 I'm Larry Temple as chairman of the LBJ Foundation. It's my true privilege to welcome all of you to this program tonight. I happen to think that the LBJ Library has set a pattern, or is setting a pattern. Three weeks ago, we had two stars on this stage. Bob Schieffer had a moderation conversation with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Well, tonight, we've got two more stars on this stage. John Avalon and Mark Gupta Grove. John Avalon is a true rising star in this country in the media and journalism world of war. John got his start as a speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani, both when he was mayor of New York and later as a presidential candidate. John Avalon today is the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast, but he's way more than that. He is a very active writer in this country. Every major magazine has seen one of his pieces. Moreover, he's on television all the time. You can look at CNN, you look at MSNBC, you can look at PBS, you can look at C-SPAN, and you'll see John Avalon. I will also tell you he is a prolific writer of books. He's written multiple books. The one that's most prominent, the one that's most spotlighted is about Washington's farewell address. And he reminds us that that's truly topical today because in his farewell address, Washington warned this country against excessive partisanship, greedy self-interest, and foreign powers that might affect our elections. Now think about that. If that's not topical, I don't know what is topical. I will also say that John got, started to say fame, maybe notoriety, because he has been blacklisted by President Trump. I got a chance to see John Avalon on the Stephen Colbert show on Monday night of this week. He was a star there too. But he said something that resonates very strongly with me. What John said that night is he perceived his duty, his responsibility as a journalism expert, he's called himself an expert, but he is, as a journalist to call a lie a lie and a fact a fact. And I wish that there were more people like him with that same attitude. I think we'll all see a long time ahead, John Avalon on the public stage of this world. And I think we'll all be glad that we met him on this stage tonight. Now let me tell you about the other star. I bet all of you think you know Mark Up to Grove. Those of you that have been coming here for many years have seen him for a long time. Have seen him on this stage. With the possible exception of Harry Middleton, Mark Up to Grove has been on this stage more than any other human being, period. He was here as the indomitable director of the LBJ Library from 2009 until he left last February. But he was very prominent before he came to this library. He was a historian on the presidency that was well known throughout the country. He had been the editor of Newsweek. He had been president of Time in Canada and he had written two books on the presidency. One of them called Second Acts, saying what some presidents did after they left the presidency. The other book was called Baptism by Fire of what happens with presidents that come into office at time of crisis. Now Lyndon Johnson Robb, I heard chastise him once about the fact that Lyndon Johnson wasn't in either book. But in spite of that, he was picked to be the director of this library and were we ever wonderful to have him. He set a new standard. I will tell you it's not hyperbole and it's not Texas bragging. When I say there are 13 presidential libraries and during his tenure here, he was widely known and respected as the single best, the single best director of any presidential library. And Mark left his mark on this library in so many different ways. The highlight probably is the Civil Rights Summit in 2014 in which we had not one, not two, not three, not four, but five presidents. President Carter, President George H.W. Bush, President Clinton, President George W. Bush, and President Obama all were on this stage, never in the history, in the history of this country have there been five presidents in a subsidy program anywhere, anytime for any reason. Mark made that happen. And it is the hallmark of the success that he had here. And then last year in 2016, the Vietnam War Summit was a program that was comparable to the one he did on civil rights. I have said that I think there are a rare few people in this world that are visionary, that are creative, that know how to come up with an idea that's new and different. There are also a small number of people that know how to implement an idea, implement a program. And those are normally two different people. Mark Updegrove is both. He knows how to come up with a whole new creation and then knows how to implement it. And he is that rare individual. He left to become the director, the CEO, the museum, the Medal of Honor Museum, and he still serves in that capacity. But he also has written even more books on the presidency. He wrote Indomitable Courage about Lyndon Johnson, which is widely regarded as a good insight on President Johnson because it was taken from interviews and other discussions of people that knew President Johnson. And then he wrote the book about the Civil Rights Summit, Destiny of Democracy. Well, he's gone on to write about two other presidents, the two Bushes, the last Republicans. It's wonderful to have him back. We miss him. And I just ask you to welcome to this stage John Avalon and Mark Updegrove. How are y'all doing? So we got a little role reversal going on because Mark's usually the one sitting in this chair. But it is a total honor and delight to be here tonight for my friend Mark's unbelievable new book just out this week. It is a wonderful portrait of American politics and power, but also the personal bonds of two extraordinary Americans, two presidents, which you frame as a love story. And it is. It's really profound. And I got to say it's a not so subtle contrast to some of the things going on in our country right now. But we'll get to that. How did the idea come to you to write this book and how did you land it? Because that's a difficult negotiation, I imagine. Well, I'll answer your question, John, it's a very good one. I just want to, first of all, I want to thank you all for being here. It's so great to be home. I want my chair back, but it's so good to see so many old friends. And the days I spent at this library are really the best of my career. And it's just wonderful to be back home in many respects. Thank you to my dear friend Larry Temple for that gracious introduction. It can only go downhill from here, Larry. And thank you to my dear friend, John Avalon, for coming in from New York City to do this interview. Larry mentioned that John was on the Stephen Colbert show earlier this week, which he was. There was a bit that John Colbert did about my book last Monday night, a week ago from Monday, in