billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. >> next it is a book tv in-depth program at their chief white house correspondent peter baker and new yorker staff writer susan glasser. the husband and wife team have written three books together, rising, demanding rent washington about former secretary james baker and the divider. trump and the white house 2017 -- 2021. sue and peter baker, susan glasser you are in, history, yu are the third married couple to ever appear on in-depth and 25 year old. bernadine dorn and bill ayers, and rose milton freedman.

and now glasser/baker as the third we have no ideology to propound a. [laughter] >> somewhere in the middle of those two i think. [laughter] went susan glasser what is the best part of working on a book and living with the person and raising a son question with the same person writing the book with? >> you know, your spouse can't get mad at you for spending too much time at work. [laughter] student what's the worst part about writing a book with that same question person? >> it's 24 hours. sue and peter baker samee question. we shoot we met in newsroom, we have always worked together even for the beginning of our relationship. it is always been part of our professional and personal we have never separated them. for us it's natural. what you have worked simultaneously in many locations, correct? >> that is right we met first together in the "washington post" newsroom in january of

1998. we like to say with only good thing that came out of the whole monica lewinsky bill clinton situation. but seriously we have basically always work together. follow that we were inn moscow together for the "washington post". when we came back to washington we had different assignments. whether we work at the same place or not he works at the times i work at the new yorker. as part of an ongoing conversation. we just feel so lucky. believe me we have had some people say to us. [laughter] you write a book together? how could you do it? but to me i say the inverse we are so lucky to have this partnership that exists in real time in all the things we are interested in. >> host: the third book together, the divider is almost accidental, is that affair with saying it? who are already in jerusalem in 2016. >> guest: we decided he wanted

to be political correspondence and get something out of it we had made the move in the summer of 2016. i was atmo the "new york times" and i was going to be the bureau chief there. susan renovated our apartment but she was when you join us after the election she was the editor of politico at the time. of course election changed everything. i remember that light is the middle of the night jerusalem and the results came in and susan text me saying for small trump was going to one, second i'm also going twice to come back and she was right. [laughter] student what to do their part in jerusalem? >> force of the "new york times" owns it. after he finished renovating turned over to her successor who got to enjoy it more than we hadid. >> host: you came back and worked at the "new york times" and you stated politico for a while? >> guest: that's right. we are writing a column, doing a podcast. it was supposed to be interestingly focus on international affairs. financing the point here and we've still been in that moment for the last five or six years

now is that the united states is the biggest focal point of global disruption that there has been. if you care about foreign policy and i was the editor of foreign policy magazine. the truth of the matter is, this disruption this internal crisis in the world's major superpower is the biggest question for anyone who cares about foreign policy. in a way we got to be foreign correspondents in our own country too. we had to literally buy a whole new house. our house was rented out. even though we were gone in my case only a few weeks or washington. it felt covering the trump presidency was covering a whole different city a different world it away. we went when you do extra start working on the divider was in 2016? lack. >> noted all. writing a book is so hard. it is such an enormous lift.

there've been a lot of great but incremental books about the trump presidency during the middle of it. to me i think our aspiration was to resist doing that and to think about what could we do that would be lasting. five years from now, 10 years from now, longer when your kids or n n grandkids say donald trus president? what was that like? our goal once we decided to embark on that which we did not do until trump's first impeachment. with that okay, that's something that will last for history will do that. but then of course i was immediately filed by the disruptions of 2020 in the election year. so it's change through the full trump in the white house for years. >> host: peter baker was always a book and to your book on bill clinton's impeachment, correct? >> that was my first book was on clinton's impeachment back in the time. there honestly echoes in the later impeachments.

but it was so different under trump obviously became so much more magnified. the clinton impeachment was a different light in some ways. but yes susan is right we are thinking about an impeachment book we did start working on sales after wasas over why did u not tell us these things will he was in office? we didn't start riding in this and working on this until d he s left office. these are interviews done last 18 months after he left. on therefore we tried to put out as soon as we could we think it was worth. witness for history. >> guest: it was literally within 24 hours of the beginning of trump the first impeachment the ukraine scandal, the perfect phone call, we were going out to dinner one night in september of 2019 emily ran into lindsey graham, a key character in peter's first book on impeachment but of course that is how lindsey graham came to

national attention was is one of the house managers in the bill clinton senate trial back two decades ago really. when it ran into lindsey graham on the street he came out of the palm restaurant the famous washington steakhouse. he said well paid or are you to write a book about this next impeachment? it was really a remarkable demonstration i think what woulv prove to be one of the enduring themes of this book which is republicans who privately disdained donald trump while publicly accommodating themselves to him during lindsey's grahams case over the top lavishing with praise. and graham, for all of his public defenses of donald trump at that time, he turned to us and he wanted to prove he was in on the joke and i he said well,e is a lying mother effort. that is with lindsey graham said at that encounter but he is so much fun to hangg out with.

and that of course stuck with this as we eventually embarked upon this process and became the divider. >> host: there's a quote from you susan about whose exabyte and james baker book. you said both peter and i came away reinforced with the idea that individuals do matter. and that history is not inevitable. i wanted to talk about some of the individuals that were in the divider. let's begin with lindsey graham. what wasiv his role during the trump administration? >> it is so interesting for there so few characters as interesting as he is. he ran against trump peoplest forget that in 2016 is very visceral and sink trump was unfit for office the most unfit ever but he was a kook, he was dangerous, he was an extremist in all these different ways. and then once trump starts getting an office he starts wooing him giving him access. let's play golf have you ever

read not marine one? come along we'll look at the view your flight on air force one withai me. it really drew graham in. he loved the access. he love the ability of culp on his cell phone any time the president of the united states. no other president had ever give him that access. i began to draw him away from his mentor, and his partner john mccain with whom he had been so close for so many years. mccain despised trump, thought trumpng wasn't dangerous, incompetent and terrible for the country. did not understand white lindsey graham was pulling closer. now lindsey grahamg would tell you first of all he is a lot of thought he would say about trump he would always tell people he could moderate trump he couldn't guide trump and help them be a better president. it just never convinced john mccain even on his death bed john mccain and lindsey graham were fighting over this. john mccain dying over brain cancer.of there's this time in arizona

when lindsey graham and gone down to be of cain and his months of life and he said why do you have to do this? that will be close to what you have to play golf with him why do you have to light that is a good golfer? he is light come on lindsey. chris even forgave the vietnamese you for gave them how come i can't forgive donald trump? there is a dramatic break between them that plays out the funeral in which lindsey graham is aic great friend has no speakingng role other than to rd a quick line of scripture. that's why the dramatic sub- stories of his presidency. sue went susan glasser, throughout the divider we've talked about the players in washington. now it is fair to say you two are probably washington insiders? i don't mean to be unfair. >> guest: if along javid he confers insider this. fluently donald trump everum hae been accepted by the washington

establishment? >> guest: look it's one of the truisms about washington this idea that there is a permanent establishment. what is remarkable is there is a constant renewal in the city in the sense that every four years, every eight years there is a new president, a new administration. the clintons came to town they were dismissed as outsiders as rubes from arkansas. and fast forward a few years the evil establishment that needs to be overthrown. the reagan revolution begot a new generation of republicans insiders in establishment that today the tub republican have rd reagan as their patron saint. if he ever came to town's ultimate insider who's going to shake things up. i do think there is that notion is the differences that donald trumpp, he will never have

conferred a new generation of insiders because he chose to think pursue the confrontational version of the presidency. it was almost chaos and disruption for its own sake. and of course we see now the consequences of that. we are still dealing two years after the presidency with the damage the president of the united states just the other day the former president running again for his office. to be the first since grover cleveland to return to the presidency since the constitution is optional when it comes to electionshe and what he thanks he is owed from 2020. that is never going to be in establishment. that's not going to be a new establishment in washington. that felt very important for

peter and i. normally write a book at the after the end of a presidency is forr history. i do think we are hoping for people to read this as a historical document. but in this case it is also literally a live action crime scene where the subject of multiple investigations by the justice department. and so it is also a present date crisis in our democracy too. he went peter baker, your book -- make these are quotes from your book but if only he would ... as kind of a washington. he could if only he would. flexor was an idea when he first came in that maybe hean can brek out of the mold by being somebody who worked across the aisle. he did not have anai ideology.

