if you watch fox news, you're not going to see. but if you were if i was a republican member of congress i would be telling the 700,000 people i remember. i mean, take 30, however many what, ten soldier, 20 soldiers fields and you take all the people there and you pull one person out and that's you. you represent 700,000 people and you're dare going to say that i care about my reelection more than i care about the truth about this country. that's i mean, that's as you can tell. yes. people don't care about it. but i think it's because of a failure of leadership to actually put what the stakes are out there. i hope you'll join me thanking our input and show strong willed people in the arena on a frank discussion. thank you, guys. thanks. it's funnyhow did you first geto washington? what was your first job?

well, okay, first of all, it was i had heard about government a number of years, more than exceeded my appointment. this time. but i actually what came from the i came up with when i finished high school one the navy turned out to the first couple of years of post in over in asia and and then i was called back by the selective service system to reform the draft convention with them in the white house. they promised a random lottery right? it would go too far with it. nonetheless, there was a there was an initial lottery that was prepared handle and would go through and lawsuits were filed against white house. my mother had truly been a

random lottery and i got a call from one of my roommates from college from law school saying, would you would you mind if we would you like to be reassigned? we'd like to have you come back and work on this project. so i came back, worked on the project. we got it straightened out. and from then, from there i was i was starting to go home to north carolina. i thought that's where i'd wind up. and when i got a call again from my old roommate saying, there's a position open under the west wing of white house and to help run the speechwriting, speechwriting and so forth. and then i said, why don't you why don't you present yourself so i did. i did. and i said, this is a lark. i wrote it for you were however and i i didn't know you were a diversity hire. i was a diversity. i was a d, i was a d i without knowing it. one of the first. but i came in then with, with and started working for nixon

and one of the interesting conversations i had was before i came, they they weren't quite sure if all of them were a price running, a speechwriting operation. harold tripp guy, harold tripp guy who wrote the big on goldwater way back when. in any event, i'd gone to yale. he'd gone to yale, and we had it all. and we both okay, i didn't vote for the i'll give him one year before the election start and that's what i said. well, take one year to write. tell me pat buchanan actually likes, diversity. i didn't believe that i would write the let's be clear that pat's idea of diversity was protestant yes but i think that's where i'm i, i think that's where i first met you early. what you weren't writing for. well that that was a bit later. i just look old that clinton. that was clinton. clinton her clinton. we're going to get to. okay, we will.

okay. anyway, how we got into the white house is you are the fortenberry force of the clinton administration. so you worked for nixon? yeah, that was 71. yep. 71, 72, 73. so what was the nixon white house like? oh, oh, it was it was a little scary, actually it was, you know, there was a time when the nixon house, you know, seemed to be well run operation. i did a first class job in tracking some really talented people in the government. i think it was the best group of republican we've been in have been tracked. moynihan yeah. moynihan pat moynihan was a major, major figure like that. but you know, the greenspan's of the world the various of their various people who ran programs that were fugitive estate of secretaries of state. there were future secretaries of the defense department. rumsfeld was there, but baker was there, and he started as chief of staff, moved over to the treasury department, went from the treasury department to run a state department over this

was over two term. so it it was really good. but then, you know watergate hit and that was just cataclysmic event i was in a position of run by this time i was running the speechwriting and research team was pretty big big team and i knew bob woodward from college and woodward to call me when they had a hot story at the post. they would call me and say, i need read you the first two or three paragraphs of this and see if this factor it. i'm not i'm not going to change it just because you don't like the way it's written. but i do need to know if the facts were right. so we had a sort of relationship and and nixon blessed the relationship, knew i was talking to woodward, but for a year and a half or so, we talked a lot and it helped to bond behind the scenes. it helped to take some of the out of the process, but not all it was a richard nixon was the

stuff of shakespeare. i mean, yes this was a man who was one of the most talented i've seen in washington in the last 30 or 40 years. he was easily the best strategist along henry kissinger. the two of them together. you know, they really it out there at that at that point the both china and russia were where we were locked at the hip and opposition to the united states and kissinger nixon understood that if you can simply you can split them apart you can have a divide and conquer strategy. and that's why kissinger went to beijing. that's why nixon had, you know, got going along with the chinese and that sort of thing. and those and those were big, important changes in american foreign policy. i don't know. richard haass is here. good to talk about this much more than i can. but anyway, that had that been all there was to richard nixon. this bright side that i saw periodically, he would have been

