one to shout out will be lyndon johnson, how come that damn book about the kennedys was twice as long as yours was about me? now, it used to be a badge of honor to say you were a 24-year-old white house intern, it's gotten a little more complicated in modern day. [laughter] truth is, it was a fabulous program, we had a big dance at the night, president johnson did whisper he wanted me to be assigned directly to him in the white house, but it was not that simple. like many young people, i'd been active in the anti-vietnam war movement, had written an article against lbj which unfortunately came out two days after the dance in the white house, and the title of the article was how to remove lyndon johnson from the power. [laughter] but somehow he said, oh, bring her down here for a year, and if i can't win her over, no one can. so i did end up working for him in the white house and accompanying him to the ranch to help him write his memoirs when he was so sad and vulnerable that he opened up to me in ways he never would would

lyndon johnson made a deal on medicare. those days are gone. any deal the president tries to make gets opposed in the house. the only way we've gotten anything passed this year, anything significant, is for john boehner to break the rule that a bill can't come to the floor without a majority of the majority. we can get out of sequestration. there are enough republican votes in the house combined with almost every democrat to pass a deal. same thing is true on immigration reform. but i don't think we're going to get any of those things if you have to have a situation where republicans as a party in the house have to all agree on this. >> let's go to the bottom line. numbers, numbers, numbers. the house is controlled by republicans. primarily because -- certainly jerry mandering plays a part. primarily because the democratic party sweeps the big cities about 90-10. all those votes, the 40% they don't need don't get counted in how we get elected to congress. the republicans win 60-40 in their districts. democrats win 90-10 in theirs. that's why yo

lyndon johnson had the irs all over richard nixon. >> neil: how -- >> that it not posed to do it. do you do it? how you convey that intention without making it sound criminal. >> it's the culture. remember when watergate was engulfing the nixon white house, everybody pointed to the culture of the house and whether nixon knew about the watergate break-in, the misuse of the irs, everybody said the culture starts at the head. and in this case as well. we don't know whether or not obama was directing this or his white house was directing it. it stinks to high heaven but we don't know that yet. we do know the president sets the tone for his administration, including the irs, including every part of the economictive branch. >> you didn't buy his shock today? >> i thought was a palpable lack of it. the president should have come out friday and said this outrageous, it was oh, no, it was wrong, and let me tell you some more untruths about benghazi. but the -- that's what he got emotional about. there was know emotional energy. and let me say this about how the word gets out. i just got an

another example of this that has flown into the history books is another levine picture of lyndon johnson showing his scar in the form of the vietnam and it's just one of things about the curtains and caricatures which is that they can live on long after their initial exposure and the of a permanency in the culture the words sometimes do and sometimes don't they are like poetry and debose resist paraphrase but also capture a lot in a very short way. so how does one deal with this question -- let me find this next -- how does one deal with this question of using words to answer a cartoon? i finally found the answer to that question that i just put to you. but the answer isn't in words. here is the answer of how one deals with a paradox of using words to answer a cartoon. this is steinberg. it says a lot, but i can't say what it says because i don't have the words to say at. so that's it. now, if one takes the first series of the contant theory that people get upset because the content, the most famous american cartoonist was thomas nast, who stimulated -- this is one of nast's drawings --

and another example of this that has fallen into the history books is another levine picture, lyndon johnson showing his par in the form of vietnam. those two drawings suggest one of the things about cartoons and caricatures which is they can live on long after their initial exposure and they have a permanent seat in the culture that words sometimes do and sometimes don't and in that respect they are like poetry in that they both resist paraphrases but capturing lot in a short way. how does one deal with this question -- let me find this next -- this question of using words to answer a cartoon i finally found the answer to that question that i just put to you, but the answer is not in words. here is the answer of how one deals with the paradox of using words to answer a cartoon. this is the steinberg. it says a lot but i can't say what it says because i don't have the words to say it. that is it. if one takes this first theory, the content theory, people get upset because of the content the most famous american cartoonist was thomas nast to stimulated, this is one of the drawings for a lot o

