Skip to main content

tv   QA  CSPAN  October 12, 2015 6:00am-7:01am EDT

6:00 am
have a book out called republic of conscience. conscience. why a book on the subject? gary: two reasons. the transformation of washington in the 30 years since i left here, i will give you one statistic that i do not put in the book. i was told in 1970 that there were 160 some registered lobbyists in washington. there are now over 13,000. second, i have started studying early american history in considerable depth and i went back-to-school in my 60's to get a graduate degree in jefferson. the founders used the language of the ancient republican, greece and rome.
6:01 am
and warned against corruption. their definition of corruption was not bribery or quid pro quo, money under the table. it was putting special interests ahead of the common good. by that definition, washington today is a massively corrupt place. brian: let me show you some video of harry truman after he was out of office talking about his future as a next president. [video clip] >> some of them, when they became president were rich men. some of them were in the same financial situation that i was myself. those men who have had to go ahead and do what was necessary to make a living, did not under any circumstances use the fact that they had been president to promote their own welfare and benefit. that is one of the great assets the country has had. presidents of the united states are men who understand what it means to be the integrity of the
6:02 am
greatest country in the world and that is all there is to it. >> i had offers from half a dozen people who wanted to pay me a great big salary. one of particular told make you would like to give me $100,000 a year to be chairman of the board of his organization. i said to him -- why didn't you make that offer to me when i was working on the farm for 10 years. and then he left because he knew where i had put him. he was trying to exploit the presidency of the united states. brian: here we are, some years later and it is $100,000 is not even a enough for a speech. gary: the great senators i worked with in the 1970's and 1980's would never have become lobbyists. the stewart's and nelson's and mansfield's, people like that --
6:03 am
i would not say it is beneath them, but as truman said, they did not believe they should monetize the title they were given by the voters. that ethic again, it is not illegal, it is legal to lobby but the ethics behind that have changed enormously. it was a great question that miller -- he wrote a book and he talks with harry and asked him -- a president had just been flown home in air force one. the story was that the president cleaned everything out. miller brought this up with president truman. and he asked him what he had taken from the white house very he said nothing. truman said nothing. he said, you must have taken a pencil. no.
6:04 am
he answered that it did not belong to him. it is a great mystery to me. i do not know. i observed those great senators i served with. i was still quite a young man and i learned from them. i vowed never to lobby even though it is legal and people were beginning to make a lot of money doing it, it just did not seem right to me. i have never done it. brian: you were not in the senate. this guy came to the senate after you left. here is senator from louisiana. i will follow up after you see it. [video clip] >> you understand their backgrounds and who they represent. i think it helps us understand how people of different positions can be friends because if you are truly representing
6:05 am
your state the best you can, it is not just because of the politics but because of where they are from. let me say one other thing that i think we need to pay attention to in this body, the united states senate. and that is that we do not let outside forces dictate to us how we treat each other, and how we work together. brian: true? gary: that has changed also a great deal. it is widespread in the country. everyone knows the parties are at loggerheads. i cannot answer the question as to why. i have spent a lot of time thinking about it. partisan media has had something to do with it. i would not think her point except the name mr. murdock.