one of our better presidents that his problem was what happens to so leaders when when, when, you know, victory goes through their heads too easily and they decide, you know, think i can go for the moon. and nixon's case he he not only thought he could conquer everything, but could do it surreptitiously. he could do it in violation of the law. no, i mean, he was he was a forerunner of donald trump in that respect. so nixon had this dark side. he had a bright side near a dark. and the clash in that house was which one is going to prevail? and it was a close call all the way along. but roy price, who had been my mentor at that point, called me and he said, you got to understand the fight in here is between people who want to go for broke and break the brookings institution and do all these crazy things versus about four or five of the rest of us who were trying stop him. and we to do it very quietly and we we failed. i mean, nixon and nixon, we did

not truly understand it, but he had demons inside him that he never really learned to. and they eventually him down. he was he was asked by david frost, a british journalist, and on tv interview to explain watergate, nixon said, i my enemies a sword. and then they ran me through, which was exactly what i and they twisted it with relish very much. so they do it. they it with relish. exactly right. yeah, right. but richard nixon was a complex person we don't understand. but i think gives us warning about can happen if you got the wrong kind of person in the white house. and that's why what's coming is so -- important it's really important that you watch the country. let me ask you, using your harvard and your your experience, but participating

and observing, there is a crucial between nixon and the 45th president, which is he's like voldemort. i just try to say the name which really irritates him. so i don't do it a lot. in the end. nixon a sense of shame. yes, he did actually he believed in the institutions enough that it wouldn't have occurred when goldwater and john rhodes, hugh scott, you know, come down i think on the fifth or 6th of august and say you haven't got the votes to survive in the senate. he didn't say, all right, let's get the proud boys together. yep. and to and equally what's often forgotten but you know so well was beginnings of the nixon when when there was actually a legitimate congress controversy about whether in fact nixon had won the election. and there were a lot of voters

in chicago, for example, in the of chicago, you know, who brought forth a lot of voters kind of it made a big difference. and nixon was urged to challenge in court the case against him because people around him said will win this case. and nixon, we can't do that. we can't do that to the country. and it was a call on his good. yeah, it was a good side. yeah yeah, absolutely. and the other kind of offer a thesis and you you assess the validity in your witness and a participant so much of this i have a theory that. one way to understand america from 1933 to 2017 is that it was a figure debate between fdr sr and ronald reagan that you we debated the relative role of the state in the marketplace, you know, the relative projection of divorce against commonly agreed upon foes and rivals and truman

and lbj are over here as part of that conversation, president reagan and george w are over here. but eisenhower, nixon ford, bush 41, clinton are all kind of in the middle of the field. so yeah. yeah. and that conversation in many ways ended in 2017 and part of the biden project i think is to restore that conversation. do you agree with that? i agree with up to a point. i think that there was a there was an alliance or alignment of people who in public life who could who learned who did believe in with each other and working across lines. senator jack danforth, a republican adherent as today and was he worked as so many of their leaders though these earlier years he worked really to bring a bipartisan set of solutions. but i think it had partly to do with as far of the intellectual

conversation. but it also had to do with the fact that we had a rise of world war two generation after the war. and for like in the late forties and then through the fifties and into and, you know, into the sixties, there was a lot of bipartisanship that that came through at that time. and it was partly influenced by the fact that the members of the world war two generation were so tied the military and to sacrifice the country that made a big, big difference in a conversation starting with jack kennedy going through george bush senior. those were our world war presidents. there were seven of them. every single one of those seven presidents or a military uniform, six of them were in the war. and jimmy was in the naval academy when the war ended. and he went on to serve honorably those years in the military were bonding

experiences that help people understand is a set of values that guide this country. and we're in this together. we all came, i said. but as the saying goes, we're we all came on different ships. but now we're in the same boat together. and i think i think the the world war two generation ethic of service, of sacrifice has sort of passed from a stage. and we're into a different era now. it was you know, it's just people were trying to pulverize other we haven't seen it since 19th century and and it's been a big, big and i think the the challenge now can we revive some that and richard haass talked about this earlier that can we revive some of those civic commitments and civic feelings and a sense of civic principle can we make those kinds memory and reunite the country with a different kind of generation? i believe that instead of the military what have right now what we ought to be building is a national service program, a serious national service. but the way if we could do, i