nearly 100 years later, president lyndon johnson signed the higher education act of 1965. and thus the pell grant was created. today, an affordable college education is more important than ever in this country's history. in the next decade, 6 % of all jobs will require at least some post-secondary education. and in order to compete for jobs of the future, our children must be equipped and not saddled with debt. congress has a duty to ensure that federal education system is both affordable and accessible. on july 1, if congress does not act, rates for college students taking out subsidized department of education loans are scheduled to double from 3.4% to 6.8%. unfortunately, mr. speaker, this week the house will -- the place affectionately referred to as the people's house, believe it or not, will consider a bill that would do more harm than good. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would bring the so-called smarter solutions for students act to the house floor this bill is not a smart solution. in fact, it is in the a solution at all. it actually makes it more ex

is the best of fdr the fireside chats that educate and create a context for policy reform and lyndon johnson was some good retail politics to try to bring it about. is it a long shot? sure. is it possible? definitely. and no have i given up and americans can be counted on to do the right thing but only after they have tried everything else. the real question for me is whether we get to this in time before the crisis if you will forces us to undertake reform on far worse terms and that is something we should as a policy want to avoid. i don't have a crystal ball but i really think that is a question. it would simply say i don't think we have forever when you look at projections for example of things like entitlement obligations five or 10 years out. my hunch is that is roughly the time and i think we bought a few years for some of the budget tory reforms of the last couple of years. the energy transformation is also bought a somewhat sometime hopefully an immigration form will be welcome so we are doing some of the right things but there are deep overhangs if you will that we have got to deal

lyndon johnson had signed the public broadcasting act, which created pbs and npr, in 1967 and pbs was founded two years later. its mission, especially when it came to national public affairs programming, was very much still an open question when before the era of c-span, before cameras were regularly trained on the congress, a decision was made to present gavel-to-gavel coverage that would then be repeated that same evening. that was the backdrop, as the watergate hearings began 40 years ago today. >> good evening from washington. in a few moments we're going to bri you the entie proceedin in the first day of the senate watergate hearings. hearings to bear the truth about the wide range of illegal, unethical or improper activities established or still merely alleged, surrounding the reelection of president nixon last year. >> brown: may 17, 1973: day one of the historic senate hearings that would, a year later, lead to the resignation of an american president. it was also the start of something quite new for public broadcasting led by robert macneil and jim lehrer. >> we are running i

but sort of does not see congress in the way that some, lyndon johnson would for example. so i think what you have is that health care, more of a struggle than president obama certainly thought as it related to congress. stimulus, same thing. fast-forward to this term. gun control, we thought at least that a final package would get a vote. it wound up not. he is a very good messenger outside of washington. both campaigns have proven that i don't think there's any debate about that. he is someone who really can connect well and speak well to the middle of the country that you need to win elections. the issue is, can he work within the bounds of congress on immigration, on student loans. on, and this is the big one, debt and spending as it relates to the debt ceiling and our budget deficit. can he do those things that inside plays that he's been less good at throughout his, you know, five and a half, six years in office. >> of course, the white house website also had this video, which reprised his slow jam with jimmy fallon last year. >> some of you may remember last year wh

to if that's the case then you want to do everything you can to break that up but i think the lyndon johnson you know cut poverty in half in less than five years and we're you still have a war on poverty i mean bill clinton killed you know it's so many but but but so but in any case why republicans you know i mean this was the deal that they made with with. the with obama was you know if you want to get the debt. ceiling raised you're going to have to cut long term unemployment benefits from ninety nine weeks down to seventy four weeks mark i don't get it why you know if you can go to the republican party and say here prove princeton university and the fed if you know if you maintain long term unemployment benefits people are going to keep looking for work because people would read most other than that two percent of people would rather work than not well first of all i have not studied this you know this study or the study itself i haven't sat down looked at all the numbers i think about it. ok i mean princeton the fed i these are not primary sources to me i think the one that was done befo

first of all many of those people exaggerate the power he has and exaggerate the parallels to lyndon johnsonand others. he won a co kohn vinceing reelection and the white house thought, all right, republicans will be less recalcitrant and less resistant, with the seal exception of immigration, they have been anything, more recalcitrant and given him nothing. he has moved in a few things and he even moved on the fiscal issues. when you talk about cost of living adjustments and means testing for medicare that is moving on entitlements, republicans have given him absolutely nothing. and so i think -- and they don't think they are paying any price for that at all, charlie. i he it is a very frustrating time as someone said earlier. he is having these dinners, i can't get my sense that there is any progress that is being paid, one can't look at any of the whole panorama of issues and say, all right, well, fine, at least there is some movement there and they are beginning to show some progress. other than immigration and even that still is worrisome for the proponents, but other than that, there i

