now on booktv nancy gibbs and michael duffy report on the relationships between sitting american presidents and predecessors. and shifting allegiancess, one week's supporter and next week's critic. this

so ladies and gentlemen, without, please join me in welcoming nancy gibbs and michael duffy. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. >> we could stand. thank you john for that ridiculous introduction. i wanted to start by saying that in the five years that nancy and i spent putting this but together, we had many hot discovery moments, where we are learning as much about the president as you will learn if you get a chance to read this, things we did know, at things surprised us come as surprise to us about the man we had covered from reagan to bush and clinton and bush and now obama. so for us it is a real journey of discovery to say nothing about what we've learned about hoover and truman and eisenhower, kennedy, johnson come in accent and ford. so we too came away thinking wow, i didn't know that. and it was a journey because people telling us things we don't know. but in some ways ronald reagan was a bigger part of that story than we would've just because we first meet him in 1947, long before his president and as we dug deeper and deeper into reagan's relations with the club, w

earl louis and nancy gibbs. nancy, i saw these photos. the clips will make their way around.ly did not answer the question about whether there should or should not be an exception for rape and incest for abortions. >> he has a long record as does now as we know the republican party platform about no exceptions. i think what's ironic about this is this is the flip side of the problem liberals have had about majority of americans, 61%, believe that abortion should be illegal in most circumstances. the exception is rape and insist. that's not where ryan has been and that's front and center. i think because of romney's position allowing for that exception and because of the akin scanneddal, he has had to move. >> he says i disagree with the top of the ticket but the top of the ticket sets the policy. >> an odd quirk of wisconsin law, paul ryan is running for re-election to congress at the same time. he has to satisfy positions he took in a local race with his new national position. he has to do both on the same day in the same election. >> he was asked specifically about the rape

ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming nancy gibbs and michael duffy. [applause] >> thank you. we could stand. thank you for that ridiculous introduction. i want to start by saying in the five years we spent putting the book together we had many discovery moments where we were learning so much about the presidents as you will learn if you get a chance to read this. things we didn't know. thing that surprised us about the men we covered from reagan through bush and clinton and bush and obama. it was a journey of discovery to say nothing of what we learned about hoover and truman and eisenhower and kennedy and nixon and ford. we too came away thinking i did know that. for us it was a journey that continues because people keep saying things we did know but in some ways ronald reagan was a bigger part of that story than we would have guessed. we first meet him in 1937. the 40th president. as we dug deeper and deeper into reagan's relationship we had seen fdr. and gone to truman in kansas city when he was a democrat and be taken under the wing of ike when he

a god friend of mine nancy gibbs was here recently for a presence club. she told me what a great experience it was. i've been looking to tonight. i thought i would try to explain a little bit about why i wrote the book. i had -- was fortunate in having another unusual experience. i started in journalist as the president of abc news. i had not been a journalist before. i had a steep learning curve. frankly, learning back, i had more to learn than i realized. it gave mae fresh perspective from somebody coming from the outside. i was fortunate to be able to learn a great deal from some of the greatest journalist of the generation. i wanted to share the experience with the others who haven't the opportunity to be behind the scenes particularly when they were big breaking news -- stories. it wasn't difficult for me to find big stories talk about from the death of prin sis princess diana and the impeach and 9/11 and the wars that followed. there were a number of major news events that we were called upon to cover during my tenure. i got see and work with the jo