can just assure you that for a lot of young people will get out there and spend a year the weather and the forest and the woods, as they did with the old civilian conservation corps in the 60 or they're there working as first responders to the storms and fires and everything else there are a lot of there are working hospitals there are a lot of things our young people could be doing. they give us a year back we take a year off of their tuition, debt and we set them up with some of the things they help them get started in life. but become the foundation for moving forward and reuniting the country. i think we desperately need that and we've got we've got people john and both have been watching. oh, does it wes moore we talk more about him. he's got governor of, but he's very much international service in a really heck of an interesting and inspiring and individual. but along with that is gavin newsom, governor, california, on

the other side of the country, west morris in maryland. here's gavin newsom in california. and in the two officers that are talking to each other about how to build this national service program because they're both champions and i think something similar to that could make a huge difference there's a great in david's written about this wonderfully if you look at the who are on page 109. yes it was a plumber from brooklyn a agricultural worker from california, a couple of irish catholics from boston and, this scion of an immigrant. yes. and our mutual friend who we just lost, charlie peters, used to tell a story about. there was an old jfk war friend named o'malley that always loved and he was not out to put it. he was not jackie kennedy's

idea. a dinner guest, i think a fair way to put it. and so mrs. kennedy would say, i just don't see what jack in o'malley. well, what he saw in o'malley was they had fought the japanese together. yeah and they'd served together. yeah. and i think that that's exactly right, gerald ford. yeah. what was he like, sweet guy. sweet guy. gerald ford was one of the only presidents that i've done in the last six years who didn't really want to be president. they never they thought he would be. that is a very small category. it's a very small. but i bet it's it's like french military victories in the 20th century. the but anyway, gerald ford came into the white house and and i and i got recruited back into the white house staff to be there and and it was a very difficult situation because ford always, always gave his speech.

it were so simplistic that it was hard to build a comfort. it was hard to build support for them. but they tended to he tended to use a lot of one syllable words, and it just didn't make. it very, very interesting. so but that that's the foundation for this point. ford goes through the period he he's seen as not very smart, but a nice guy, you know, a guy trying and he commanded a lot of respect. it just people he wasn't ready to be president. but there was ford because he was sort of, you know, just of going slowly through them, through on the path and then he left office. well, three months after he after he left office, i got a call from his office one day and i said, the president's got a speech to give in the future. and he would really like to have you read the speech and give me your feedback. i said and i said, good. and i said, oh, fine okay, send it to me. i said, well, okay, we'll get it to you overnight. call us tomorrow from now. so he got me the thing and i got

the speech. in a beautifully written speech, gorgeous page, long two or three syllable word, really excellent argument. a lot of like a boy compound sentences good and so and said i could hear he was puffing on his pipe sort of behind things there listening to me sort of laughing at me. and he said to me after he heard the lesson and said, no, because i told him, mr. president, i don't know. and it's a beautiful speech, but i'm not sure why you want it by your column. i do you want me to rewrite it for you and put it in your your name? you know, write it as you would have written it and said no. he said no. and he said, the point is, david, this is the first time i've had enough free time on my schedule to write my own speech right. that's right. and it was like, oh, god, we let that guy go for a year and a half without challenging his

speeches. and he was sitting here capable of giving really eloquent speech. he lincoln, but he was darn good. and it was just in some ways i came away admiring that. sure. you know, i have a lot of i think in the rearview mirror of history. jerry ford is going to be will remember because he he was one of the last people who upheld and ethics and sacrifice. that go back to those seven presidents all wearing military uniform. since that time, we've had five presidents, not one has worn a military to five. one has been and the car and have to give him credit for this one. george w but it's not exactly heavy duty left in to defend great state of texas from the state of oklahoma in the well not if you ask texans they're very wary those folks. yes so this is the four year carter period.