clint did her bush did is very pro-choice before he became a pro-lifer. he was for raising taxes on the wrist before he was cutting taxes, again and again and again he changed over time and decided didn't need them anymore but come to the idea could town he didn't have a wedded view of things but that fundamentally misunderstand who he is. and who he is is a disruptor to use a kind word. thereus are less inclined to us. his is to be a divider which is what we call it that. he is about division and always has been throughout his life. he is about throwing fuel on whatever fire happens to be out there to set af fire at the moment he will find when to start. >> guest: if he does not get the republican nomination in 2024,

could you see him leaving the republican party? >> guest: sure absolutely don't rule it out. i don't know that he would do that but do not relent out. even if he were not to run for he is running right now to say he would pull out constantly second guess who the nominee is prettyty loose he could leave te party or somehow undermine it in some way. republicans have bought into somebody who doesn't believe what they believe he doesn't believe in their party for he said that after 2020 when he 'tamara from the generous six attack on the capitol he said maybe i'll give up on the republican party and they had a pushing hard to say no i won't. you just can't count on that. so what a lot of people around him were quoted as saying i stuck around because it was important that i stuck around. we did - not want to be trump necessarily. for chiefs of staff, john kelly, mark meadows, and mick mulvaney. at what point did the chief of

staff let go of managing the white house? [laughter] >> guest: let's jus' say these might be case studies in many ways of how not to do. used to tell people donald trump likes two kinds of staffers but he likes staffers who used to work for him and the ones who will work for him. trump, for all of his obsession with personal loyaltyty is personal loyalty defined as loyalty to him. he does not feel obligation in the otherm. direction. i think that is a very important point though. what is the trajectory of those for chiefs of staff? and in that does not define the story we are telling in the divider. it is a story about those who surrounded donald trump as much as donald trump himself and because trump in the end is a very unchanging, inflexible man

in his 70s. without these others who were willing to work for him, for whatever complicated set of reasons he would have been just another old dude shouting at the television, watching fox news in between golf games. what is striking is that as he went to the four years, trump was really seeking not only loyalty but a definition of staff who would do what he wanted without pushing back pain without questioning him. who would join him in the project of knocking down the guardrails. and think about generous six and think about the difference remark meadows the former far right congressman from north carolina who was his fourth and final chief of staff since john kelly the retire for start marine general who was his second chief of staff. we cannot say for sure if kelly would have been chief of staff generous six would not have happened. you can say pretty credibly that kelly would've thrown himself at

the door of the oval office in order to stop people like mike flynn from getting in there and advocating martial law and a five hour long meeting with donald trump which actually happened in december of 2021. meadows one of the people we quoted the book was serving as essentially a matador in that period of time and waving the crazies into the oval office. those who are bearing conspiracy theories, lies, and recklessness. i think it really doesn't matter who surrounded donald trump. but it is alsod important to ne there were many who did in their own way resistant trump at various points along the way. but that doesn't mean they are heroes. in fact that's literally a quota white house official fromic the trump white house sent to us, look there are no heroes in the story. i think that is important point to make two. speech - is a great story by jon

kelly is being pushed out as chief of staff and he says to jump listen, you don't want a yes, ma'am present yes enjoy what a yes, ma'am. that was trump's philosophy about staff he wasn't looking for someone to disagree with him or give them contrary information he wanted people to do them but they wanted to know took him a while to find them. do and having those four talk to you? >> guest: we talked as many people as a possible many people may not want us to note we talk to them. >> guest: we wanted to be authoritative account as possible. we talked to several hundred people whichop we did. all of them after trumpe left office and the second impeachment. i think what was striking to me actually was how much we were able to debrief people. many have never spoken out publicly much of the fury of shrubs that many critics in and out of the republican party. what really struck us as extreme

importance. almost you're taking a form of testimony after action report for somebody who was really a crisis for american democracy. he wanted to pursue an issue with the president? >> guest: he did not need to pursue an entry of the president it was offered. we interviewed on trump twice for this book and interestingly donald trump heat wanted to give as many interviews as possible. it was not just for us. he is so convincing the power of his own persuasiveness that he will talk and talk more or less within many ofmo the authors who came forward to write about him. although interview is a little bit of a misnomer i do not want the mislead people. it's not like it interview we ask us questions and we do our best to answer them. it is much more of a monologue ththan interview. there is not really a noun a

verb and a. in almost anything he said to us. but ofd. course if you're goingo write a history of the man and his time in office it's very valuable to see him in action. i've certainly struck by the fact even in private there's no tv camera on at that moment in time wee are just talking with him. it's almost like a live action version of his twitter feed. [laughter] slinging insults. we would mention one of his former advisers, he would throw a nasty nicknamesic at them. he would make up things on the spot. he would contradict himself in a space of a short period of time. let's just say he was not a reliable factt witness. see what was your experience like it more lago? >> guest: on the one hand trump is not the persona he is not yelling, he is not read in the face, he is not attacking you frontally as the enemy of the people or the fake news.

in fact that always is a little bit of a misconception many people have historically trump the band was famous on the print just for firing people as historians and biographers that documented he was conflict in person you often have other people to the firing at the trump organization. maybe that's like a fire people bite tweet when he was president. he did not have he didn't have the courage to look someone in the eye and say you are fired. he was personable to a certain extent, can i get your diet coke?uc he struck me as as a bizarro world combination of napoleon and elbow raging about the rigged election. but also a banquet hall greater. [laughter] welcoming the guests to dinner right in the middle of our interview. he went peter baker anything to add to that real trepidations

going into this? rex no, no want to make sure use the time well so you try to craft your questions in advance to make sure getting what you really need. accepteded work robert you are asking direct questions he's trying toid answer progress it didn't matter what our questions were. i interviewed a couple others and he is so different than anybody else i've ever interviewed. and would you go and cap even using the white horse is i going with maggie and mike schmidt, we try to zero in on the scandal of the moment. we're not going to let them dive off into some other topic but when he dove into the other topic he made completeness on the other topic and you ask would you stick with this or go there? you don't know what to do with him. you do not how to control the conversation so you get a particular answer to particular question. so in some ways you let it, go.