which he took the cover of that book and said, this is the Bush's looking lovingly at Donald Trump's poll numbers. Among other things. And it was this great little bit that he did. It was wonderful for a couple of minutes. And then I thought I was on the top of the world. And then John is a guest on Colbert. I said, that son of a gun went up to me. He was just wonderful. So if you get a chance to Google John Avalon and Stephen Colbert, you'll see his just wonderful hit on the Stephen Colbert show. And you get a great sense of what a great mind we have in John Avalon. To answer your good question, John, this was a story that needed to be written. This is the, you know, we've only had one other father, son president in the history of the United States, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. And there was 24 years, nearly a quarter of a century between the presidencies of those two men. John Adams was in his last 16 months of life when John Quincy Adams was in office. He was in Quincy, Massachusetts, a three day stage coach ride, maybe a six day stage coach ride away from Washington. So he really wasn't able to be in Washington to be any kind of influence on his son's presidency. But George H.W. Bush was a spry, 76 years old when his son took the office. Again, he had just been there eight years before and he was a position to be a real influence on his son's life. So this is a story that needed to be told. And 41 agreed to do it. And if 43 was George W. Bush agreed to do the book and I wasn't sure whether he would say yes or no. I went up to Dallas, I knew George W. Bush a little bit. He took the meeting and I was shocked that in the beginning of the meeting he said, I've decided this story needs to be told and you're the guy to do it. I was so unprepared, I didn't have a tape recording device and he sat there and he put his feet up on the desk and he fingered an unlit cigar and he started talking about his dad. And I realized there was so much to him that was a mystery about his father, particularly his father's storied early years when he went to war as an 18 year old, signed up for the Navy to get in World War II at 18, was in the Pacific Theater and shot down when he was 19 and his life was spared but the lives of his crewmates were not. And he realized that there was some purpose that he had on earth, that he was spared and his friends were not. He went, decided to forego a family pass to the riches of Wall Street and go to the oil fields of Odessa to make his way in the oil business. Became a husband at 21, became a father soon thereafter, lost his daughter, his second child before he was 30 years old. So these are amazing years that ushered him early into manhood and George W. Bush really hadn't talked to him a lot about it. So it was a wonderful privilege to get this story out of both of them in the intimate way that they were willing to tell it. And just the process of getting people to unpack because these are, for two figures who have this historic throwaway, they are not particularly given to reflection or psychological rumination. They really reject it. They seem to vary in the moment. It's not particularly planned out. They've always rejected the idea of a dynasty. How did you get them? And what are your favorite stories about getting the interviews that you did to get them to reveal because they are remarkably candid unfiltered comments. I mean, some language we can't use in front of a family crowd. You know, but you got them to really be reflective and candid and what are some of your favorite interviewing stories about this? You know, it was, what I liked was the, again, the intimacy. I think they realized the story needed to be told. In some ways, they were revealing things about each other that the others didn't know. And that was the amazing thing. I would tell sometimes 43 something that his dad said, oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. There, as you said, John, they're famously circumspect George W. Bush. Sometimes when he was getting introspective would say, well, this is sort of psycho babble, but, and then he would tell me something that was particularly revealing. I remember one conversation with George H. W. Bush in his very small office at County Bunkport. And he was sort of getting hard of hearing. It was just the two of us in the office. He was in his wheelchair and our legs were touching behind the desk in his office. And he was talking about what he would have done with Iraq if he were president when his son was president. And that's, this is pretty heavy stuff for a historian. Of course, that's the subject that we all speculate about. Would 41 have done what 43 would have done. And he said, well, in the final analysis, yeah, I think I probably would have done that. It's hard to tell, but I think so. He's sort of iconic at this stage in his life. But I wondered, is that the answer from a former commander in chief, or the answer of a father who wants to protect his son? I'm not sure he really would have done what his son did. But I think he was being protective at that moment when he was thinking about his son's actions with the war in Iraq. I think he was being protective. The extraordinary loyalty. And this isn't kind of a family contrivance, right? This isn't, you know, Kennedy's don't cry. This is, there is a love really is a word they use a lot and loyalty and the family values not in the political expedient way of deploying that term, but the real family values they embody. W talking about unconditional love from his father that character and service and humility really matter. Civility matters. The idea of responsibility that comes with power. All that flows from the father, Prescott Bush. How do you codify that tradition in the family and then contrast it with some of the values we see in our politics today? Because to me it is stark. Yeah, it's dramatically different. The Bush's, there is a family ethos and it's palpable when you're around the Bush's. I think Prescott Bush, as you mentioned, John, he stands for civility and decency and putting service above self. And that was something that was passed through the Bush family. George H.W. Bush talks often about the lessons that he learned though at his mother's knee. His father was a great influence in his life and I'm not sure he ever felt like he measured up to his dad in many ways, which is remarkable for the 41st President of the United States to say. But he talks frequently about his mother and she would often say, George, don't be a braggadocio. Talk about the team, George. Now I don't care how many home runs you hit, George. How did the team do? Did you win? Because if you didn't win, it's a moot point. And so that humility that is really the hallmark of the Bush's in so many respects is clearly lacking in today and not just from our Commander-in-Chief. It's