then you came back with president reagan. yes, i do. i did. and it was and part. jim beam. jim baker had been a mentor of mine a long time and he was partly responsible for rounding up a group of people to be on staff. and i think reagan understood better than anybody else how important it is to be before you got there and and what had happened to two or three other presidents just before that was the president got elected and he would bring with him the who had been with him when he would back home in the state, but he wouldn't bring any new people. and it was you know, it was a very closed little circle and it didn't work. you know as as a way of governing. and so that was an issue. and reagan understood that, convinced him of that. and a lot of time went into preparing the white house staff and baker really did that. we had two groups of people we had we that were the california

people who were on his team. they basically were in of setting up a lot of the ideas. and because we feel it was the conservative wing of the republican party got elected and we felt, you can't you can't you can't walk away from that. you got to make sure you honor that. so they we set it up so that they california people were the guardians of the faith. but the watching people knew how to get done. and we're very, very that baker and company. baker was a best to single chief of staff. i in american history and if you took any list of top ten people who've come into government over time, not only would he be on it, but three or four of the group that reagan inaugurated. now, look, i'm not as conservative as reagan was. i'm pro-choice example and have been all my life. but i did think that he.

you you know when you when you get your president get your leader you're not going to get 100% of what you want. and you got to decide. and i think reagan i think reagan will go down without fdr as two of the strongest fdr, but clear and clearly more important, a significant president. but i think reagan, if you look at the year since reagan stacks up very well oh, my god. he looks like cicero. yeah i'm with general hair. yeah, but so the one thing to remember about jim baker is how a man managed to get past nancy reagan. yes. having run two campaigns against ronnie. yeah. because he ran the ford campaign in 76 when reagan him and the bush campaign in 80. and i've always had a slight theory that one of the reasons mrs. reagan said yes, that baker looked like her idea of a chief of staff. yes, right.

and he was. yeah, they went to princeton. well, you know, we didn't have everything. but you're right. we call that the vanderbilt of new jersey. but and that was that troika, right? it was ed meese, baker, mike deaver, my dad. right. is that correct? no brief story every every year in those days, there would be a g-8 meeting that was meeting of the top people, the president and prime minister, a small number of countries, like eight countries. and every good thing switched to the another person had responsibility for hosting the meeting well. time, time, time and reagan. oh the breaking name came up and he decided he wanted to take people down to the shores of virginia and and hold something down there and he was in charge then of trying to run a set of conversations about international economics and where the country was going, where the world going.

reagan had that on his and he had to have a meeting with every not only with the g8 group as a whole, but he had to have individual meetings with each member of the g8. and so there was a stack of stuff that he had to get a hold of. we had to write briefing papers. and this briefing book thicker and thicker and thicker. it was like this when we finally had it done and baker took it to reagan and said, mr. president, here's the briefing book for tomorrow. that's a lot longer than it usually is. so, sir, could you simply could you scan it? don't you don't have to go. don't have to read it very close to the place. got and he said no, no i'd be glad to. well, our other fear at that point was we had reagan's head up. we didn't have nancy, we didn't have our vote. and the next morning, when we had our breakfast together, a group and there were like seven or eight of us at the table, we talked to each other about 15 minutes into the eggs. reagan said, fellows, i've got a

confession to make. and we said, oh, water. he said, he said, did you know that the sound of music was on last night. i said, no, we didn't know that. he said, well, that's my favorite movie. ha ha. so and not a short one. not so. i sat down at your briefing book last night and i started out and i have to tell you, i put it down and i watched the sound of music and i didn't get to bed till about 1:00 and we said oh, my god, that's so helpful. nancy's not going to be there with that little knife coming after this. but here's what we learn. here's what we learned. reagan next day was better with the other people who he was meeting with. then every time we took part. why was that? because he came from his soul. because he came from a deep place in him. he did not he did not rely. upon these briefing books that

we on the staff in our areas thought he couldn't possibly get along without our books, that he couldn't make it, hey actually, it was -- good at what he did at very clear idea of where he wanted to go. and he was, you know, he was a thoughtful leader he wasn't the world's smartest leader. he wasn't he certainly wasn't the most detailed leader. but he had a he had a pretty firm sense. he had a pretty firm vision. and he was to bring a lot of people along. and it made a big difference but i learned a lot on that trip to that it was to williamsburg. it was just it was it was revealing it was revealing about how to run white house, how to govern, to, i guess, the people who get elected. they can't be smart and everything but we ought to treat them with more respect. one of the big problems right now with our leadership is that you get pretty good press as long as you're not the leader, but once you become the leader, they go after you and they're hammer and tongs after you. and you got to be ready for that and you got to be sort of prepared for that both psychologically and emotionally,

you know. so we cut to the nineties and there's a brilliant but somewhat disorganized young man from arkansas yes. who has become president. yep. and things are not going well in the white and they sent for you. yes. you know, clinton then. yes. so to talk about bill. well, i met i met. i was running u.s. news and world report that time and and we had bill clinton in as a speaker when we invite him up for lunch under, you get a sense of him and he would come in fairly regularly. so he and i got to know each then and for a variety of reasons we got closer together over a period of time, so much so we became pretty good friends and. but i, i wasn't sure where i wanted to go with this.