you want to experience it but as a fact witnesses susan says you're not able to trust what he says as a matter of specific detail part what you're looking for some mindsets. to try to understand what he says into his credit on some level he is the most transparent president we've ever had. not necessarily for his own benefit. he tells us of things he'st thinking include no one would admit out loud. because he doesn't hide his own motivations his own self-interest. which is the way he defines everything for a quick trick fodder for reporter break works great fodder for reporter maybe not for the republic. he is the one i felt we knew it he was thinking that almost any given time. because of twitter, because of its offhand comments. because he never had any discipline about what he was saying. he would say whatever came to

his mind. whatever he was seeing on television, obama didn't do that of course bush 43 didn't do that those are disciplined people who wanted to stick on their message and say what they wanted to say. and that sense trump is a fasten character to write about youus want to guess what he's thinking he's going to tell you. >> host: even though your work for the failing "new york times" quote you had more access to him than president obama president bush? rex oh yes we have it in even president biden two years he and he hasn't given us a century. by this point president trump given us multiple interviews. the truth is he has a love/hate relationship with in your time, trump does. on one hand it causes the failing "new york times" i should be clear we doing better than ever before with the largest staff the largest readership the largest subscription -based ever we are not failing.g. this is for the sake of argument he doesn't like us. at the same time it's the paper's father read growing up and that he readup growing up in new york to be accepted in the

elite which he really wanted to be mentioned the "new york times". so yes he would lash out at us. but at the same time he is desperately eager to get something good. i was in the oval office with him one with agr publisher. he literally begged and said i want one good story in my hometown paper don't i deserve one good story? it meant something to him that was different from other presidents who could write as often say who cares. so when i it's probably too easy but mafia don is at an easy comparison? >> guest: donald trump spent a lot of time around people like that. look at who his mentore was. the most influential person in donald trump's life beside his father was a very tough character literally his father's favorite was keller, make of that what you will.

the most influential person in johnson's early career was roy cohn. the famous mccarthy investigator who later went on to be a lawyer for people like that in new york who taught trump the art of hardball dealmaking in new york city in the 1970s and 1980s. so i think you see very much that spirit of never accommodate. never give in. the constant contention with the law. the use of lawsuits. whether it's under investigation or he himself is usingst the cot against his enemies or buying for time. it is just a fascinating aspect of the man who is sewn division and conflict throughout his entire very, very long career, decades in the public eye.

the trump of the white house was really in many ways unchanged from the donald trump of the 80s and 90s. the surprising many ways was that people were so surprised about it. the notion that he would somehow ever become presidential, easily disputed by the verydi big stack of excellent biographies of donald trump that had already been written before he ever came into office. and yet some people have this ability again and again and again to delude themselves that he would beim something other tn he was. >> host: has the president reacted to your book? [laughter] >> guest: yes not publicly anyway. sue and privately? we have got a private response either. stu and susan you mentioned president trump had trouble findingrs people in person. one person he fired personally on a sunday night was kiersten nielsen. who was she, reminded sue she

was in her role and how she tried to control. [laughter] >> guest: welt, was a secretary of homeland security. she belonged to the fairly large category i would say of people who achieved high office under trump who probably would not have ever had those in any other administration. she had worked closely alongside john kelly when he was the first, and secured a secretary. then he became white house chief of staff. she went to the white house with him. they were a months and months of looking for somebody to go to the department, and security. people said no to them. it's probably the most hyper politicized could imagine in the trump administration because of trump's focus almost relentless attention to the issue of illegal immigration. although it's a vast agency

cobbled together from dozens of other agencies that are all put together after 911, trump saw only as immigration agency. he wanted them to build his wall. he wanted them to fulfill what hehe saw as a key pledge to his political base and got him elected president in the first place. there was a constant point with some of the stores are incredible. he was probably more abusive toward her than any other member of his cabot. there were repeated examples of that from her perspective and that of her advisors. just remarkable stories we are able to report in the book to the extent which trump is costley demanding essentially they do things their told by the lawyers were illegal. nielsen had the very difficult job of saying no in effect again, and again, and again to a president who did not want to be

told no. some of his ideas were unbelievable.ey they wanted to like build a moats at the border and alligators and shoot at the legs of migrants. this constant barrage. she had an incredibly difficult time of handling that. >> host: peter baker in your four years covering the trump white house, witness political ineptness? [laughter] >> guest: the biggest political challenge in the white house was managing their boss, right? some are more adept at it than others. some of them are confrontational with him which probably did not always work. some of them found ways of steering him him the direction they wanted to sue him and ultimately none of them succeeded because all fell out ofof favor at some point even hs own family members. one is jared kirchner. he's the son-in-law of course

was originally expected to be a moderating force democrats from new york will be the ones who keep them from going too far. they discover early on he did not want them to do that. he would get madim at them if ty were sent in to try to stop them from doing something he wanted to do. kirchner learned did not do that and disappoint a lot of people who thought he had the ability to interact more. he came up with the formula for how he would deal trump, his own father-in-law two -- one ratio. every time have to get bad news i'll get him twice as much good in his first two -- one. two times good news, one time bad news. get a pole to deliver he let term at five points to his name not capturing their people. the biggest most interesting moment he was successful in a lot of ways he helps get his monologue to agree to criminal justice reform. he helps pull together israel and its neighbors in the abraham accord party hase some points that were important. but in a moment where it really

came down to it after the election of 2021 hison father-in-law was heading down the road toward this massive lie to the election being stolen. % retreats he takes himself out of it piece of not going to this.with you on if you are going to listen to rudy giuliani i i don't any part of it pretty he heads off to the middle east. is that result leaves a void open for the mike flint and the pelz and rudymi giuliani. at some people at most your cursor to play a part to fight which is on team normal and he chose not too. >> host: 's time is going to quickly party got ae half hours susan glasser and peter baker. this is book tvs in-depth program where we usually talk to one author and his or her body of work. we are talking to their body of workrk this afternoon. we are going to begin taking your calls and just a little while. but susan glasser is currently with the new yorker, peter baker

is with the "new york times". they have written three books together their first was kremlin rising latimer putin's russia and the l end of the revolution that came out in 2005. and then in 2020 came out the man who ran washington. the life and times of james a baker the third period and the divider which we have been talking about trump in the white house, came up this year. peter baker is also written four books onis his own breach inside the impeachment trial of william jefferson clinton. came out in 2000. days of fire book and cheney in the white house 2013. obama, the call of history in 2017 and impeachment compendium in american history along with jon meacham, tim and jeffrey. came out in 2018. peter w baker was a bill clinton that book. we are going to put the numbers of onn the screen we want your participation if youar would lie to talk with our authors in

202's area code 748-8200 if you're in east and central time zones. (202)748-8201 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. and you can also contact us via our social media sites we will scrollll through those as we go. just remember apple tv and our motive e-mail book tv@c-span.org. we will begin taking those in just a few minutes. pardon me just a touch of a runny nose here and i apologize for that. we left off and in a sense the bureaucracy. i want to talk about somebody who is featured in your book. i don't know whether you want to publicly admit you talk to steven miller of the trump white house orr not. if that is an open source or not. but he survived the bureaucracy.

>> guest: he is one of the people there was there all four years. most the people he talked about not.t for family are >> host: why did he survive? what is one who affected figure out how to manage trump the way he wanted to without drawing his ire. one of the few. he nudged and pushed and controlled trump into taking ever harder positions on all sorts of immigration issues. weatherby refugees, the cap on refugees. whether the publicp welfare division trying to limit the number of people coming in. limiting illegal immigration much less the ban on people coming in from several muslim countries. hedy played it to it trump alrey had he tried to maneuver around the bureaucracy. kiersten nielsen was angry of course because she discovered her own staff would be called to meetings without ever telling her. and it was just sort of a constant struggle within the

bureaucracy. at one point trump said steven you are in charge of immigration which steven tells another person and the administration, i hope you understand this is my coronation i'm going to fold napoleon which exactly we tried to do. >> host: fitted jeff sessions -- was a because of immigration that he failed in the trump white house? >> guest: there are three words here: russia, russia, russia. the bottom line is a passing story about his definition of what he is looking for in an advisor and subordinates. it's a very narrow definition of personal loyalty. jeff sessions the first attorney general was a very first u.s. senator to endorse donald trump of the 2016 campaign. he was in many respects the kind of republican who supported some entrance t when the vast majoriy