lacking in our public discourse to a large extent. This is in the age of social media, it's inherently self-aggrandizing. But we'll talk about the father, son, if I could just talk about that relationship for one sec. There's this great story that the elder Bush told me about being with his son in Midland when his son was about three years old, when George W. was three years old. And apparently he erupted in a fit of temper about something. And as they're walking along the streets of George H.W. and Barbara Bush. And George W. starts flailing away, almost cartoon style, like a windmill. His arms are just going at 360 degrees. And he's trying to hit his dad. And his dad is keeping him at bay by just putting his palm on his flushed forehead until he tuckers himself out. And then he just stopped and they walked along again. And in a way it's a metaphor of the reckless, you know, the young and reckless days of George W. Bush. Because in some ways he tried to land a blow with his dad and never did. And ultimately they just sort of walked on. His father always had faith that he would do the right thing ultimately and wouldn't bring up that ill-tempered moment. But there's also, you know, press on the fathering and the parenting because there's some wonderful details in the book. Moments where you can see H.W. leading by example. One example is W walked off a summer job a couple days early. And you tell the story because it apparently made a big impression on W in terms of a parenting style. And again, it's a president, future president, parenting another future president. It's both relatable and inherently historic. Yeah, and it goes back to the sort of the story that I just mentioned as a metaphor. George W. Bush worked as a rough-necker in West Texas and he made a considerable amount of money. He had agreed to work for say eight weeks, walked off the job in his seventh week because he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend and he goes to see his dad. And his dad said, you didn't honor the commitment that you made. I'm ashamed of you, I'm disappointed. And George W. Bush walks out of his dad's office disconsolate. He's disappointed his father. That was his father's greatest weapon to talk about how disappointed he was at any given point. He wasn't particularly emotional at any point. He never yelled at his kids, he never hit his kids. There was no corporate punishment in the Bush home but that expression of disappointment was the best thing that he could do to sound a message that said straighten up and fly right. So that happens, he leaves his father's office and then he gets a call from his dad later on that afternoon and he said, can you and Kathy, his girlfriend, come to the Astros game tonight? I have a couple of tickets. So he expressed his disappointment but he also welcomed him right back into the fold and that faith that he had in his son to ultimately do the right thing never waned. Yeah, I love that that is the story that he carries with him. There's another fascinating one too where his mother, Barbara, they have a family intervention because he busts him for smoking at 17. And H.W. Ways in. H.W. Ways in, it's Barbara Bush, they take him out to dinner. He's at that point 16 years old. And it's up in Kenny Bunkport and George W. Bush thinks, well this is a big deal, this never happens. The parents never take me to dinner. And as John said, it was an intervention. Barbara Bush said, you smoke. You smoke. What are you doing smoking? And George H.W. says, well, Bart, you smoke too. And then the subject just kind of died. But what I love is that sort of, you can't lecture someone for doing something you do yourself. There's just a bit of Yankee, you know, common sense, which is lovely. There's an amazing interview you did with, I mean, the interviews really are extraordinary in the book, but where W. really rejects in pretty pointed language the idea that he was ever a prodigal son. You know, and that was interesting. There are a lot of misconceptions about George W. Bush and about the relationship that he has with his father. But one is this expedient narrative that he was the prodigal son, the ne'er-do-well, the one who was never expected to amount to anything and certainly wouldn't be the political heir apparent. That is just dead wrong in many ways. There are aspects of it that are true. But actually, he was quite auspicious in many respects, but one of the things he said to me was, and I got to clean up the language a little bit, he said, I chased a lot of tail and I drank a lot of whiskey, but I was never the prodigal because I never left my family. And he never did, he always embraced his family. And so, and talked about that, that the fact that he made it on his own, one of the things you're almost expected to do as a Bush is make it on your own. To achieve some success on your own, but to leave the nest, often strike out in a different place as George H.W. and Barbara Bush did to make your own mark, and then once you can provide for your family to go into public life and to put something above yourself. And ultimately George W. Bush does that, but his family never leaves him. He always loves and respects and admires them. And I don't think he was as rebellious as some people think he was. Yeah, I mean, there's some great anecdotes and one of the great disses he has of the Kennedy family comparison is we're not like them, the Kennedys never had to work. And I love that there was this sense of the Bush's that that order existed. You had to strike out on your own, broaden your horizons, make money to take care of your family, and then it was public service. And there's a practicality and a humility to that that I think keeps them grounded and relatable in a pretty extraordinary way. So let's talk about the politics of the family too, because it's called the last Republicans for a reason. And there is this throwback quality to them, but there's a flow through too. You look at Prescott Bush, who's the grandfather, who's the senator from Connecticut. He took on Joe McCarthy in the Senate. I hadn't fully appreciated that when H.W. was beginning his career, he took on the Birchers in Houston. And there's this pattern of trying to isolate extremist elements, but unite the party as much as possible. Talk about that tradition within the family. And it's funny, because it's relevant too, because you can see a battle now for the soul of the Republican Party. There's nothing less than that. And you can see these extremists going up against the establishment. But that's been true in the Republican Party throughout its history. You have these radical elements that battle more moderate, a more moderate faction. And as you mentioned, Prescott Bush went up against Joe McCarthy. It was one of those who censured Joe McCarthy. Dwight Eisenhower had great faith in