6:06 am
i think he has changed politics in the media. i started in the age of brinkley and walter cronkite and they played it right down the middle as you know. but now, we have partisan media around-the-clock. moving out of office into moneymaking and that combined with the explosion of campaign costs and finance all intertwined. that has led to a closed system in washington where fewer and fewer people can take public office. it would be impossible for an unknown senator like me to make a serious campaign for the presidency today. brian: remind a 25-year-old watching this right now about your political past. gary: we do not have enough time. i was starting law school, or
6:07 am
the year before, handing out leaflets for john kennedy. i worked in the justice department when robert kennedy was attorney general. i worked as a volunteer on his 1968 presidential campaign. i then spent two years for
6:08 am
george mcgovern in 1971 and 1972. i ran for the senate, never having run for office before in 1974 and succeeding and being reelected in 1980. seeking the presidency in 1984. brian: and 1988. gary: in 1988, briefly. since you have gotten out of politics, what have you done? besides the 21 books you have written. gary: i have not counted, some before and some since leaving office. i went back to school. i earned a graduate degree, a phd. i wrote a thesis on thomas jefferson. and his ideal of the republic. and that got published. i tried to help colorado-based companies do international projects. i was deeply involved in one of our bell telephone companies headquartered in denver in
6:09 am
modernizing the soviet and then russian telephone system. starting in 1988 or 1989, all of the way through until about 2003 and 2004. through the coup, and the collapse of the soviet union. it was an extraordinary adventure. brian: now, you are a representative to northern ireland. gary: john kerry whom i supported when he ran for president, asked if i would look into northern ireland. unlike george mitchell, i was not appointed by the president. i did not have the title of special envoy. but from august of 2014 until last month, i was secretary kerry's personal representative, trying to help the factions in northern ireland get back together. they were not talking last summer. we made progress through the british and irish governments, bringing the five parties in northern ireland together. happily, virtually on christmas eve, last december, all of the parties negotiated with a lengthy agreement on budgets and welfare reform and flags in parades and a variety of legacy issues. that agreement stuck through the rest of december, january, february, and into march. and then one of the parties,
6:10 am
sinn fein pulled out of the agreements because of the welfare cuts and there is still a stalemate. i took a leave of absence from that position when this book was published because i did not want secretary kerry to be held accountable for my views in this book. if i'm asked to go back, i would be happy to do that. brian: you were on an advisory committee for the state department. what kind of work? gary: at the defense department, the committee was called the threat reduction advisory committee. 25 experts, more expert than i, including by the way, professor ernest moni who became secretary of energy and at the table with the iranian negotiations. and our job was to advise the secretary on threats over the horizon. a cyber security, biological threats and so forth. i did that for two years and
6:11 am
then secretary kerry asked me to chair a committee at the state department called the international security advisory board. once again, 25-30 experts from military service, diplomacy, former ambassadors, and policymakers -- we again are looking from the standpoint of diplomacy at many of the same kinds of issues. and advising secretary kerry and the other secretaries in the department on what lies ahead, 5-10 years in the future. brian: going back to your book, and corruption in government, what is the difference between you serving on these boards and representing companies in colorado to some international body. they look at you and they say -- he has access. gary: i am not handsomely
6:12 am
compensated. service on the board is voluntary and uncompensated. i am scrupulous on keeping a line between public service here in this city and anything i do internationally. the two companies i am helping right now are a health care company and a water engineering company. both of them are national companies. i frankly have turned down advisory positions for companies that are doing activities that i cannot support. i think exporting health care and water engineering in africa and other places are worthy endeavors. brian: the reason we ran the video clip, while i was reading your book on the 13th of july, the washington post had an article saying -- patton boggs push on after merger.
6:13 am
he was acquired by sanders. brian: just one of many. was that going on when you were in the senate? gary: no, not the first term. it began to happen sometime in the 1980's, certainly the late 1980's when i left. it became acceptable and then it became almost a dam breaking where once two former senators and members of congress made the leap and made a great deal of money doing so, others followed
6:14 am
right thereafter. brian: in this article, it talks about lott -- it grew to a $12 million business. they sold it. later on, it gets more intricate. since december, they have recruited new hires in the public policy practice including david --. brian: christine blackwood, a deputy director from the department of health and human services -- and jim matheson, democrat from utah. what has this kind of thing done to our system? gary: the worst thing it has done is caused widespread public mistrust in government.
6:15 am
i think everyday americans on the streets in denver and elsewhere see this as just a revolving door. to use a cliche. of people going into government either by elected or appointed office. former cabinet officers and others, also migrated to the lobbying industry. they think it is a closed deal. once you are on the inside, you can get whatever you want through legislation or changes in regulations. the story in the papers today about the auto industry, lobbying against increased safety regulations and winning even though some of their failures have caused deaths. and they are so powerful, they can stop public safety regulation of their industry.
6:16 am
and that is what people see every day. brian: in your book, you talked several times about a historian named gordon wood. you call him an eminent historian. here is a little bit of gordon wood talking about the things you're talking about. [video clip] >> we have this marvelous country which is held together by ideology, by a set of beliefs that came out of the revolution. it keeps us together. you do not have to to be someone, you do not have to have a certain ancestor. you can learn to be an american by coming to believe in these things, liberty, equality, constitutionalism. you do not have to come from a certain race, ethnicity. that is not true in most of the world. gary: i have come to know him. he has written a library of books on early american history. i think he is widely believed to be the dean of early american history historians.
6:17 am
he taught at brown and has written monumental books about the american revolution and the themes of the revolution. i have learned an enormous amount from him. this is an aspect of that corruption that our founders were so concerned about that would lead -- and he cites in some of his works, the division in england that they left. the 17th century. division between the court and the country. the country was farmers and shopkeepers and small business people. the court in london had all of the power, all of the prerogative, and patronage. it was a closed system. that conflict between the court and the country, i see replaying
6:18 am
in early 21st century america. brian: for all of the positive things that we got out of the british, they did not create an empire. how does that kind of system -- now, they are very small compared to what they used to be. gary: we flirted with them with the invasion of iraq. i think that invasion was to impose a democracy, get rid of saddam hussein, create a democracy which would be like that because that is what the people wanted. and that would be our political and probably military base in the middle east, through which we could control events and surrounding countries. there have been -- i would not
6:19 am
say imperialism, but people in various administrations since world war ii who have had quite extravagant ambitions for this country. that the founders never foresaw. they of course warned against entanglements in europe and elsewhere. brian: you also praised thomas jefferson and james madison and george washington for going back home after they were in office. and not passing it on to the next generation. none of them had a next generation to pass it on to. gary: that was their misfortune. brian: when did that start? gary: probably with the adams family. there have been great families that have made great contributions to this country. i am not against legacies, involved in public life. i do think we have to have more than two family for the
6:20 am
presidency, and we will see if that is how the 2016 campaign shapes up. part of the networking and the rolodex empire in question is about relationships and, i would not say deals as such, but shared interest, shared special interest, narrow interests, personal interest, and, to me, that is not healthy for the country. again, i go back to the 1970's, it was not considered healthy by the people i served with in those days. i trace this serious transformation to the last 30 years. i know you asked why and i am still puzzled as to how all of this happened. i think money. brian: you ran for president twice and you ran a campaign,
6:21 am
and you ran for senate twice and won. did you ever feel the impact of money in that process? gary: nothing like today. when i was preparing for the second national race in 1987, we began to think about the campaign budget. the traction of what people are talking about. in 1984 race, 50 states, something between $20-25 million. that is walking around money in one state now. my first senate race in a contested primary of six democrats against a wealthy two-term incumbent cost $350,000. average contribution was $17. six years later, i raised three times that and was outspent.
6:22 am
in 2014, in the senate race in colorado, 5 million people, moderate sized state. each candidate spent more than $25 million and that did not count the new thing on the horizon. the unlimited political action committees sanctioned by the supreme court, tragically. brian: have you been involved at all in the 2016 campaign? gary: no. i never believe it or he much in endorsements. i don't think they mean very much. i had a young man working for me in 1984. he became mayor of baltimore twice. became governor of maryland twice. he is running for president, martin o'malley. i feel obligated to martin and i try to help him on issues, foreign policy, national
6:23 am
security issues. i think i have helped to very little but having no money, i cannot make major contributions. brian: he is running against a person who was interviewed by diane sawyer. [video clip] >> we came out of the white house dead broke. we had no money when we got there and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for chelsea's education, it was not easy. bill has worked really hard and it has been amazing to me, he has worked very hard. we had to pay off all of our debts. death. he had to make double the money because of taxes and pay off the debts and take care of family members.