of the republican party did not support donald trump or the other senators, the other representatives in congress did not support donald trump 2016. jeff sessions did. none ofs that mattered when it edcame down to a because trump blamed jeff sessions for recusing himself from overseeing the investigation into russia's role in the 2016 campaign. thus triggering ultimately the mueller investigation which, over a very large portion of the trump presidents tape. in the way he treated sessions was so remarkable, either that old steven a miller had starteds an advisor to jeff sessions. that is how we got into trump's orbit. he felt no compunction ultimately about abandoning his first boss and sticking with his second boss. trump barbara rated sessions openly. peter was mentioning in an

interview he hadn't donald trump in the summer of 2017. that is on donald trump's are essentially attacking his own attorney general. essentially defying him, darings him to quit with the sessions refused to do. he hung on for very long time. in fact he went all the way on this spectacle of the president against his own attorneyal general. that lasted all the wayt up untl the 2018 midterm election. the very first thing he did is seen as republicans are preferably decisively rebuked in that was to fire jeff sessions. >> was a bill bars trick to go and if the president started railing on him or having a topic he wanted to get off of bite mentioning why these hot button topics? >> guest: that's right that's a great t little vignette and bill bars reset memoir in which he says he and mike pompeo which

was trump's second secretary of state that they would distract donald trump byy mentioning the russia investigation, the mueller investigation when they were worried about something. talk about raving waving a red flag at the bull that was an easy way to get trump off on a lecture that could last for a long time about how badly treated he was in all of his grievances. but you mention bill barr. to me he is a fascinating example of the arguments that wilde donald trump broke with many people in many officials ended up breaking with donald trump it is always a complicated story. bill barr got the job as trump's second attorney general after trump fired jeff sessions in part because he wrote a memo saying he thought the mueller investigation was not a legitimate use of special counsel power and it was an overreach. and of course that is exactly what donald trump wanted to

hear. trump thought that by a porting bar is attorney general barr would help them to either fire mueller or contain the damage from the mueller investigation and ultimately many people believed that is exactly what bill barr did in the spring of 2019 on the mueller report finally came out barr arc ghibli mischaracterizations of some of its findings help to shape the d public perception and donald trump whene he said there was no collusion, there was no collusion. that bart was a key facilitator of that idea with the public. and yet, even for bill barr there was a moment that trump went too far. that moment of course was what he did after the 2020 election. bar in many respects was the most significant cabinet official to publicly break with donald trump when on december 1, 2020 bill barr came out publicly and said there is no basis to

believe there's any widespread fraud that will be sufficient to overturn the election. that was a crucial moment. evercr since then has been a vey public critic of trump when it comes to the election stuff. but again it's a comp located story, right? many of these former trump officials, former vice president mike pence is in the classic example of that. on the one hand they say he went too far after the election. but oh no he got crazy later. when i worked for him he was not this. it is a disingenuous thing to invent history so that it just the moment when you happen to conveniently discover donald trump is a problem and everything else came before was okay. >> host: and your book of the divider, peter baker here right trump was not exonerated in the russianti investigation.

but he had one. >> guest: one of the things he is very skilled that of course is shaping public perception and branding himself and selling things in the marketplace in effect. what he sold as the investigation had exonerated him even though itad hadn't. pacifically rights in their this does not exonerate him. and he created by sheer repetition via distortion he created thishi impression the mueller report did not find anything wrong when in fact it did. he identified 10 instances where he could have made a case for obstruction of justice but choss not to because a justice department policy for not charge a sitting president. trump did when he characterized the russian investigation as a hoax to his supporters into a lot of other people. stuart was overreached by the

washington press when it came to russia in 2016? was there an eagerness to find a story that is not there? >> guest: first about i'm a big believer there's no such thing as a monolithic washington. i think if you look at trump's attacks and those of his administration on the media is important to note they were purposeful, calculated and served an important political purpose from the very beginning of his time in politics. even predating the presidency the use of the terms fake news was anan appropriation from thoe who actually pointed out in the 2016 how much lies and information are being used by trump, by a network of russia supported box in social media. an aim to distort and misrepresent things. i think it is very important to

make that point there is no one monolithic washington media. that is important to note. when it comes to the russian story, what i am struck by again as peter pointed out is the incredible success trump has had shaping a narrative. peter and i have covered and will talkab about kremlin risin. i we have covered the u.s./russian relationship for more than two decades. and i have to tell you people might not understand it, there has never been an example of any presidential campaign except for donaldld trump's 2016 presidentl campaign in which there were repeated contacts with the ambassador from russia. in which there were repeated efforts to reach out. in which the campaign manager chairman powell manna also had a long history of maintaining contacts, even during the campaign with officials the fbi

and the treasury department said were working with russian intelligence. so to be clear about that, this is an exceptional situation that we are talking about a here. the weaponization the hacking and weaponization of e-mails done by russia intelligence in the course of the 2016 campaign was a dramatic and remarkable moments. the u.s. political apparatus was not prepared to handle. the obama administration struggles with how to respond to that. this is an exceptional thing. think that often gets lost. >> host: i wrote a note to myself all roads lead back to russia. sweet it does seemed like that. nancy pelosi once said that the donald trump at a meeting. >> guest: probably her most famous moment she stands up in the white house and she wags her figure and says what is it with you? all roads lead back to putin.

through an informal and rising a quote from there the trends wee saw during our time in russia have only accelerated. now this book is a couple years old. us updated in 2007. is that still true today? >> i think so. look this book takes place along before and the in the election. in our time in russia we were there for four years in the beginning of putin's term. you saw his crackdown oni dissent. yosa his lament the collapse of the soviet union. you saw the desire to create or re-create russia as a great power on the stage to be respected and stand up as an alternate to the west. a lot of themes are in this book that would be very familiar with anybody looking back on it today. quickly fluent in russian? >> guest: less affluent family lived there.

we have tried to keep it up. it is remarkable how this period of the post-cold war is the time peter and i have been reporting largely in washington russia was a story that never fully went away as much as people wanted to believe we had moved on three different air and politics. i think for peter and i we had five american presidents dealing and struggling making the same mistakes again, again, and again. when it came to how to understand vladimirin putin. it's remarkable how much even in the post-cold war era of american politics, russia has been a through line. and the struggle to deal with vladimir putin. statement chechnya. is there a direct connection between chechnya and ukraine and what's happening there? is there a fair connection?

>> chechnya for those who cannot remember as a solid public within the russian state there is no breakaway republic. and putin uses that conflict to gain political power internally. it is a brutal vicious war against the separatist rebel. he doesn't just go after separatist rebels because after the civilian population he pummels the capitol of chechnya with more firepower than has been seen in europe. 100,000 people i think are killed, civilians and visit chechnya repeatedly it was a horrific wasteland because of the work putin waged on the civilian population not just the separatist. you fast-forward to ukraine you see much the same. he see the use of indiscriminate power in order to achieve political goals. the difference is the cranes have not yet surrendered. in fact have beaten back the

whately chechnya ultimately did not. speech is a horrible irony the effect of this war in ukraine the kremlin's essentially handpicked warlord and his men have become some of the most feared and brutal fighters fighting for russia in this war inside ukraine. it's come full circle. i i think peter's point is really important points. if you want to understand putin again, and again, and again throughout his more than two decades of power he has resorted to the use of military force to pursue unattainable political ambitions. by the way that marks him as a very different than let's say the chineseo who have not had a war since 1979. they had a conflict in vietnam. that is a long time ofhina's peaceful lies. now they have to re- mill and tries they have invested billions and billions in recent years of course in the military in china. they have not resorted to the