Prescott Bush. In fact, put him on a short list of vice presidential candidates that he was considering and thought that he should be president himself. He expressed that aspiration for Prescott Bush. No Nixon, people, no Nixon. But he was extraordinarily moderate by today's Republican standards. In fact, as you pointed out to me at lunch, he was the president of the Planned Parenthood chapter in his hometown in Connecticut. So a very moderate force. When George H.W. Bush throws his hat in the ring, it's as county commissioner for the Republican Party in Harris County, Texas. And he's battling John Birchers, as you say, who are extraordinarily radical and virulent in their thinking. And they don't want an establishment Republican, particularly from the Northeast, to tell them how to run things. George H.W. Bush achieves the office and he invites them in. He has the spirit of inclusion where he brings them into the party operation. He unites them by including them. It's a remarkable gesture and very emblematic of who George H.W. Bush is. There's another extraordinary gesture in the moment and it's such a contrast to the way people pursue congressional office today. There's the Fair Housing Act. And the letters from George H.W. Bush's district are like 502. They don't want him to support the Fair Housing Act. And he writes in his, as you say, this is a character testing moment. And he does what he thinks is right at great political risk. Flush that out a bit more, because that's a key moment and it's also the kind of character you don't see from congressman today. There's an allergy to doing what they believe is the right thing if they feel they're gonna get politically hit from it. You know, it's an amazing moment. John was here, he moderated a panel for our civil rights summit a few years ago, which Larry just mentioned. When George W. Bush was here, I mentioned this in the introduction. He asked me not to introduce him, this typical Bush style, asked me not to do an introduction to him, but to talk a little bit about his father. Again, there's the Bush humility coming out. George H.W. Bush campaigned for the Senate in 1964 unsuccessfully against Ralph Scarborough. He was defeated, but one of the things he did was campaign against the 64 Civil Rights Act, which of course, LBJ signed into law, and demonized his opponent for having supported the Civil Rights Act. Flash forward four years later, George H.W. Bush is a congressman from Texas. He didn't get elected to the Senate, but he became a congressman in 66 and was reelected in 68. Martin Luther King is assassinated, and the 36th president, Lyndon Johnson, wants to sign the Fair Housing Act into law, the third in his trio of civil rights laws, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. George H.W. Bush is under thunderous pressure to oppose the Fair Housing Act, but he's just been to Vietnam and he sees African-American soldiers fighting aside white and Hispanic soldiers, and it makes a deep impression on them. If these men can go overseas to represent their country and put their lives on the line, surely they should be able to come back home, stateside, and live where they want. And so he supports it, he votes for it. As you said, John, the letters opposed to it were 500 to two people opposing George H.W. Bush's George H.W. Bush's stance on the Fair Housing Act. And he goes back to his district and he talks to a very angry group of constituents. And he talks about this crisis of conscience that he experienced and why he ultimately had to do it, including that experience that he had in Vietnam. And he gets a standing ovation. It's an amazing moment. And it's a moment that I would like to think that we can have in today's America. Yeah, it's a beautiful and powerful moment and we don't see it enough. Yeah. When George H.W. decides to run for president, he, his speech announcing, I believe the National Press Club in Washington, talks about the Republican tradition of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. This is a distinct last Republican vision, right? This is the old sort of progressive pro-business Republican Party. And that tension with Reagan, Reagan to his credit, reaches out to try to unite the party ultimately by tapping him president after a pretty bitter primary. But talk about that tradition that H.W. was representing and the tension with the rising conservative movement, even within the Reagan administration. You know, that reference to Eisenhower, very, very pointed. Eisenhower actually battled conservative forces as well. Robert Taft was competing with Eisenhower for the Republican nomination in 1952. And it was, there were very radical elements on that side too. But Ike's just sheer likeability was enough of a force to carry him over the top, his sheer popularity and prestige as a general who would let us help to lead us through World War II. So he gets the nomination. But that reference to Eisenhower as a moderate is very pointed. You can see through the Bush family the progression in Republican politics. And Prescott Bush, you have this northeastern, moderate pro-business Republican, very moderate on social issues, particularly compared today. He would be almost a liberal compared to most voters today. And he's sort of becoming an anachronism by the time he leaves the Senate in 1962. George H.W. Bush is a hybrid of sorts. He's part northeastern Republican like his father. And he's part of a Westerner who has slightly more conservative beliefs. But the conservative wing of the party never quite trusts George Herbert Walker Bush like they do Reagan. It proves to be his undoing in 1992 when he violates his no-new tax pledge. And the radical right of the Republicans is in sheer rebellion. So that proves to be his downfall. George W. Bush is more a product of Texas. And that conservatism comes far more naturally to him than it certainly did his father or would have his grandfather. And you can see that that relatively conservative politics by 2000 standards is now relatively moderate by the standards of 2017. Oh yeah. I mean it's a compassionate conservative is like code word for hippie in the current. I will say let's talk. We were talking earlier about W style too. Cause there's a particular kind of rebelliousness about W that a swagger that he's got. It's part Texas. It's leavened a bit by his genuine evangelical faith. It's I think oversimplified by many but that helps his connection to conservatives. But there's a lot of that cool hand Luke swagger and which was apparently his, I learned from the book was his favorite film at the time. You know, how do you incorporate that sort of, he's the counter counter culture cowboy, you know? He sort of is. He goes to, he goes back East and really follows his father's path to and over rather Phillips and over where his father and grandfather had