vietnam, the gulf of tonkin resolution which gave lyndon johnson sort of a blank check, both iraq and afghanistan had congressional actions that said it's okay to take action to defend the united states. it was ambiguous but it was a blank check, and has never been a declaration of war but and i think that is a mistake. each of these wars has taken on different purposes after they began we find each of those would come we step the the goals. now it's more nation build in afghanistan. that certainly is not what we're talking about in october of 2001. we are talking about punishing the taliban government and chasing down al qaeda in the mountains of afghanistan. obviously, it's become more than that. we do need to buy into our worst. the fact that it's not popular, part of me, nowhere is really popular, it's just a necessary thing. but i'm a great, but there has to be public political support. and we have not exercised that. most of the time in the last election 7% of the americans said the war in afghanistan was a matter of great importance. it was not an issue in the election campaign

or harry truman or lyndon johnson or john you know energy to or even jimmy carter to or bill clinton for that matter to any of them to to really slap them down and fight back i have not seen that yet and i keep you short because he's certainly got he's certainly got the issues on his side there well when he when he acts like that fighter whether it's on the campaign trail it seems to work for him but you know once he's in the office he tends to go away from that i'm not sure if this issue is something that you know the white house has been very careful to stress that they had no knowledge of this nor should they have knowledge of this they shouldn't be in touch with the department of justice as the department of justice is investigating a leak that could have come from the white house that's just you know reeks of unethical behavior there but the interesting thing here is ever since this is happening and these questions about the d.o.j. and whether their behavior was appropriate i've been asked at these press press briefings and i asked of the white house the white house has taken th

land, which was part of the national park, and she told us the story of her great-grandmother, lyndon johnson's grandmother, who again came from a family in the east, moved out into the country where a number of her cousin had moved for the land and one of their neighbors was killed by a comanches in a raid and all of the men went to search for the comanches that have killed those neighbors. she was alone with her baby. and she heard the horses being rustled out outside and rush them into her basement. she covered it and everything that she had in the house, her china and everything, and then there was silence in and the next thing she heard was her husband coming home and he was just obviously very devastated. so she emerged from the basement and said, i think we are going to move to san marcos. [laughter] so they did. but she also wrote the trails with her husband. there is a letter who was from one of the cowhand who said i had the honor of writing with mrs. johnson ahead of the curve. i verified the story. lisa said that this had been handed down through the family. there was even more info

a senior adviser to president lyndon johnson many years ago wrote a book called the twilight of the presidencywing up on with my book. he said one of the worst problems that presidents had was keeping up with reality, and that is worse now. to me, what presidents need to do and in my concluding chapter i have prescriptions for this, it has to be a sustained effort to keep in touch as a priority. it cannot be just occasionally. news conferences are one way a president can keep in touch by seeing what is on the minds of the media, interviews. but also you mentioned town meetings. that is very important. president obama has tried to go out and see people in their homes. he went to falls church, virginia not long ago and met with people. even that is a problem because of the notion of awe and how many people are candid with him. pollsters are important. presidents can get a decent sense of the country from polling. it can be overdone. i think president carter overdid did that with his pollster, which i talk about in the book. another thing is keeping in touch with popular culture. you mention the

a senior advisor to lyndon b. johnsony years ago wrote a twilight of"the tyler whit the presidency." he said one of the worst problems that presidents had was keeping up with reality, and that is worse now. to me, what presidents need to do and in my concluding chapter i have prescriptions for this, it has to be a sustained effort to keep in touch as a priority. it cannot be just occasionally. news conferences are one way a president can keep in touch by seeing what is on the minds of the media, interviews. but also you mentioned town meetings. that is very important. president obama has tried to go out and see people in their homes. he went to falls church, virginia not long ago and met with people. even that is a problem because of the notion of awe and how many people are candid with him. pollsters are important. presidents can get a decent sense of the country from polling. it can be overdone. i think president carter overdid did that with his pollster, which i talk about in the book. another thing is keeping in touch