use of force. i think for putin is an important part of his playbook. and unfortunately for ukraine and for europe and the united states there are not really examples of putin sitting down at theti negotiating table and coming to a long-term resolution of any of these conflicts. >> there's so much i want to talk about. vladimir putin's time in eastti germany, andam leningrad the connection to boris yeltsin. how much of that mate up who he is today? how much can you draw a line around that experience and what he is today? >> it's important to remember he is i kgb. that is something we often paper over. that is his roots that's where he comes from pretty when the child to join the kgb. it was like watching the old g-man. he offered himself to the kgb ptwithout them excepting him,

sorry you don't come to us we come to you. and eventually did come to him he became an officer in dresden, east germany. it is this moment for him when they collapse of the old soviet order happens he is left in this outpost in east germany. outside the kgb and he's there by himself sank back often dare come in here they are burning the documents inside they are afraid of being overrun. and they call for help with the answer they get is moscow is silence. searing moment road race to this day the idea of power collapse that's what he tried to reverse. >> and glasser have you ever met vladimir putin? >> guest: i have met vladimir putin. cooks when you mean by that? joking about that. the first time i met vladimir putin was the first time he held

an interview for american correspondence based in moscow. was right after the very famous first meeting between george w. vladimir putin they looked into each other's souls and saw somebody they can do business with. it was at moment of perceived opening and invited to the kremlin library for a roundtable discussion a small number of americaner correspondence. and interestingly my first chance to ask vladimir putin a question we went around the table i was about two thirds of the way around the table i was waiting, and waiting, and waiting for someone else to bring up the difficult subject and chechnya and human rights and nobody else did the honor of the american correspondent class requires that i do so. when it came time to me i asked him about chechnya. it was really fascinating

because up until this point putin had been determined to protect that he was a young technocratic leader unlike boris yeltsin who is perceived as old and stumbling and literally drunk at many times. putin was kind of in control. he was spouting facts and figures from his briefing books trying to find he wasn't too young and inexperienced for then job. and i askedas him and his tire changed and he became snappish and angry. he said what do you want me too do question rectum and sit down and talk about with theseh people? these are killers essentially and i'mar going to respond the y that i need too. it was a really revealing interaction. that was the first time i met vladimir putin. to an adjustment russian or english? >> in english.

there were translators. putin interestingly was learning english at this time. and so one of the things is he does not often conduct conversations in english. he certainly knows enough english that would be an advantage that he would have in dealing with the many u.s. presidents that he dealt with because even though we had an official interpreter he can probably understand much of what the presidents were saying even before there was the official interpretation. >> guest: he would correct the translator sometimes if they felt they gotot it wrong for tht gave them an advantage she way to a translation happens to speak about his answer didn't have to give it right away. two and have you traveled back since that's our time at which go back today? >> we been back there a lot of times since we left but we have not been there last seven or eight years. it's now banned for a quick she is on the banned list regards earlier this year. on the saturday morning they put out many, many listed banned american officials and

commentators. they didn't send you a letter or innocent things and why you're on the list. >> ob frame a ball. >> my late father i called him up and said you should think of it as a badge of honor. the sense werue in have been a very i think and tried to be very straightforward about what the consequences of this horrible russian against his neighbor.ts but at the same time it may be very, very sad for the russian people. i have to say i'm very much look forward to going back to a free russia someday i do. so when the foregoing calls are doing to bring up the name of anna. >> she was a russian journalist print was the most remarkable people we met when she we live there she would go to chechnya on the surrounding republic all thech time. and reveal a lot of the abuses

by russian troops there. she was brave beyond measure and standing up to authority. and of course she paid a price. one day she's walking home with her groceries and is w shot dow, murdered and assassinated in the elevator of her apartment building. sue and give any doubt he was an official assassination quest records i don't have any doubt putin was asked about as well. he tried to say basically what i would be killed or questioned she was of no importance but her killing is more important than anything she ever wrote. in other words the west was using his propaganda against him by blaming him. it was done on his birthday, putin's birthday was perceived in russia as a birthday present to him by his security services or his loyalists and whoever actually pulled the trigger is no doubt it was connected him and his people pray. >> i must say many of the people we wrote about, those who dare

to stand up to putin. those who helped us understand the big complicated country it's not the o only one who is dead. boris murdered in the shadow of the kremlin. many others killed, exiled and then there's a large category also that we quote in the book that have become apologists for the putingi regime. student let's go to calls us because leo was up in the bronx. leo you are on with authors and journalists susan glasser and peter baker. >> thank you for taking my call. my question is for both susan and peter. number one item choice on msnbc. you are both very knowledgeable. my question is about china. as you know this week china has writing against the lockdown. what isn't clear to me why won't the chinesee leadership purchase

mrna vaccines from pfizer and from a moderna which are more effective than the vaccines they produce? t aren't they jeopardizing their political stability by not working with vaccines that are most? effective? to hunt getting a little bit off our topic of the books they've written about but susan anything that he went to address? >> actually it's a very good question, we were just having a conversation last night on exactly the subject. china and its leadership under sheeting paying have really locked himself into whatt appeas to be a terrible corner almost three years into this pandemic, the zero coed policy. unfortunates also come with a a very low percentage of the chinese population, especially of the elderly who are most

vulnerable to it, being vaccinated brings very hard for them to be able to liberalize the policy since that would risk a large-scale hospitalizations and mass deaths at this point. ie population seems to be coming into conflict with a nationalistic view that they have. we are told that there are more than enough global supply of vaccine, you know, if china were to purchase. but it does not seem that that is happening. i should note it is not rioting taking place in china, but some examples of protests, peaceful protests, including the symbol of this movement is so poignant and powerful. moment so poignant and powerful holding up blank sheets of paper that tell you everything. >> you're still on msnbc regularlyer but you're on cnn fr a long time.

are you still with cnn? >> we are basically still promoting bookss and things like that. >> is "the new york times" staff going on strike? >> guest: [laughter] >> host: is that inte an open question? >> guest: there is a conflict over the bargaining of the conflict and there's been saying that they would like to have a walkout on thursday if there's not progress. i hope we don't come to that. >> host: as of today you are both employed. talking about independent journalism, i have it here in my notes you know what it was worried about the state of independent journalism? absolutely. when you talk about how vulnerable.

laid off in places around the country as well as cnn and other news organizations it is a time of great tribulation for news media. it is something i worry deeply about because it could be a free people. >> host: why do you think we seem tom be so hyper anything today? >> guest: that's the word. >> we have this question a lot. it's full of moments we tend to get more hyper about things then there are ebbs and flows but it's encouraged and accelerated by social media, by the incentive structure to express

anger and conflict over compromise. thank you for mentioning the man who ran in washington. he sets up an example in that year when compromise was valued to sit down with somebody on the other partye and come up with e deal about something. today if you try to do that you are punished and that is the difference between now into the past. >> guest: peter, i am also glad you brought that up. the difference between the era that we described and in washington from the end of watergate to the end of the cold war, the media landscape is probably one of the biggest single differences in this era of ford, carter, reagan, bush. you were talking about the era of national tv networks and the very beginning of cable news you were talking about a few national newspapers like "the new york times," "the wall

street journal," "time" magazine, "newsweek" and reagan and jim baker but it also led to a politics when you were seeking to appeal and your goal was 51%. we have moved into the different era where it's hard to persuade anybody to change their minds. youge don't see large swings of public opinion back in the 1980s when jim baker was at his heht as a treasury secretary there would be half of the senate that would be senators elected talking about a handful of senators and best who can overturn the identity of the state as a blue state or red state. that is a massive structural

shift. it led to the politics or that they are both representations of the same phenomenon. >> host: aspired to the state department and ambition for the successt, so rapid and it's easy to forget how quickly it happened. it was ten years earlier he had been between jobs, between jobs who just lost campaign for the only political officeol he ever tried to win. it was. a mark of his convincing rise that the appointment as secretary of state now was not the least bit controversial. james in philadelphia, thanks for holding. you're on with peter baker and susan glasser.