gone where his brother Jeb would also go. And then he goes to Yale and on to Harvard Business School. But when he goes to Yale and Harvard, he's very much a Texan. This is a guy who's wearing beat up Levi's, is chewing tobacco and carrying a spit cup in his hand. You know, walking around his cup. And when he goes to Harvard he's wearing his national guard jacket very, very pointedly to make a statement to the counter culture that dominates Boston, Massachusetts at that time and certainly overrepresented on the Harvard campus. So he is the anti anti hero in many respects. So his father runs for president and he quits drinking around 86. And one of the things is, is it possibly cause he didn't want to embarrass his father. He takes that love and loyalty really seriously. It makes a significant life change that probably changes the trajectory of his own possibility. Gets very involved in the campaign, plays kind of the enforcer with access, learns about politics, but there's an extraordinary moment which you flush out in greater detail than I've ever read before where after his father wins, he asks a staffer named I believe David Wade to write up a fairly lengthy report about presidential children. Presidential sons in particular. And it's kind of a despairing document. It basically says, shut up and keep your head down. Mediocrity is the, like you can't succeed or fail without reflecting badly. The press and the public will punish you. Mediocrity is really a win in this one. And he clearly reads it and internalizes it and says, turns the card table over and says, I'm not gonna follow that script. But it's amazing insight into him that he asked for it and then discards it entirely. Yeah, it's an amazing moment. Again, the aim for mediocrity approach that was advocated by looking at the lives of presidential offspring was not a path he wanted to follow. He had real aspirations and ambitious. And I do think, as he said to me, again, the Bushes are not particularly introspective people, but he said to me, there was a certain sort of expectation. And what he meant by that is that it was tacit in some ways, it was never overt. George H.W. Bush never said, hey, Junior, you're gonna do this or you're gonna do that. It just didn't happen that way in the Bush family. But it was, there was a certain sort of expectation to borrow George W's words that you would make something of yourself. And I think that there were some of that that was tacit and there were some of that that was self-imposed. He was ambitious. It took him a long time to find his way. In a way, it's interesting, both he and his father are products of their generation. That explains some of the differences between them. George H.W. Bush was a member of the greatest generation. So on his 18th birthday, as I mentioned earlier, he signs up to go into the Navy. Much to his father's chagrin, his father wants him to go on to college and become an officer and then go into the service. He decides he wants to get in right then when his country needs him in the fight. Comes back, doesn't talk about it, doesn't rebel. I mean, he's very much in keeping with his generation. George W. Bush, on the other hand, while he wasn't the hippie that you saw on the campus of Harvard University, typically in the late 60s, early 70s, did give him a space to kind of find himself after college. He didn't impose great ambitions on himself. He kind of wandered around and he talked to me about, he said, I didn't have many possessions. I didn't want any possessions. I didn't want to be involved with anyone or tied down. And I think he really just gave himself time to find himself. And it's a remarkable, they're remarkable character studies even outside the remarkable parental relationship. So 41's presidency ends in a loss and it's painful and that's painful for the family and that healing seems instructive. And then W gets into the game after serving as governor of Texas. And this is what's interesting. So you've got W as governor running for president and Jeb is now governor too. And the father writes him a note saying, there's gonna be a time where you need to be your own man and you may be called on to criticize me and it's okay. I know you love me no matter what. It's a document unlike anything I've ever read in terms of the real generosity of spirit and awareness of the hardball nature of politics. You're so right. And it's, so as John mentioned, George H.W. Bush as you know gets defeated in 1992 by Bill Clinton leaves office in 1993 after one term in office, he's incredibly dejected, really doesn't know what he's going to do next. And George W. said, he said it wasn't exactly depression but it was deflation. His father hadn't finished the race that he was running. And he kind of has to find himself again. But one of the ways he does that, one of the things that really galvanizes him is that his sons get into politics, both run for the governorships of their state in 1994. It's expected that Jeb will win the governorship in Florida and it's sort of expected that George W. will lose against the very popular and Richards here in this state. And of course the opposite happens. That's the surprise in the family. It's not that people expect that Jeb will win because he's the political heir apparent, because he has greater political skills, because he's smarter, it's not that at all. It's that they look at the races and they handicap them and think, you know what, Anne Richards is a formidable candidate. Barbara actually says, you're gonna lose. She says, you're gonna lose. She says, Anne Richards, you're gonna lose. And it didn't matter to George W. Bush. It didn't matter and that's the other thing that his father teaches him. That failure is not failure because you can learn from it. And that's exactly what had happened to him. You know, I'll go back just for a second. This is a guy who throws his hat in the ring for the presidency in 1980. He has very little name recognition and he gets defeated by Ronald Reagan ultimately. They both emerge as the front runners after some tough primary campaigns and Reagan outmaneuvers him, which is almost literally what happens in New Hampshire. And he goes to the convention wanting to support Ronald Reagan, like his mother would want, you extend a hand whether you're defeated or lost to the person who you either vanquished or were defeated by. And he thinks that's the end of his life in public service and he gets a call from Ronald Reagan against all odds asking him to be his running mate. So defeat wasn't defeat. It led to something else. So George W. Bush throws caution to the wind and he knows he's gonna win. I asked Laura Bush about this. I said, did you think he was gonna win? And she goes, yeah, I never had any doubt. And I don't think it was just hyperbole. I really do believe that she felt her husband had that will