clinton got to the point where he had really great intentions, but he didn't know quite how to govern very, very well. and he didn't show the kind of respect you need to show to go other people, to follow you and help you try to help you through. and of course he had the whole thing with the the the woman and. i remember her name at point. i tried and tried to block it out the and she was she was a very nice woman and you've got to understand she was also young and it's it's it's still it's a long story. but anyway, there was not a great story. but what but but it was a little it had some parallels to the next nixon story. and that is a clinton extremely bright and extremely you know, he understood governance really, really well. he just hadn't brought his own self, his self under control,

you know, and he was he was he allowed himself to go far beyond where he should have been. and and, of course, then he got tangled up in. so he was like reagan. he was a better president than nixon. like nixon, he was a better president. when people remember. and but i think he was actually he did some good things. but he also had these qualities, these inner qualities that are so important to me, as you know so well, the emphasis in leadership is not only not about necessarily what you what your program is, you're really big question is who are you? do you know who you are? do you know what you believe? do you know your principles? and you and do you have you found your true north, as it's called? and because people have found their true north tend to be better leaders. lincoln example was a prime example of the and and clinton had some of that but he had these forces that frankly got in

his way and he was not he was not all he might have been. and of course, it was not easy to, because at that time we really had newt gingrich coming out for. and i have to tell you that i think the politics and the government at the national level changed, when gingrich came to town, it 1994 because he brought with a set of beliefs, if you tear the house down and you tear down the president and we start again. and he was you know, he was a revolutionary. and in some respects and it changed. it did change. a quick story about gingrich. i was george h.w. bush's, and it took 17 years. it was supposed to be posthumous, but the son of a -- wouldn't die. i'd bring it up. you say knock some things that are said here should stay here. mr. president, how you feeling

feeling. but they used the vice president to say the only job was to inquire as to the state, the president's health. every morning. but at a very sweet experience, not commiserate with what you've done by any means, but of actually he at that point, the president had former president had a form of parkinson's and so he couldn't hold a book. so he had come in and read my book to him which was very this is george h.w. h.w. and so i came up once and where he was in the narrative. was 90, 90 when he remembered john tower fails to become secretary of defense that opened up that job and how -- cheney ended up in the cabinet right. so if john tower is confirmed cheney doesn't come to the cabinet, there's not a place on

the leadership ladder for it's like the wing of a butterfly but it's the point where gingrich goes to the leadership and the only thing in 45 minutes of reading these chapters to george herbert walker bush, he said nothing is that they're like this, which is very intimidating. and i was reading i got to gingrich. and the only thing the old man said the whole time was, oh, jesus, newt. i just thought of the whole thing right. but it was it was it was in many ways, i think the 45th president in many ways is the. fullest manifestation of a bit of perot. a bit of the later pat buchanan. yeah, and gingrich well, as a matter of a boil. stu yeah. no, yeah. which, which is. brown and there's only one parachute sounds the beginning of a joke.

so you are the embodiment of an ethos, a sense that however imperfect the experiment is, it's our experiment. we have to make it work. yeah. as you just said in a way quoting president reagan, you if you get 80, if get 60%, you take 60 and you can come back and get other 40. it's a big, complicated, disputatious country politics, the art of compromise that is not the world in which we live. despite biden's best efforts. and it's remarkable what president's managed to pass on on a level big, important pieces of infrastructure, literal infrastructure, but when you went to the white house every

day for nixon, ford, reagan, you weren't going into total, correct. but today they are correct. so give us your and now what's the gergen theory of the case as to how that happened and what do you think we should do? well, as i tried to say before, i think that there are a lot of the cross pressures receded once you got gingrich and started build a conservative revolution and that made that made a big difference of what you thought you could do. i mean, with baker, we we tended to think there were three types of policy problem he had to face. one, was this impossible? you're going to solve anything. the second was, well, you might actually some things done, but you're probably not going to be a hard fight for those something or you get or you go for broke and baker said we don't want to do the really hard things the

impossible things. that's a waste of time. what we ought to go for are the ones that are but doable and. if you can get two tough but doable things right, the rest of it all unfold in a better way. so there was a lot of thought went into that. and i would argue that. a lot of effort in preparing a president or preparing a team for to govern, to run something ought to come before they get in the office that if you look at the way that reagan came into, you know, there was a lot preparation that went on from the time that he was elected to day. he took office and can tell you one day when here the day he took office just the day of the parade, the trucks were there at the doorstep at the night before at midnight. they were to roll and made a big, big difference in because other presidents had come through, had not been ready, you

know, they just didn't take seriously. they just weren't ready for it. it's lot harder. one of the things we learned was that. governors often make better leaders and do people coming out a cabinet level positions and. you had a sort of appreciate. there were a lot of factors that went into why the gingrich became so important. federalist society got built up all these things that are happening got bigger and bigger. then it sort of exploded into this. and what we wound up with as a result, we went up with trump, which is, i think we'd known all that to start with. we never have come anywhere close to doing that, but we just sort of slipped into it. and that's the danger. now, as we go forward, are we going to be able to steer the ship right, or are we just going to sort of toss and turn out there and hit the rocks and nobody can right now? but i can just tell you, that's what's at stake. and it's going to take the

efforts i made to put this one there right. that conservatives are in this keeps they are running this 24 seven. they have doing that for some years. they take this, they take governance and policy very, very seriously. the left, by contrast, has tended be weekend warriors, people who are very bright, but they are running financial organizations know they're running goldman sachs. they've got all these other things they're doing and and, yes, they also want to win the elections. but they before they win election, they want to make a lot of money or they want to get high position and authority and some big program. and so they have to sort of take that into account and realize that it's become a lot harder, govern that it once was is easier to get more attention and the front end you can get the attention get because you can get on social media and you can aoc, you know, here's this woman

who's a barfly and she's out she's in front of the help and run the country with an six months of the time she got started. that's a real change. it's easy to get and get to get behind the women of there are all sorts of organizations that are shown to create a thunberg. you know what she's done on climate or you know you can go through the list of women who changed the world but it's a it is a it's a process that requires deep commitment. it's not for the faint at heart and. it really is. this is this republic is worth saving. and we ought to be doing everything we can within bounds that honors our principles, but also gets us out of this mess together. hoover. are you optimistic, short term, pessimistic, long term, more optimistic. i here's what i think the next

of years, whoever wins in november, there are going to be outcries from the other side. it's just just it's almost built in. the people were going to say no, you cheated. you did this. you did that. we're going to go we're going to test you in court. we're going to do all this thing the next couple of years. i think are probably going to be pretty rough years. that's especially true. the trump that's not to say trump can't turn out to be a better president than we expect, but the chances are pretty low and we've got to i think we've got to brace ourselves for what's coming because we have to steady and can't. but we can be more optimistic about the long term. one of the things i a jon meacham does is he brings us hope because he tells our story and he he writes wonderfully about, you know, about where we are a people. but he writes in a way that draws you in that you want to be part of this.

the larger experiment that's there, part of the magic of his writing. and we need more. jon meacham in our society, we need more west on our shores. i that's incredibly kind that might the final nail in the coffin if you had more me but thank you it's the you and i share and folks here share by your presence you are clearly part of a jeffersonian of experiment where an educated and enlightened citizenry form the basis of a republic. but you are the exception and what we need to do, i believe, and david is his life to it is if you don't tell competing story about the country can be then the 24 seven politics of anger is going to win you know

and again a difference particularly in the media has been and dave and i both invaded living rooms on news programs for for a time and i think i think agree with this one of the besetting problems of the media political complex is that even if you don't have something to say, you have to say something. yeah all right. so there's this machinery of partizan conflict that has to. all the time. no, no, no. producer at cnn or msnbc or fox gets up in the morning five, scans the headlines and says oh, there's nothing to fight about today. so we'll just show prison documentaries, right? or whatever. right? or the pillow guy or whatever. you know.

so the quality of the fuel into that of perpetual conflict doesn't matter. it's just got to have some fuel. yeah. and it requires it seems to me, the competing story. yeah. and the story is that all of our imperfections, what is our immigration problem people want, come here. right we never look at it that way. so in the last moment or so, david, you say short term pessimistic. right. but but talk about your long term optimism. well, i think you're going to find the core of people who run for office this this this year is going to be pale in comparison, the quality of people who are going to come in and, be seeking votes in 2028, the democrats in particular have a very large bench for change and. they've got a number of people

are in governorships now who will be competing. you've got some people in the senate and house who are competing. you've got you know, you've got some really interesting people and and the conservative will come up with their slate as well. but it's going to be it's going to be a much more interesting fight in 28. right now, they're sort of the cases are cooked now in ways i think are unfortunate. but i do think i think i think if you look at some of the individuals are coming if you look at younger generation and how there are a lot of stories out there now that the younger generation is you know is turning inward. they all they do spend all their time on the internet. they've got a half a dozen charges against them. yeah, that's true of a number of people who are in there, millennials and, generation z. but it's not of a lot of the rest of them. and those people who are who are knocking at the door who want to make a difference in this country and are growing that group in particular, you find that the military veterans

coming back are i'm i'm chairing a advise board on a nonprofit to identify veterans who might want to run for talk to them. and then if they do want to run for office you if you do if you want to run for office, you've got to you've got to take a pledge. you've got to take a pledge to work with the other side. and we're going to enforce that. and and and we're getting some response to or to take west more. i want leave on this now because it's important. and that is there are people like wes now who are coming into bloodstream of the country. wes, as a young guy who a black guy who was born to a mom and dad and father disappeared very, very early the moment had america barely survived. and she was always hard in trouble. and wes himself had trouble. he was out and he had rebelled against the cops and. pa he had handcuffs by the time

he was 12 and he but he was as someone who was a part of going to be a member of a gang. and they probably spent most of his life in prison. but his mom seized him, said, you're going to get out of this. and she sent him to the valley forge military academy. he didn't want to go. he rebelled against. she said, no, you're going to stay. and he stayed and he stayed. and he turned his life around. and he became a he became very civically oriented and he broke he started he started doing his homework he started went out of the various teams he was captain he was captain of that he got into the johns hopkins university from hopkins. he got a rhodes scholarship. this is a guy who came out of the you know, off the streets. they came in. he came and he kind of white house fellowship. he was he got into the he ran for and got a job to be head of the robin hood foundation is the largest anti-poverty organization in new york is a big, huge thing. west came in there he had no experience running anything he ran it beautifully for six or

seven years. and then his friend said, you ought to run for office and ran for and he ran for office. he'd never done that before. he ran. and a big major feel at 15 different people in democratic primary. it was one in which and he swept it 20 points. he got into the general swept it by 20 points is. now, governor, he's a big champion of national service. he and gavin newsom are talking a lot about how do we ends of the country, both about both coasts of the country, how can we more of this? he's a guy. everybody wants him to run now in 2028. i don't know whether he's going to make it or not. i don't know. but i can tell you he is not alone. there are a number of people who are doing coming back to it, a number of them coming out of the military. wes moore was an 82nd, airborne. 82nd airborne. he put his life on the line for the country. and i just tell you, there are more. wes moore is out there and what we need to be doing, all those of us who are older need to be doing everything we can to help

mentor our help find. help, mentor and help. stand by this younger generation they go either way, but i'm pretty optimistic when i read your writings out that we've got, we've been here before and existential threats and we've come out of it pretty darn well, almost of them, except for one. that's a civil war. and we eventually came out better for that we need to we need to be focused now on what can we in the older generation do to make a better world for this country before we leave the stage what can we accomplish? and i think owe some things back to the country. but i also think we're good hearted people and we are and and we still have a sense of humor i'll just end on this note about how it used to be. and that's when when tip o'neill and ronald reagan won conservative, one liberal, very very devoted to their views on life. but they they had a pact that up until 5:00 in the afternoon, you could say anything you wanted

about the other guy you could name, nominate him and get him anything. you could get a measure, you know, for very, very. but after 5:00, you put your differences down, you could lift up a class, you could get together, tell irish yarns and stories and get to know each other and try to find ways to do. that's when you know and did well, it came out for a big birthday for tipp and reagan decided to invade by tipped and have a birthday party for and tip came in. he had of his friends there though the white house and at the end of lunch break and got up to get to give a read a little doggerel as they like to do and reagan said tip if i had ticket to heaven and you didn't have one to well i'd get my back and go to hell with you. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. ladies and gentlemen, david gergen. that was