how many people actually died on january 6th by the hands of the government there's police officers who died. my last question is do you have reporters that go out in the middle of the country to the small towns in america. america is dying right now. the middle class is dying and you claim to be elite. that is a huge problem with of thecountry today because the amt of fault in washington you all

think alike and vote alike and vote for people and you don't report onn the policies of biden and the democratic party right now that's killing the middle class.am >> host: we are going to leave it there. there is a a lot on the table. peter baker, what would you like toto address? >> guest: i do appreciate it and your point of view on that. we do a lot of reporting across the country. the only newspaper that has this extensive national staff as we do everywhere. we have reporters in the midwest andd the south and west and mountain states because we want to try to capture the america caoutside of the east coast. we are not in fact a new york paper. a we are a global peter and we do i think very extensively right about the concerns and the issues that have been animating opposition to president biden and we write about the policies

that have caused concern among the voters including economic issues. of course people are going to think we are bias. everybody's bias. fair, open-minded, those are the goal i think for journalism. we get attacked and criticized. again, understandably at times and i appreciate the thoughts and james for asking them. >> is there anything you want to add to that? >> i think peters had it right. the goal is the open-minded can be critical to be fair, evenhanded and curious. this is a moment that requires journalism i think to be humble, to be surprised by what we are

surprised by and to constantly reinvent ourselves to do better but it's hard to do that in this polarized moment. what's hard for us as we traveled around the country on edthis book to her and talked wh people by the way all over the country in red states and blue states again and again i am struck by how many people live inside of news information environments in which they are rarely exposed to information and ideas that challenge their thinking and push them to consider facts they might not have or lead them to reject facts altogether. unfortunately, that is a huge challenge. peter and i have been journalists our entire careers. we are committed to the idea that facts do matter and that it's important to establish a

commonality of thoughts and experiments in order to then have a robust and vital political debate about what to do about it and we are living in a world two years after an election in 2020 in which the polls have consistently found as many as two thirds of republican voters believe the lies about the election of 2020 that the former president has told them and that has taken the country i think to a different and very worrisome place. >> host: harvard grad, peter baker over lindape graddy, did i get that right? >> guest: not a ground but i went there, yes. >> host: cornelius in oxalic korea virginia, go ahead. >> caller: peter, peter baker, susan glasser, you've got some great guests. i am an african-american, military police officer. i had a top-secret clearance. i taught from 79 to 94.

my question for you is with january 6th there's paperwork where president trump wanted to send 20,000 troops were 10,000 troops but nancy pelosi denied him, mitch mcconnell denied him, the sergeant off arms and the dc mayor bauer. my question for you is this, and the secret service knew about it and fbi knew about january 6th and did nothing about it but trump tried to prevent it so do you have that in the books? thank you. >> thank you fore the question. there's no question that there was part of a number of people failure to see the threat intelligence provided enough information to see and if that is true there was reluctance from the people of washington has had the military to speak on january 6th and because of what

happened lafayette square the previouse june. we have seen in the book president trump does in fact say but as he tells the military he wants them on the streets to protect his supporters from what he thinks will be counter protesters against him. he's not worried about protecting the congress he's worried about protecting his supporters and that is the reporting of the people in the room at the time. the question about president trump trying too stop it he definitely did not. he encouraged it and put out tweets encouraging people to come to washington to be wild, he says. on the day of course when it happened, when the people did storm into the capital, he did not in fact act aggressively to stop it. that's been showing the time and time again and is in our book as well. people like mike pence and others who worked for president lltrump would tell you they were incredibly disappointed that he failed to act along with republican senators that voted to convict him in the

impeachment trialnt reacting to the failure to try to stop it once it began, and i think that that is the image of him sitting in the dining roomin in the oval office watching it unfold on tv has been very clear those that were not endangered but he was encouraging people that were standing up for him so aggressively. the text message is 202, 748-8903. it's at phone line and this through text messages only. please include your first name and a city if you would. we will scroll through some of outhe social media sites if you want to participate that way as

well. next call is gerald in los angeles. please go ahead with your question or comment for the guest. >> caller: this is for peter andr susan. genius journalistic mayans. i'm a huge fan but this is coming from a personal angle. you as a couple how have you seen american journalism change during the reign of donald trump? >> guest: thank you so much for the kind words and thank you for reading and listening. we are so grateful and i do think that by the way, one of the positive aspects that often doesn't, maybe isn't fully understood is in some respects this is a return to first principles if ever there was a moment that it's clear the urgency and importance of journalism is when a political institution is being tested like this andnd i think the obama era

in washington was kind of a technocratic sense of what's focus on how to nudge people to the right policy and talk about the nuances of healthcare reform and things like that. in the trump era we came to first principles and debates about the nature and the rule about the constitution and limits of presidential powers and for us as reporters i think it's been an important and invigorating time when you see the urgency and necessity.

it is a very resonant and historically horrifying phrase because that phrase enemies to the people would literally be the phrase used by stalin to condemn millions. he was told that again and again and he chose to use this to weaponize his platform against people.

the rhetoric is putting journalists lives at stake. we had a pretty sophisticated society. they would be an empowering end and bouldering to use against theto journalists like in russia to use your example. if you had a criticism, fine, please you have every legitimate reason and right to criticize us. if you have any criticism we will address it in a fair way that this language of enemies of the people he had fake news and things like that is so inflammatory that it was endangering to president trump. then of course it may do so difference and he was talking again. >> that is another striking way in which the trumpay presidency

was such an outlier from any other presidency democrat or republican. there've been other presidents that might have worked with autocratic leaders especially in the cold war, but we've never had a modern a president who tho openly admired and cheered for the world's dictators, foremen n and bad guys. it's in ame whole different levl but the admiration for the autocrats who didn't have to deal with the independent media, he celebratedpe people like this in l north korea.

it's such a remarkable period that we are still, it's hard to process that this actually happens. >> host: next call for susan glasser and peter baker is in michigan. you're on booktv. good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. how are you doing. haven't talked to you in a while. i'm interested in whether they've spoken with of the apprentice that raised money for charities and with that have happened without the program and donald trump. and then how to raise money out of the professions. the other thing why is there no

use of so many other companies with vaccines out there that we know about these companies that have been around for a long time yet our country won't touch them. >> host: thanknk you for calling. if you would address the russia question why did you go to russia? >> guest: were you assigned? >> guest: when i was a teenager i read two books about russia one called the russians and one called russia that came out around the same time ironically and they were both remarkable by correspondence in moscow about this extraordinary

country and i was so inspired so one day they asked and i was like this is something i've always wanted to do sos that ws the great gift to see a culture from the inside like that. >> guest: when i was growing up in the 1980s i was always fascinated by russia and i took a russian in high school and this was in the middle of the 1980s at the moment when gorbachev had just come to power and i do recall my senior year in high school we were having our russian class one day outside of school at mcdonald's and some people overheard us and they came over to give condolences which was at that time occurring and there was the sense of can we end of thef, cod

war and inside russia that chernobyl incident was a real crisis and moment in which they may have realized part of the unsustainabilityt on the soviet system and consequences of lobbying to their own people so when they did ask us to move to russia it turned out peter and i who were just getting engaged. when it came up as an opportunity we realized it was something that both of us had -- i can't speak to what we might have said in that long-ago encounter. >> host: in kremlin rising,

your son waited ten minutes until you submitted the document and manuscript for you to go into labor.. >> guest: it's funny because this was back in 2005 we had just returned from our time as correspondence. we were writing this book and raising against the clock when you're nine months pregnant believe me you write a lot faster. we thought we had three weeks left and one day we went out to dinner and i just felt a strange sensation. we stayed up all night we actually pulled an all-nighter to get the last couple of chapters done. good news, i e-mailed the last couple chapters and i said i am in labor. i'm having contractions. >> host: two computers,ma one computer, off-line?