6:24 am
>> you think america will understand five-time median income in this country for one speech? mrs. clinton: i thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave public office do. brian: there was a story that a lot of the people that contributed to the clinton foundation were bundling money with the clinton campaign. gary: it remains to be seen. to the degree that i -- i write in this book about spreading public distrust about politics generally and national politics, particularly, it would have to have some affect. i know what people say to me -- they not only asked my opinion about things but they express their own. going from, as mrs. clinton says, no money to quite a bit of money, personally and for the
6:25 am
foundation, makes people wonder how all of this happened. i think she will continue to be plagued with this. i am reminded that there was a kennedy dynasty as well. if you add all three brothers up, only one of them got elected and that one served only 2.5 years in the white house. it is not as if a patriarch service, two terms, -- which begins to look a lot like oligarchy in latin america. brian: in your book, you talk about the national security act from 1947. gary: it was a hinge of history for america. it signaled a permanent military
6:26 am
presence around the world. now, the theory behind it was not solid. we mobilized and went to europe in 1917. we mobilized and went to europe in 1941. we do not want to have to do that again. we have all of these troops around the world and as you will recall, there was a huge debate in washington in the congress, over the marshall plan, truman's decision not to bring the 12 million troops home. a lot of them did come home. and culminating in the debate
6:27 am
over the act. the cia, an intelligence establishment, and the national security council. that was the day that the nation committed itself, i would not say governing the world, but certainly trying to pacify the world and all the rest is history. brian: i want to show a clip from 1973. you say in the book this is an important moment in history. it is the church committee. [video clip] >> the dark side of those activities for many americans who were not even suspected of a crime. they were harassed, they were discredited, and at times, endangered. >> the doctrine of plausible deniability.
6:28 am
>> you find work on this committee to be unwelcome. >> no, i do not. i welcome the chance to describe to the american people what intelligence is really about today. it is an opportunity to show how we americans have modernized the whole concept of intelligence. brian: you are the only one there that is still alive. gary: walter mondale. brian: mr. colby. gary: william colby became very controversial for doing what the constitution required him to do and that was tell the senate what his agency was up to. i have never understood those who in the agency and elsewhere, who pilloried at him for doing what he was required to do under the constitution. the constitution requires that
6:29 am
congress to oversee the activities of the executive branch, full stop, full stop. he did what he was supposed to do. many of the old-timers, who were in this culture of secrecy, hated him for it. brian: why was this a turning point? gary: we recommended, and there was created, permanent congressional oversight. not only the senate but also in the house as well. we mandated that presidents who authorized covert operations of any consequence in the future any consequence in the future had to sign what came to be called a finding. up to that point, we spent months and months and months trying to find out who ordered fidel castro among others to be
6:30 am
assassinated. we couldn't find anybody. did john kennedy do it? in robert kennedy do it? no. you got murky, vague answers. we said, the president has to sign a piece of paper. it doesn't have to be in the new york times or the washington post, it has to be in a safe somewhere. years later, iran-contra came up and president reagan couldn't remember whether he knew anything about it or not. in a safe, a piece of paper authorizing the complicated iran-contra operation, by the way, to bypass the laws that congress had enacted, and his name was on it. that was a result of the church committee. brian: what do you think of the cia today? you have a figure in your book
6:31 am
that says we spend $40 billion a year on intelligence. my own research shows that we spent $80 million. gary: could well be. that is part of the problem that we don't know. i would have to speak to senator feinstein or somebody on the intelligence oversight committee to find out what that actual figure is. an astounding amount of money. i don't know. brian: i wrote them down, actually. these are 2010 figures. 27 billion for the military intelligence department. gary: part of the murkiness, and this is also new in the last 20 or 30 years, is the adding consultants. in the old days, it was like two
6:32 am
or three times as much as the cia in terms of money. nsa for the technical stuff. each service had a unit. state department had an intelligence office. it was a manageable number. starting sometime, and i don't have a date, probably in the 80's or 90's, these agencies began to bring in outside consulting -- not just consulting people, consulting firms with thousands and thousands of employees. if you years back, one of them was called edward snowden. he wasn't a member of the cia, he was a member of a consulting firm. how big this concentric circle of consultants is around the public services, i'm not sure
6:33 am
anybody knows. brian: can you remember when you ran the mcgovern campaign, how old were you? gary: 31, 32. brian: i think the guy running the clinton campaign is about 35. why did you think you could do that at that age? do you remember what you are thinking at the time? gary: i thought i knew all there was to know about national campaigns. what usually is called grassroots campaigning, which is starting with a small core of committed people. iowa, new hampshire. then, their task is to reach out and recruit 10 more or 20 more, and the same would grow until
6:34 am
you have several thousand supporters in every state. that is pretty much what we did. there wasn't any magic to it. a lot of it was out of the sensitive because we had no money. kind of peanut butter and sleeping on the kitchen floor kind of operation. brian: did you ever think you could win? gary: i certainly did when he began to win primaries, because there was a real groundswell in the country against the vietnam war. and of course, in that campaign, richard nixon promised he would and that war. seven years later, five years later, whatever it was. when the party establishment kind of ganged up in the later primaries on senator mcgovern, i began to have some doubts. looking back, i don't think
6:35 am
there was any possibility. brian: did you keep going when you kind of suspected you weren't going to be able to do it? gary: persistence, i guess. believe in what you are doing. i worked with a great american who is not with the city loaded, and he knew washington pretty well, and he knew richard nixon very well. he kept saying, this is huge, this have to come out. brian: let me go back to the march speech of 1968 when lyndon johnson said i am not going to run. i just want to get the flavor of what he was talking about.