to win. So the public lives of Jeb Bush ultimately, Jeb Bush loses the race for the Florida governorship in 1994 and goes back to win in 1998. So his getting into politics and George W's getting into politics gives George H.W. Bush renewed life. Total renewed life. And then of course the sublime triumph when the son is elected president after that interminable Florida recount. And he handles it in a really interesting compartmentalized way. He basically, W basically delegates it to Jim Baker and like just kind of checks out sort of fatalistically. But the great pride the father feels after the first inauguration. And I was struck by the, W uses the phrase civility six times in his inaugural. Which again is not a term we're hearing very often in our politics today. And they're very, very tight, especially with the president Bush 41's reputation as being the great statesman, the foreign policy leader. No one expects W to be that. He campaigns as a domestic policy president. Then 9-11 happens, then Iraq happens. And then what's really fascinating to me and you detail is the apparent split, not public, but private between 41 and 43 played out through proxies. And the two big things are when Brent Scrocoff Bush's 41's national security advisor writes a memo, writes an op-ed in the journal that's interpreted as being tacitly 41's criticism of the president and Jim Baker's. And then there are utterly different interpretations about the relative power of Dick Cheney. That fault line itself is so personal, as well as philosophical, with massive implications for our country and the world. Digging a little bit on those fault lines. You know, this is what, as an historian, this is what you wanna know. What transpired between these two men, particularly as it relates to policy in Iraq? And it's not the story that we thought it was. John is referencing an op-ed written by Brent Scrocoff on the eve of our going to war in Iraq. And it appeared in The Wall Street Journal in August of 2003. And the headline is, don't attack Saddam. I believe that's the headline. And the, is it, did I get the date? It was 02. It was 02, I'm sorry. Thank you, thanks so much. It was 2002. Don't attack Saddam. And there's great speculation that the old man has talked to his pal, Brent Scrocoff, his national security advisor while he was president, asking him to come forward with this op-ed to reflect his own views and to tell his son how he feels. That's not exactly true. That's too much of a Shakespearean imagination to be actually true. What happened was Scrocoff called the elder Bush and told him that he was thinking of writing the op-ed. It speaks volumes about George H.W. Bush that he doesn't stand in his way. He feels that Brent Scrocoff as a loyal public servant and a great great American has earned the right to express his opinion even though it might oppose the current policy stance of his son. And Scrocoff sends a copy to George H.W. Bush afterwards as a courtesy. Now, George W. Bush is hopping mad about this and he calls his dad and he says, essentially, what the hell? What happened here? And his father says, Bret's a friend. And George W. says, some friend. But again, it says something about his dad that he wasn't willing to stand in Brent's Scrocoff's way but he's hurting in some ways because he knows it hurts his son. He's trying to do the right thing on all sides. I'm abundantly confident that George H.W. Bush did not see that op-ed before it was written. And then what about the retrospective fight over Cheney because this gets really personal too. Obviously, he's 41's defense secretary. But Barbara comes out and says, I believe in one of your interviews, just criticizes Cheney in very personal terms about the power. And then W. comes back and says, that guy didn't make one effing decision. It's really fascinating to see the split in the family over whether Cheney grabbed too much power. Yeah. Yeah, I think that George W. Bush goes to the White House, as you said, with a clear understanding of domestic policy and he wants to be the education president. Well, that all changes on September 11th, 2001. He knows he's gonna be a war president. He knows that's what is going to define his administration. He doesn't know a great deal about foreign policy, but he feels he has good people around him. And I think he's enticed by the notion that Dick Cheney articulates that you can democratize or you take out Saddam Hussein who's been enthroned on the side of the United States, including his father, George H.W. Bush, and democratize Iraq and have this transformational effects on the Middle East. In some ways, George W. Bush emulates not his father as president, but Ronald Reagan. He admires the grand vision that Reagan had to defeat very unambiguously Soviet tyranny. I think he's intoxicated by that notion. Now, as we know now, it was a botched experiment and it becomes American adventurism, but Cheney has this, I think, great influence in the administration. What Barbara Bush told me is that George had great faith in Dick Cheney and in George W. to make the right decisions given the intelligence that he was getting. And George H.W. did not intervene in his son's presidency in any direct way. But one of the reasons that he doesn't intervene, that he doesn't say, Junior, you're doing it all wrong, is because he understands the office of the presidency. Well, it's important because of his inherent humility, but he also understands that he doesn't want to be another burden to his son. There are so many burdens inherent in that office. He's not gonna contribute to an additional burden for his son. But I do think he has hesitations about the direction that Dick Cheney is taking his son in. And that he'd move really far right and then W. really bristles at the narrative that even is shared by his family that Cheney was too powerful. Well, but it's true, John. If you look at George W. Bush is the self-proclaimed decider. But those who know George W. Bush knows, know rather that he has this almost preternatural confidence in his ability to make decisions. And he can hear, he's a very quick study, and he can hear things and coalesce them in his mind and spit out a decision. And he's usually a pretty informed one. So this very notion that his mother believes that he's not making his own decisions, that Dick Cheney is this kind of Machiavellian, puppet master, pulling the strings of his presidency, he finds that utterly preposterous. And he says, he said to me, to borrow the phrase that John just used, Cheney and Rumsfeld never made one effing decision. One of my friends in the audience said, I love the fact that you got to say the F word on CNN. But that shows how stridently a George W. A George W. felt about that misconception that we had, that somebody else was making the decisions of his presidency. Yeah, and that it runs