>> guest:. wewe split up the chapters 50/50 to do a first draft and then exchanged and edited and routed through it. >> host: as the former editor of politico does she edit more than you do? >> guest: yes. that's ahi good thing. >> host: carolyn in sac city, iowa sends a text. can you comment on gorbachev's legacy? >> guest: gorbachev is one of the most consequential men of our era.

what's sad is he is not he's not recognized as such a in russia. in the west we see him as someone in effect whether he intended to or not he freed tens of hundreds of people and left the empire to go without violence and gave the opportunity. to us seeing a hero because he led to the break of the empire they saw him as somebody they loathed. he was a person of great controversy i think you saw they would go to his funeral when they passed away or something.

>> host: what did jim baker think of mikhail gorbachev? >> guest: jim baker and his lifelong friends and who was the president as the secretary of state the great accomplishments is a midway thing the largely peaceful end and they forged a uniqueun partnership with mikael gorbachev and his foreign minister and for them it was a partnership that meant the difference between civility and a world not in crisis and opposite. when you see how hostile the adversarial relationship has become with russia and vladimir putin, you realize how it could have turned out so i think that

baker m many times with gorbachev and he would say that that was the defining moment for both of them. >> host: y james baker, why did you choose to write a 600 pages about james baker? >> guest: baker, mostci secretaries of state would write a biography even if they were not that particularly consequential into here in some ways i we had the most consequential secretary of state even more you could argue at the end of the cold war to steer to the peaceful conclusion to reunite germany and several of the coalitions that fall to the gulf war and on top of that had his hand on top of every

political thing. in terms of how it was then and now. >> guest: the interesting thing is baker, who achieved power in washington because he was b so skilled as a fixer anda someone wholi bridged the world from topic into government and could get things done, the behind the scenes player but he loads at the idea once he was on the curve of "time" magazine.

baker wanted to escape. as a powerbroker behind the means, as a fixer and to become a principal in washington terms a statesman in his own right and the interesting story of this decades long rise at the height washington power. a very unlikely story. that's the other thing that peter and diane enjoyed being

able to do the work that we started out interested in the story but we also became interested in the story that it told us about jim baker. in his native houston, never anything in that background that would indicate that he would be a global figure. in fact he was decidedly, and barbara bush used to joke that it wasn't even the beginning of hunting season and he preferred to be out hunting so he's like the greatest midcareer change. >> host: how much time did you spend with jim baker, 87, 88? >> guest: he's 92, 93 next year.

weal spent about seven years of this book i would say maybe 70 hours we went to his ranch. we interviewed multiple presidency and vice president's just saw. we interviewed his nanny who is still alive and so we were very lucky to dive so deeply.

>> host: we remember at least mike and jim baker. the tragic death and looking for something new to the other reasons that he is very best friender in houston and partnerf atthe country club and george herbert walker bush and bush of course sees this as a way to help his friend to move on from this terrible tragedy. the 1980 primary against ronald

reagan and amazingly enough although they are tough on the campaign trail about reagan they somehow end up with bush on the not going national ticket and reagan invites jim baker hughes run the national campaigns against him to be his chief of staff that speaks to the reputation he acquired a short time as someone highly competent and skilled and interestingly he considers thee gold standard for the white house chief of staff over the years have consulted and a democrat, tom donelan the former national security advisor to barack obama who when we said we were working on this book he said jim baker is the most unimportant and unelected official since the end of world war ii. >> host: i remember in

tallahassee in 2000 sitting in a conference room there's jim baker on the recount team but you begin the book the man who ran washington with donald trump and you end it with donald trump. can't quite get away from him. >> guest: we didn't start when he was on the stage we started when president obama all the conversations kept turning back to trump and we talked to bakeru because he was a political guy and it would constantly come up as he would be disdainful as this and that and crazy yet he voted for them for the party that believes in free trade and

alliances and compromise when necessary to get things done and how can you vote for this guy when george w. bush didn't vote for him and it was a constant conversation that was i am a republican, he's the leader of my party i don't want to democrats in there. i always thought there was a partisan nature because on the inside and some small way he doesn't need power. you have a chance for some impact. that's the conundrum of the party in many ways we realize if the subject of the biography is telling you again and again the same answer you have to listen to him and what was he telling us i think he was certainly helping us understand how it's

possible that donald trump could have become a candidate of the republican party twice and many people were like jim baker they didn't necessarily agree on many issues they saw his character quite clearly and yet. they were willing to override even that they claimed to be very principledd objections to donald trumpob and if you want o understand how is it even possible that trump this story is important and illuminating why the republican tribal affiliation seems to have

overwhelmed all others when it comes to jim baker. congratulations on your careers. really quickly, you know i grew up in new york city. trump was a part of the media landscape since i was a kid, but what i would say and what is missed is that for some reason trump was very effective at getting support for or exploiting and i think this is also in the media part because itng is perceived to be so easiy it is the guy from philadelphia was saying. you would have to go to the midwest to see this. again different parts of newhi york and when you said he is talking about the enemies of the people, the large portion of the

media is not liked. it's very low in its approval rating. it's important for us to look at it in that context. for instance "the new york times" in new york by the way doesn't coverw street crime. the local news don't cover it. if there is such a divide between people that are highly educatedth doesn't that lead toa better chance of trump coming about as opposed to saying he's

a master liar and all this other stuff you have an unstable situation in which the media is perceived to be elitist attacking the media as popular. >> host: we got it. thanks. a master, no question donald trump perpetually i'm the guy from queens triangle to narrow my way and whether that was the enter sanctum of "the new york times" or washington and the deep state but he also was made by the media and i think that he wasd particularly made by the nw york media and that's an important story it's important to remember donald trump probably never would have been president. it predates all of those on fox and many years before that

consecutively more than anyone else and he certainly to this day he is a believer in as long as they spell your name right school of good publicity in fact there's an extraordinary moment that we report where the campaign manager overhears donald trump telling somebody not only is all publicity good publicity but as long as they don't accuse you of being a pedophile, literally it is good publicity and so i think the creature of new york, the outer borough versus manhattan and on the tabloid that infuses his public appearance but it's calculated. at the attack on the news media

not only as an institution was looked down upon but as a specific strategy to drive down the approval rating in fact lesley stahl once asked donald trump in the campaign why do you do this, why do you demagogue about the media and again donald trump says when you write something bad about me, no one will believe it. >> host: if this goes back to an earlier call asking about the hunter biden story was it a mistake that the mainstream media didn't cover the story or is it a long story in your view? >> guest: it's one we should cover with facts and investigations and not with political hotct air and the trik is trying to get past the disinformation and find out what is there because there is something there obviously at

least worth a investigating andi think that there is probably a disinclination to believe rudy giuliani the second part is let's just say the question is what does it mean about the present.ab all havees relatives who do this that end up looking bad in the public light including president trump of course. the question is do we have anything of concern regarding the president himself and that has been less, much more tenuous and what does it tell us ukraine as an example there's no evidence that he did anything