6:36 am
you say your book that vietnam and watergate had a big impact on what we're doing today. president johnson: i believe that a peaceful asia is far nearer to reality because of what the united states has done in vietnam. i believe that the 9/11 door to the dangers of battle there, fighting there for us tonight, are helping the entire world avoid far greater conflicts, far wider wars, far more destruction than this one. the piece that will bring them home someday will come. brian: i was thinking today, we have not had any wars over there since then. gary: no, but the premise of the war, like the one in iraq, was wrong. the so-called domino theory
6:37 am
turned out to be dead wrong. the chinese and feeling the mise had been in a contentious relationship for centuries. the nationalist movement was much stronger than the communist movement. still got a communist government. we recognize it, do business with it. but the dominoes didn't fall. the mood of the country at that time was pretty much that communism was on the march. if we didn't stop it there, it would be on our shores. later, in the reagan years, he forecast that unless we stop the sandinistas in nicaragua than communists would be flowing across the rio grande river into texas. if you get the premise wrong, you're fighting the wrong war. brian: go back and review the watergate and vietnam thing. how much of what we are living with today came from that era?
6:38 am
gary: i list a whole series of things in my lifetime that have contributed to just trust in government. there are a lot of americans who think there was some official involvement in john f. kennedy's assassination. there was that skepticism. then vietnam came along, and then watergate came along. officials were not telling the truth. i think part of the church committee experience was that we dragged a lot of things out. i will tell a funny story. one of the senior members of
6:39 am
that church committee, will go unnamed. in an early meeting, we were going around the table asking each other, and i am the youngest one there, how do we do this? how do we get started? what if they stonewall us? i said, mr. chairman, what if we all ask for our own individual fbi and cia files? the room goes totally silent and this senior member of the committee says, i don't want to know what they got on me. that drew a laugh. but part of the reason j edgar hoover stayed in power was because he blackmailed people up to and including the presidency. all of that creates a mistrust of government that has got to be, i think, very profound.
6:40 am
the nexus of lobbying and campaign finance and closed networks in washington merely contributes to that. brian: what is the media's responsibility in all of this? gary: well, i think you are doing yours by letting me talk about my book. back-office sensationalism and the kind of 24/7 cable scandal mentality. donald trump, donald trump. ratings, clearly public broadcasting in its various
6:41 am
forms does not have the kind of commercial pressures that the networks do. again, it is amazing to point out to americans that networks, fox and others, don't own the airwaves. the american people on the airwaves. if you want to cut campaign costs, give candidates limited free time on radio and television. that would drop the cost of a campaign dramatically. brian: as you know, cable is not regulated. there would be no control over that. what if nobody watched? gary: that is part of the duties
6:42 am
of citizens in a republic is to participate in government. we preach democracy, as we should, and that is about rights. a republic has duties. duties of citizenship, duty to participate. if people don't vote -- we are waging wars around the world for democracy and yet i haven't gone to one country where people don't know that half the american people don't vote. so they see the disconnect between what we preach and what we do. if people decide they don't want to watch you govern this country, they have no right to complain. brian: how was the hart-redman commission or committee established? gary: i would take a small bit of credit but i think others as well.
6:43 am
what i recommended to president clinton was to do what harry truman did after world war ii. that is, pick a dozen or more graybeards, gray-haired people, people with experience, to go away for six months or a year, and come back with a blueprint for america's role in the world in the 21st century. i sent in that letter i think in 1994-1995. 1998, i think there had been enough pressure for something like this. he did create the u.s. commission on national security for the 21st century. it was during that process, as early as 1999, that we concluded that this country would be attacked by terrorists. that was in one of our interim reports, america will be
6:44 am
attacked by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, and americans will die in american soil. brian: why did you know that? gary: talking to terrorism experts. names escape me. there was a very well-known man who is still in washington who served in the clinton and subsequently bush white house. brian: richard clarke? gary: yes, exactly. senior moment on my part. we spent a lot of time with him and other experts. they had seen the intelligence. they had talked to foreign service officers and intelligence officers and they saw it coming. particularly gulf war one, where
6:45 am
we station american troops on saudi soil. bin laden and others said, that is when we had to get even with the great satan. brian: back in february of 2001, you were with ian redman on a call in show. i asked you about it later. let's watch this and see the two of you talking about this. >> we were always conscious of the fact -- we have been very blunt about the possibilities. if people like us had spent this time on this report and something bad happened, we are going to be held accountable. we have done this as openly and honestly and fairly with the american people as we can. why major news organizations have and cover this is a separate story.
6:46 am
why do people pick up their local newspaper, not read a word about this, and it's something that happens in their town. brian: i noticed today that the new york times never had a word in their. any idea why? >> a newspaper that is considered to be the newspaper of record in this country. if you look at the people on this panel, excluding gary and myself, yet there wasn't a word. there was something on their website i understand, but i am puzzled. gary: this is going to now result in hearings on the hill, possible action from the administration. it is the first study of its kind. brian: no press at the time.
6:47 am
gary: virtually none. i think there was a page to story in the washington post, another commission report kind of story. january 31, 2001, predicting terrorist attacks on america which occurred eight months later. one of the reporters got up and left halfway through and one of our advisors on the committee, a well-known professor of military history, stop the reporter and said, why are you leaving? he said, this is the new york times. none of this is going to happen anyway. didn't file a story. brian: that also begs the question -- we see a lot of commissions established and these reports are filed and they are large and they are thrown
6:48 am
around the side. how much of that is political? gary: part of it as i said there is that it is our duty. thinking about america's role in the world and how to make us and the world more secure. in the first 25 years of the 25 century, that is a big assignment. you take it seriously and you hope the american people find out about it. if assignment editors, news anchors and others decide just to the report will get on the desk, or the reporter doesn't even file the story, there is no hope. brian: september 11 in that same year that you run that program, a few days before that you are in montreal. what did you say at that speech?
6:49 am
gary: ironically, it was a conference of the air transportation association. it was september 9. i said in the speech, america is going to be attacked by terrorists and is going to happen very soon. i have made arrangements to come to washington from montreal and go see the national security advisor, condoleezza rice. i knew her because she was working on her phd at the university of denver. i was a senate candidate at the beginning, i think, of my presidential race. she supported me. after that, she switched parties. second washington, went directly to the white house, and i said
6:50 am
to her, please get going on homeland security quickly. i have a sense. and that was september the ninth. brian: was it only a sense? gary: find a lawyer in denver so i had no intelligence. but i had spent about two and a half years and had seen the country warned. we found out, among other things, that the coast guard, border patrol, and customs, had no common database and no common communication system. those three agencies, in three different departments in washington, weren't talking to each other. no collective database that they were working from? our borders were porous and the president had been warned. we briefed colin powell,
6:51 am
secretary of state. we briefed donald rumsfeld. i talked to condoleezza rice. this is after the commission had been dissolved. brian: back in september, you came back in the news through math by -- through matt bai in "the new york times." he didn't talk much about this book. gary: it is irrelevant to the book. brian: you allude to the media. after your situation back then, the media started covering the personal stuff. gary: at the expense of more serious things. brian: why do you think that happened? gary: back to the question of the journalist asking me why i thought they did what they did.
