ms. kumar: and a bipartisanship, they had both worked as prosecutors and knew each other very well. it was an easy discussion between the two of them. matt, can you tell us about the discussions about transition into office that you had with president clinton. mr. mclarty: i would be glad to. first of all, it is good to be with you. and it is a great privilege to be here. and a privilege to be with the chief. without always look forward to. our transition was different. it was a different time and place. and i think josh makes a key point about 9/11. changing the psyche of our country, that personal security became national security, etc. -- and vice versa. it affected transitions. and it was a much earlier time. i think at that point, governor clinton, like most presidential candidates before him was very concerned if you have a serious developed large effort underway on transitions, that it would be easy for the press to say, such a show of arrogance here , measuring the proverbial grapes in

ms. kumar: i wonder if you can talk about the elements that you see that were important in that transition? why was it so good? >> thank you. [laughter] for the recognition of the work that the bush administration bid. mr. bolten: and that the president did himself. that is my answer to your question. is, it comes from the president. in a presidential term agendathe executive's comes what the president says, he or eventually she, is interested in. certainly true of the 2008 presidential transition, bush directed me more than one year before the transition, and you mentioned late thousand seven is when the president first spoke to me as his chief of staff. and talked about how important he thought this presidential transition would be because it was the first presidential transition in our modern history during which our homeland was actually under threat, 9/11 changed everything. not just the bush presidency, but about our country. so, he was determined that we unnecessary period theulnerabilit

ms. kumar: he had wanted them to come in because when he he came into office, he was unprepared. he came in in january of 1945, roosevelt died in april and two minute new of the atomic bomb. and so, sealed by that experience, he wanted to bring people in so that they were going to understand what was ahead of them. general eisenhower turned down truman's imitation a large part because he said he was running against the administration's programs and he thought the public would not understand why he was becoming -- he was coming into the white house when he was running against it. truman was very upset. he send a handwritten note that she sent -- he sent a handwritten note that this is by commenting on his own way of looking at the turn down by the general. he wrote "i am extremely sorry that you allowed a bunch of screwballs to come between us. you have made a bad mistake and not injure it will this great republic. the strong partisan nature of that transition no longer distinguishes the handoff of power from one president to his successor. our five analysts today -- our five pane