that has been harped on by his critics was the policy of president obama and the entire year western allies that had nothing to do as far as evidence with hunter biden yet that has been linked as somehow there is no evidence to that so that's what we have to look at what's real and what's not. >> host: every author that we have on we ask what they are reading and what some of their favorite books are. peter baker this is what heold us. prident suspend, robert karas on lbj, david halberstam and the series on theodore roosevelt. ri kramer, what it takes. whwasaacson and evan thomas and hendrik smith, the power game. obviously a theme with the books that you've listed here. but he did add at this and we want to read this pretty quickly. everything by doris

kearns goodwin, michael bette schloss, jonon meacham, doug brinkley, ronald wyatt, david mccallum, ron churn out, david remnick, robert maffei, rick atkinson, david marinus and anna and appelbaum. i'm sure i'm forgetting remarkable books, so as daisy and congress i reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks. >> those that really like that book. >> i wasn't sure if you were asking about nonfiction or fiction. obviously peter has chosen to answer the question by choosing to not answer your question. >> host: we will share others. there's no question that for

every book for a century they have delayed it in the story. i love that book so much then i would read it again and again. in the book of they talk about reading again and again a book but that is what i was doing with little women i would finish it and start all over again. >> host: other books that susan gave us. their eyes were watching. david halberstam, the best and the bghst. the bright shiningight. secondhand t common ground, a west black lamb and gray falcon and msk for sure the art of eating. >> guest: to anybody that knows the whole generation of

americans as escapism goes, i highly recommend. >> host: and you are reading power failure after life. reading nicolas cage. john meacham and there was life, about abraham linco. and getting ready. mike in virginia, go ahead. your own with susan glasser named peter baker. please go ahead. >> caller: hello, peter, susan. i grew up in the middle east and to two different news

outlets and other enemies of the home country. i think msnbc covers certain stories but they are fact. they make up stories and that is a problem. i think the region never recovered after a civil war and reagan talked about welfare and dividing people and workers and government.

obama and at the tea party and all that stuff. i respected all my life james baker but when he said i support, how can you support this man who is a racist and that doesn't make sense to me. >> host: thank you. any comment? >> guest: a lot of people were surprised including many republicans we spoke with. i should point out by the way he out against falls claims about the election and he had a view make of it what you

will but that he shared with us many times that he found much of the policy agenda he profoundly disagreed and was very uncomfortable with the behavior and character yet there is a paradox about millions who shared those columns and overcame those into voted for him because he was a republican nominee. >> host: >> guest: a lot of don't like the politicians so they vote for whoever supports the issues and in baker's case he said i like tax cuts and conservative judges and the deregulation so i don't approve of trump as a person but the policies are more important than the personality. if you are antiabortion voter he

accomplished what you would have wanted him to do which is putting people on the supreme court who helped overturn roe v wade. the policy goal was achieved and in that view the policy is more important to me. it's hard to make that argument after january 6th when you talk about the threat to the democracy but for a lot of people they were saying he's bombastic or shouldn't treat so much but if i'd like his policies going out to support him. >> he never went to the level of saying like pens which was very interesting just the other day and over the last few days there's been an enormous debate and discussion about donald trump's dinner with unknown white supremacists who days after the dinner explicitly said

how much he admired adolf hitler rather than disavowing that person, trump continued to double down on it. it's fascinating to see mike pence out there selling this sort of memoir that is arguably this book of contortions where on the one hand he's rejecting trump's view of the election and trump literally called forth the mob saying hang mike pence. he somehow has tried and not all that it successfully to threaded thele needle saying i'm against what trump did however coming and he said this the other day, i condemn him, he shouldn't have had that dinner however i don't believe that he's a racist or anti-semite or i wouldn't have been his vice president and that is a fascinating level like of

course donald trump is absolutely the same man today that he was in 2016 when he selected mike pence to be the vice president the divider and many other accounts are still with extraordinary to examples. we havein this national security official about these terrible incidents and the famous remark about the countries without an outlier and he said no, not only that but he would say things again and again. jim baker it's interesting he never went to that level of justifying or contorting himself to say no the man is not a problem so you have this different degradation that he is trying to get us to believe

something something that's impossible but they did support him, the vast majority of republicans. >> host: like i said you begin with donaldld trump and and with donald trump with the memo that he sent. 2016 trump invites him and he doesn't want to be perceived as endorsing him and because of all cathe reasons he talked about he doesn't particularly like the guy. he said i will vote for him but not indoors him and you could argue whether that makes a difference or not but he didn't want to give a public embrace of this person he found so when trump asked him to come and he's like okaye. i would advise other candidates but he brings with him a two-page memo of what he thinks trump needs to do to be a successful candidate and president all of which he knows trump isn't going to doen whichs towe say reach out to women and

people of color to believe in free trade and do all these things and it that way baker knew that if trump didn't do them there's no way they could argue that baker endorsed him and there it was on paper his requirements if you will which trump would never meet. >> host: lewis new york, please go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i alwaysor enjoy reading with peter and susan have in "the new york times" and new yorker and it's been a fascinating discussion. i want to push back a little bit since you've written extensively about the jim baker and donald trump and i suggested that going back to jim baker and his early times in the administration that youni can draw an almost straigt line between the tactics of george hw bush and donald trump's attacks on barack obama not being born in the united states and that that is deeply embedded in the republican party

and despite the handwaving people like jim baker make, that's the reality of it and it isn't going away anytime soon. i will take your comments off the air. >> i want to thank you for that comment because it is important and i is another explanation for why aha gym baker's in the world supported donald trump and why some of them we will see how many arehe breaking with trump d that goes to winning at all costs and i think that is to a certain extent behind what you're mentioning the 1988 campaign where george hw bush was running for president he was losing in fact he was down by 17 points after the democratic convention to michael dukakis into the governor of massachusetts. that's when jim baker came into the campaign as the campaign leader and realized they were going to have to hit the caucus and go. it wasn't baker's idea the

willie horton ads in fact the most famous was run by an outside group ostensibly not connected at all to the official campaign but baker certainly didn't act quickly or decisively to stop the line of attack and he didn't tell us it was interesting in the book we asked about himhe and he allowed if he was going to regret anything it might be that but jim baker is basically not a man that does regret and i think the true line there is winning. like mitch mcconnell for example who always has had a pronounced and obvious distaste for donald trump and nonetheless accommodated himself essentially as one of the reasons you could say trump became president and why he was able to get many things like thele transformation supreme court done while he was president. that's where you see many republicanst't' right now seekio

break after the results of the 2022 midterm elections and this idea he might be the loser the party in addition to having been a two-time loser in the national popular vote so we will see but it's the party that believes in hardball politics. >> host: anything to add to that? >> guest: know. >> host: what are you covering these days?pe >> guest: i cover the biden white house. from time to time i still write about trump because he's still out there. we had a story of the other day how much he seems to be increasingly embracing extremism. anre increasingly with this dinr with kanye west that is susan mentioned with a video that he sent to the victims of the january 6th stormers and in fact this tweet that he just put out

yesterday or not a tweet with a true social he called for the termination of the constitution to overturn and put him back in power. he's always on the fringes and with extremism in the past he seems to be embracing it at the core. >> guest: i write a weekly letterng from washington for the new yorker you can see it on its website it generally comes out late wednesday mornings. i also do a podcast with my colleagues in the washington podcast called the political scene and that comes out every friday. we look forward to all your ideas. >> host: three books together by susan glasser and peter baker kremlin risingnd the man who ran

washington and the most recent of the divider. we appreciate your time on booktv. >> guest: thank you. appreciate it. >> guest: thank you. this has been fantastic. >> the greatest town on earth is the place you call home. at spark light it's our home also and right now we are facing our greatest challenge. that's why spark light is working around the clock to keep you connected. we are doing our part so it's a little easier to do yours. >> spark light along with these companies supports c-span2 as a public service. [applause]