6:52 am
i don't know. ratings, revenues, who knows? i've never understood the broadcast media at all. brian: what did you think of that book? gary: i skimmed through it. brian: it was about you. gary: i know it was, but i don't particularly like reading about myself. brian: he said that, -- but in your case -- you go back to that moment, you have not spoken much about that over the years. gary: why should i? no particular reason to. single instant in my life. i didn't get to be president.
6:53 am
i thought i would and i thought it would have been a good one. life goes on and i try to make the best of it and make a contribution where i can. i didn't want to become an expert on the media. brian: what was your reaction after you lost? what impact has it had on your life? gary: i didn't lose, i just didn't run. brian: i'm thinking of 1984, too. gary: someone like me has to view the world from the vantage point of where they started. i started in a small farming town in eastern kansas. neither of my parents graduated from high school. i did not meet a member of congress until later in life. i didn't meet a united states senator until i was in law school. i did not, unlike say bill clinton, set out at age 11 to be
6:54 am
president of the united states. opportunities offered themselves. i wanted to do some a for the country. in some ways, i'm startled at the things i have been able to do. serve in the senate, never occurred to me. brian: how long did it take you to write this book? gary: you really want to know? 90 days. brian: how did you do it? gary: on the computer. it was all up here. all those books on early american history, gordon would practically memorized. he wrote a very nice endorsement on the back of the book. why i was so validated by his comment was, he could have said, you don't understand the thing about early american history but he didn't.
6:55 am
it was all in my mind and i had been struggling -- the question you asked earlier. how did all this happen? i just sat down to contrast the ideal of the republic of our founders and what it would take to protect that ideal to today's washington. i added that to how things have changed since i went back to colorado. i wouldn't say it was easy to write but it came out. brian: how old are your kids now? gary: hunter is 49, john is 47. brian: do you have grandchildren? gary: yes. if -- i don't know whether this book will end up selling or not.
6:56 am
i have written a lot of books that didn't sell very much. what would please me the most is if schools pick this up for eighth-grade civics and used it as a textbook. that would have been the greatest contribution i could possibly make to future generations. brian: the name of the book is "the republic of conscience." our guest is gary hart, senator from colorado for two terms, presidential candidate. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at www.c-span.org. the programs are also available as podcasts.
6:57 am
>> if you enjoyed this week's "q&a" interview, here is the more you might like. former 9/11 commission vice chair on domestic and international security. you can watch these any or search our entire video library at www.c-span.org. why do 10:00, presidential
6:58 am
candidate speak in new hampshire. >> tonight on c-span's new series, "landmark cases," in 1830, dread scott was inflamed to dr. john emerson. uring his enlistment, he was assigned to several free states during which he married harriet robinson. she refused to buy his freedom and he sued. follow the case on scott vs. sanford in "landmark cases." historic supreme court decisions with our special guest, law professor christopher bracey and martha jones at the university of michigan law school. we'll explore this historic
6:59 am
supreme court ruling by revealing the life and times by the people who were the plaintiffs, lawyers and justices in these cases. be sure to join the conversation as we'll be taking your calls, e-mails, tweets and facebook comments during the program using #landmarkcases. and for background on each case while you watch, order your copy cases" companion ook. >> on "washington journal," kimberly atkins talks about the impact of the 2016 presidential case could have on the supreme court. julie stewart examines the obama administration's decision to release 6,000 non-violent federal prisoners over a four-day period starting october 30.
7:00 am
and richard collinberg on federal grants to fund charter schools. we take your calls and you can join the conversation at acebook and twitter. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] "washington journal" is next. host: in its hometown of jamesville, paul ryan spent time with family and reportedly reiterated his claim that he does not want to be speaker of the house of representatives. fundraising numbers are in. hillary clinton raised $28 billion. bernie sanders brought in $6 billion. ben carson took in $2 billion. it's october 12, columbus day. you're watching the "washington journal." for four days starting october 30, the obama administration will release 6,000 non-violent drug offenders. it's the largest one-time release of federalri

74 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on