through the family, that fighting that narrative even in his family. So fast forward, it's 2016, George W. Bush is the world's least likely folk painter. Donald Trump is running for president against Jeb. And around the time it looks like he's gonna secure the nomination, W. Musa's, one of them to be the last Republican president. Was that the inspiration for the title? And your interviews with both 41 and 43 about Trump are withering. I believe you broke the news in the book that 41 confirmed that he voted for Hillary Clinton, which is like anathema to Bush family values before 2016. So talk about their comments to you about the rise of Trump, the disparagement of their brother, Jeb, and then what that means for their Republican party. What was their Republican party? You know, the title came in the spring of 2016 before George W. Bush had purportedly said to AIDS off the record, I may be the last Republican president. It was very clear to me that regardless of who won the presidency in 2016, there was a kind of Republicanism that was dead. And when he said that, I remember I talked to my wife, I sort of hit my head, well, it's gone, now I can't call it that. And I realized, wait a minute, all the more reason to call it that. And he had said the same thing to me when I met with him, I may well be the last Republican president. If you think about Donald Trump, he is absolutely anathema to the Bushes. George H.W. Bush campaigned under a platform of trying to create a kinder, gentler nation. George W. Bush campaigned under a platform of compassionate conservatism. When we were attacked even after 9-11, George W. Bush resists taking the past of least resistance and sounding this message of xenophobia and nativism and instead visits a mosque to emerge and say that Islam is peace. It's quite remarkable by today's standards. To take this further, if I may, just, you look at Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan is the Republican icon. He's the emblem of Republicanism. And he's called, of course, the great communicator. What is his most famous rhetoric? It's standing at the Brandenburg Gate and saying to his Soviet counterpart, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. America, at its best, stands for, both literally and figuratively, tearing walls down, not building them. And then you have Donald Trump. If I could take it just a little further, you just look at Ronald Reagan's policy toward the Soviet Union, which was trust but verify. When he was talking to Gorbachev during those famous summits during the course of Reagan's administration, he would say repeatedly to Mikhail Gorbachev, trust but verify. It's so much that Gorbachev got sick of it. In fact, Gorbachev stood on this stage and talked about how sick he was of Ronald Reagan saying trust but verify. With Donald Trump, his policy toward Russia is trust. Trust Vladimir Putin. Not trust his own intelligence apparatus. That is remarkable. That is absolutely astounding that a Republican would say, oh, this whole business about Russians meddling with our election is over because, you know, my counterpart denied it. Yeah, think about how, so that sound you hear is Ronald Reagan rolling in his grave in Simi Valley, California. But actually, I want to, John, I want you to... Sure. John was just on Stephen Colbert, as I mentioned, and you articulated this so well. Talk a little bit about your views. Actually, we might have to switch chairs. And then I'll be totally comfortable again. This is very dyslexic for me, folks. But honestly, you spoke very eloquently about your views on the Republican Party. I'd love you to share that with the audience, if you would. Well, sure. I mean, look, if you look at the party of Lincoln, that is a nice notion, right? I mean, the party that George H. W. Bush announced that he would be the inheritor of and trying to lead in 1980. Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. That party does not exist. If you're a member of it, you're functionally politically homeless at best. And of course, the ultimate historic irony is that the base of the titular party of Lincoln is in the states of the Confederacy. But it's more than that. Because it's about conservative populism as a constant force throughout American history that the Republican tradition, I think the Bushes represent, were a check-on. Yeah. Right? It's about civility as a virtue. It's about service. It's about humility. It's about being part of something larger than yourself. It's about appealing to the better angels, not our worst instincts. And the politics we've seen from Donald Trump are the opposite of that tradition of the Lincoln's, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Bushes. It is all about me, not about we. It is about attacking the people you disagree with, not trying to unite the nation. Civility and freedom are literally words you rarely, if ever, hear from this president, let alone embody. And the freedom part in particular, people kind of missed this. This is not a freedom administration. This is not a virtue. I mean, for W, who so consciously tries to make that word the cornerstone of his second inaugural and his foreign policy, the word freedom is absent from the rhetoric of this administration as a virtue and a value. As are human rights, by the way. Oh. Yes, of course. But I didn't want to get to Jimmy Carter about that. So what we're watching is a major role reversal that has left a great American tradition and the people who follow it fundamentally politically homeless, including the two presidents who led this party within living memory. And I think the question becomes, is it a wig-style moment where a party sells out its principles to achieve power and ultimately receives neither? Is there a broader realignment that's going to occur? Are we really a three-party system in our heart, radicals, reactionaries, and reformers? Not simply liberals and conservatives. But the animal spirits are out. And I think the virtues, and I mean that word both personally and politically, that the Bushes exemplify at their best. And you could criticize them on policy. And we're all imperfect human beings as they would probably admit. Those virtues seem to have been lost for the moment in our discourse to our, I think, our great detriment as a country, as a republic as well as the Republican Party. Yeah, it's interesting, when I talk to the Bushes about this, you mentioned one of what made headlines a couple of weeks ago was the Bushes coming out for the first time publicly about their views on Bush. I got those interviews both before Donald Trump became president. And I think that's important to mention because the Bushes would never talk about any president, Republican or Democrat, and disparage them while they were in office. They have too much respect for the office of the presidency. And again, they both know the burden that that office covered. All the more extraordinary that W came out and gave a speech around two, three months ago. Without naming Trump. Yes, true. But he did talk about Trumpism, the Trump era more or less. And the things that we're seeing around the country which he finds deeply disturbing, protectionism, nativism, some of the things that you and I have talked about. He calls out the 1924 Immigration Act in one of your interviews, which I was stunned to see him drop that because that was unexpected, just, you know. The America First. America First, I kind of expected, the 1924 Immigration Act, which restricted non-Western European immigration. That was kind of a deep cut for W. I was impressed. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as I mentioned, George W. Bush is far more, I think he's far more intellectual than people give him credit for. One of the things that he does very successfully throughout the course of his public career is he keeps expectations low. No, I'm serious, strategically, yeah. Right. And in fact, when he's flying to Iowa to announce his candidacy for the presidency in 2000, he says, welcome to low expectations, airline, please keep your expectations stowed. It's just a wonderful thing that he says. But to go back to the Bushes and their feelings about Trump, George W., one of the things he said was that when he's asked about what makes a great leader, he says, not surprisingly, humility. Humility is a hallmark of great leadership. And so when Donald Trump said, I am my own advisor, he thought, wow, this guy doesn't know what it means to be president. George H.W. Bush was a little bit more blunt. Yeah. I saw him in May of 2016 on the day that John Kasich pulled out of the race. So we just had Donald Trump, who was pretty clearly gonna win the nomination, battling against Ted Cruz, anti-moderates, to say the very least, anti-establishment publication of politicians. And he was surprised, actually, I was the one who told him the Kasich had just dropped out. And I asked him about Trump, and he said, you know, I don't know him, but I don't like him. And I'm not excited about him being a leader. And then he said, he's a blowhard. And, but the most resounding statement both of those men made was not a statement at all. Well, it was a statement, but it wasn't verbal. It was by casting their first ballot, well, in George H.W.'s case, casting his first ballot for a Democratic candidate. He had never registered a vote for a Democrat in his life. George W. Bush voted Republican down ballot, but did abstain from voting for president. Which is remarkable, and especially while, I think, they've all kind of adopted Bill Clinton. No, they call him a brother from another mother, right? A brother from another mother. And I think 41 almost feels like he's become a father figure to Bill Clinton in a funny way, but those feelings hadn't necessarily translated to Hillary, but still, she got 41's vote. And he actually thought she did a good job as secretary of state. It's interesting that relationship between Bill Clinton and the Clintons. As John said, he went up to Kenny Bunkport and Marvin Bush, who is the least known of the Bush offspring, but probably the funniest, said, hey, my brother from another mother. That's what he called it. And so that became the nickname for him. But it's interesting because Bill Clinton has had a lot of sponsors in his life, a lot of mentors, but there really hasn't been a father figure. So it's touching in a way that the man he defeated for president would become almost a paternal figure in his life. I don't wanna end on this, but I feel like I gotta ask it. Because 41 is such a father figure to so many, and he is so revered and so respected, some of the allegations coming out now about inappropriate grabbing, and this is, I think people, we do ourselves a disservice when we conflate it with some of the other scammers we're seeing in our society. But it's so counter to the impression we have of him as a person, let alone a president. How do you reconcile those things? How do you understand them? Simply a man of a different era in time? You know, I don't, if you look at the character of George Herbert Walker Bush, this doesn't square at all. I mean, he's an older man. We had heard that he did things like that. Frankly, it was just, it was a bad joke. I think if he believed that he was really offending somebody, he probably wouldn't have done it. But I don't, there might be other revelations that come out, what the man we know now is not the man of yesteryear. And he sits in a wheelchair. He poses for a lot of pictures. These are all people who have posed with him in quick meet and greets, grip and grins. And he sits here, and often it's kind of awkward where his hands are. So I think we probably have to give him the benefit of the doubt. There's now a revelation that came out in The Daily Beast today, I think, about George H.W. Bush doing something in 1992. I don't know whether there's any... There's a CNN. Was a CNN? But again, it's so out of character for George Herbert Walker Bush. It's, yeah. And I think that word character is the key word. As we sum up, I mean, one of the lines that keeps resonating to me in our particular political era is from a movie called Pulp Fiction, which is just because you are a character doesn't mean you have character. Yeah. But I think, you know, in the case of W, he had both. Yeah. And I think it is about character and values and a love story, unlike any other in American political history. Do you despair of it being a museum piece or do you see a possible resurgence of this great American political tradition? You know, I hope that the tradition of civility and humility and decency and putting something above yourself thrives in America. Frankly, we don't see much of it in Washington today, but we shouldn't despair completely. We're seeing so much of that throughout the rest of America. There are plenty of examples of that. I hope it is restored with alacrity to the Oval Office. This is an office that I revere. I was the steward of, I had the great honor of being the steward of this institution for eight years. And LBJ, I say this respectfully with my dear friend Lucy Johnson in the front row, LBJ is a flawed character. But as president, he subordinated his own concerns for those of the nation. And he did so admirably. He promulgated a great society, which I think is the foundation for modern America. That kind of service above self, that kind of thinking about the greater good, that sort of ethos is what makes America exceptional. I don't think we've lost that, but I'd like to see it return to the highest office in our land. Yeah, Mark. Thank you for telling me so much. Thank you so much for being a great book. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark.