james, you are on book tv with maureen dowd. caller: good day, maureen dowd. guest: good day, james. caller: i feel like i walked through a looking glass somewhere around evening on november 8, and has been wondering what's been going on and i'm in a alternative reality all of a sudden. you know, there is a great deal of concern regarding the amount of russian influence in our government through the election and now how much is here to stay ask how much has integrated itself into the fabric of our governments machine? a gate-- great deal of the important people seem to be ignoring its totally. they refuse to answer-- host: thank you. let's hear from maureen dowd. we have looking glass. guest: james, can't tell you the number of times i have written the word looking glass into a call amendment taken it out because i have used it so often and you are correct. its alternative universe and like bizarro world with alternative facts and i have to tell you the russian story is the strangest thing that my colleagues and i have seen in our careers. it's inexplicable an

maureen dowd, . >> howdy you view your job? >> at all like to talk about this because this sounds a little corny but a few might job as a watchdog and people don't understand i am not an ideological columnist not coming from the left right a was a political reporter 20 years more from apolitical reporting point of view.o i just write to tell them it is like the wizard of oz tord give "the reader" anything i can find out that they need to know what is true or false said with these people will have life-and-death power over us are really like. and if they're rising to the occasion. >> occasion of. host: maureen dowd most recent book is called "the year of voting dangerously". , us presidents have you covered you know? guest: well, i covered the very tail end of reagan when he was on his way out. i did a few features on him and actually i went on a trip with him to an asian economic summit and covered nancy because in those days if you are the woman you covered the woman. so, i covered nancy reagan. i did an interview with her whe

maureen dowd, . >> howdy you view your job? >> at all like to talk about this because this sounds a little corny but a few might job as a watchdog and people don't understand i am not an

maureen dowd pointed this out months and months ago. he's obsessed with numbers.u hear him start talking, usually the first thing that comes out of his mouth is some sort of number. during the campaign he was obsessed with polls. he's obsessed with twitter because it gets him a number of likes, facebook the same thing and also television. the amount of time he spends on television, how the ratings are when he is on television. he gravitates towards that because it validates his importance. it makes him seem like he is somebody who people are listening to regardless of whether or not they agree with him. that's how he judges his worth is basically through the amount of folks that are listening or watching or liking or tweeting or et cetera. he's obsessed with it. he can't stop watching. i was told during -- and i'm sure bob costa can agree with this. but a number of sources told me repeatedly during the campaign, people that go long back with donald trump, that the way to get him to read an article was to make sure that he was in the headline because he wasn't goin

. >> the very thing that maureen dowd had been writing about through the campaign about bill clintontrating. >> by the way, my pet rock could have gotten 45% against hillary clinton. maybe if my pet rock didn't make any gafs in the three debates, my pet rock could have beaten hillary clinton. >> to your point, donnie -- >> all about donald trump, though. >> exactly. >> all about him, his jobs record and accomplishment in office. if he keeps tweeting and can't get things done -- >> and this, mika, is why we say to my friend, since he was 22, paul ryan, there will come a day of reckoning for everything that donald trump has said and done. >> yeah. >> start planning for that day now. and people like devin nunes, who lie on tv, you've got to get rid of them. everybody talks about 2006 being about iraq, being about this. people don't remember. there were a lot of little scandals that happened right before the election. and one scandal not so small for a father and his son was mark foley scandal and how that was handled was sort of the tipping point. do you remember? there's a tipping poin