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to washington anytime anywhere. ♪ >> a good evening ladies and n gentlemen. welcome to the richard nixon library and musician museum. [applause] i am christopher nixon cox a board member at the nixon foundation in my middle name implies the grandson of a president richard nixon. i want to say the proud grandson of richard nixon. [applause] thank you so much for being here tonight, for what i know it looks like a fascinating discussion. we are delighted to have you all here again in person, not in front of a zoom camera or

computer. [applause] over the years we have had the honor to host many distinguished guests. we have never however had the opportunity to welcome someonete who has served as attorney general of the united states not once, but twice. not in one presidential administration but into presidential administrations separated by 25 years. that is pretty neat. that is a unique distinction in american history and it says a great deal about william barr's patriotism and his commitment to public service. and perhaps his two tours of duty as attorney general under two very different presidents were the inspiration of his book one damn thing after another. our guest of honor tonight is been a very distinguished career of both the public and private sectors. he began government service of

that member of the white house domestic policy staff from 1982 -- 1983. after several years in private practice he returned to government and president george h.w. bush's administration serving as assistant attorneyy general the office of legal counsel bright next deputy attorney general and then as the 77th attorney general of the united states from 1991 -- 1993. he returned to the private sector where from 1994 -- 2017 he enjoyed great success and earned enormous respect is over the nations preeminent legal minds and i am sure he did not have to deal with as many damn things as the private sector. in an 2018 when they undoubtedly join the fruits of a long and successful career he answered our country's call again when

president trump nominated him and the senate confirmed him as the 85th attorney general of the united states. hisft book one damn thing after another debuted last month at number one and to date has remained on the list for the last five weeks. i know tonight will keep on list verse six the week not only will you all buy a book for yourself this is going to make great summer reading sop get a book fr all of your friends here tonight for going to keep it on the list one more week for sure. and, if you need any more reasoo to go out and get this book one reviewer wrote of the book this is an incredible story of the life of a great public servants. so many lessons about how government works and how public service operates at its finest. this is a courageous book to write and i could not put it down. i think that as each of you reads this book you will come to the exact same conclusion.

we are also very fortunate tonight to have joining us professor matt the executive vice president, chief advancement officer, and parker s kennedy professor of law at chapman university. yes a round of applause for that. professor earned his jd from yale law school after which he served as a clerk for the u.s. court of appeals for the ninth circuit and then in private practice. to the good fortunene of studens at law school and now it chapman professor left private practice in academia. voted professor of thehe year at each school he has enriched the studies and minds of countless future attorneys. professor has also served on the boards of severalno nonprofits s well as on a number of state and

local government taskforces. in addition he consults with several professional sports leaguess and teams which makes him myhi new best friend. i hope he enjoys his introduction so hese can take me too visit some of those professional sports teams. the nixon foundation of course has established a great partnership with chapman university which has led the president of the nixon foundation and a proud graduate of chapman. >> among the many benefits of that partnership is having professor here with us this evening to discuss attorney general barr's book with him. the conversation between attorney general barr will be lively, informative, and fascinatingn. so please join me in welcoming

the 77th and 85th attorney general of the united states william b bar and professor matt. [applause] thank you. thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you. general barr is an honor to be here with you tonight. i am honored to be here at the library and i appreciate everyone coming out this evening. welcome to the land of 7-dollar gas. [laughter] >> let's jump in at your second attorney general stenson brady had a great life in retirement,

the book talks about all the interesting things you were doing. being able to do consulting and have lots of time for family and other interestingng things. what called you back into public service?nc >> i thought we were at a critical juncture in our history. i felt 2016 election was absolutely essential to win. i was worried for the republicans. i was worried the progressives were pretty close to pushing the country over the cliff from an abyss it would be hard to ever recover. was number eight never trump or i did not support him initially i supported one of the other candidates. i was happy to support him once he won the nomination. and i think his policies were excellent party policies which is just what the country needed. but i felt the democrats were

trying to the administration with this russia case thing which i was skeptical about. he did not not add up to me. i was worried we were headed to a constitutional crisis. the department of justice the fbi were in turmoil. lost a lot of credibility with the american people. those are two institutions i love and think are very important in our system. so originally i started pushing people out in fronto of me to gt the white house interested inn other candidates. but none of them really gained any traction. the president wanted to talk to mell and i did not want to talko him unless i knew i was willing to accept the job. i did not want to waste his time. so we had a discussion in the family and people agreed this was something i was asked to do i really should do it. i felt that as i say we were

headed towards very dangerous waters as a country. my friend bob gates who i have immense respect for who been the secretary of defense when i first served as attorney general and head of cia. he said look you are serving the country we are facing a lot of challenges. what is important is the best people serving these jobs the people who know what they are doing. so that is the reason i took the tejob. the crux of the most interesting things i have seen written orur said about the book is front of the nixon library said you workbook may be r the fairest assessment of president trump that he has read. can you talk a little bit about your relationship with him and your assessment of him as the president? >> i was never under any illusions about trump's persona

and how difficult it was to deal with him. i had never met him before. although i had worked in new york as 15 years as general counsel of ge and verizon corporation. most of my business friends v kw him some very well and work said he was a very difficult to work with person. advised me not to go into his administration. so i was under no illusion about that. or build up a friendship with him. i was in there to serve the administrations attorney general and try to help his administration succeed. and on a personal level we hit it off very well we both grew up in new york around roughly the same time he is a little bit older than i am. i thought we had an easy rapport.

i've talked very bluntly and directly and vice versa i can assure you. [laughter] i also felt the policies were generally sad and they were good. what people view as some of his downsides and which occasionally were his downsides also served well at other times. it took someone as a pugnacious, aggressive, direct as he was to surmount the media hostility and get his message out. and also to tangle with the organized left wing attacks against him and to stand up against him. and also to push his policies through the bureaucracy and the resistance int washington. these were things to help him win the election at the time and help them get things done like getting control of the border.

it was a hard slog for four years but we did. we did eventually succeed. but he also, his style could be very excessive and alien a lot of key voters. his advisors including me kept on telling him he should dial it back a little bit especially in 2020 as we went into the election year. there was some friction between us during 2020 which came to a head which i explain in the book it. >> i want to come back to that. you are talking just now about public service but you talk about your career working in the cia. but then you decide to go to law school. what drew to a career in the law? >> my mother. it. [laughter] i had always wanted to be -- in high school, the 11th grade you met with your colleged advisor, counselor or whatever he said was your career goal? i said to be director of the cia

and he almost fell out of his chair this was during the vietnam war. it was not that obvious of a choice. i went to columbia, i studied chinese. i got my masters degree in government and chinese studies because i figured everyone else was studying russia. the other long-term arrival was china which i felt would over the long-term be a more serious challenge at so i went into chinese studies. as we all know president nixonf went to china and all the sudden china it was the craze in the was knocking on my door. that is when i went into cia part of worked part time there for two summers before he joined up. and my mother said being a child of the depression she said you need a profession you need a career you need something to fall back on to go to law school.

my dad said no do what you like you'll do best. i went to the cia and they went to law school. later on whenom jimmy carter won the election and appointed someone i didn't think was a good director, i left. but having gone to cia through a series of remarkable coincidences they elevated me to the legislative office to work on the investigations with the w cia. that way met the director george h.w. bush would head the cia had been the ambassador to china establish my relationship with bush, i was 26 years old at the time. that relationship was obviously pivotal in my life. he eventually made me attorney h general. she serves that role of the year if i recall. >> he was in that role head up

cia for one year. during this time the cia was under investigation by six committees and one commission this was for alleged excesses during things like attempted and successful assassinations and things like that part he had to defend the agency determined everyone was trying tear it apart. when he did such a great job and that one year end he won the respect of the agency professionals where the old time in those days they name the cia campus in building after him itn is the george h.w. bush center. even just when you're in the job. >> you at d.o.j. or number two there, you become acting attorney general when attorney general thornburg is convinced to run for senate with the

unfortunate death of senator w hines. i was supposed to be the dog days in washington in august sleepy time. but you had to deal with a very major issue early on tell the audience about that story that was a really compelling part of the story for me. initially head and put in the office of legal counsel we give the constitutional advice and only had that job for a year it was a fantastic job they may meet number two the chief operating officer and then dick thornburg had to go and run for the senate because john had been killed in a plane crash. the presidentis said look, will

make a decision who's going to be the permanent attorney general after clarence thomas gets confirmed but you just hold the fort at said acting attorney general until that happens. i was acting attorney general in august. i'm 120 cubans were the hardest core sociopaths that had come over when fidel castro opened up his prisons and let a lot of criminals come over here, theset were people who had been over here for a long time and committed serious crimes over a gear we're getting ready to ship them back to cuba. fidel castro agreed to take them. he would be some reason they would die if they were back to cuba we had them in a federal prison 120 than they took over the prison, seized 11 hostages i was confronted with the head of prisons comes in the prison unit

is like a fortress it was solid concrete, big metal gates and so rforth. make a long story short i realized we could never give in to their demands their demands were to stay into the united states they would rather be in a federal prison than go back to cuba. i knew we could not give in. eventually we're going to have to do a hostage rescue. and so i activated hrt the hostage rescue team of the fbi for the start immediately training and planning for operation but i work very closely with the top guys in the fbi on this. and after nine days we had fed them or anything it's a very interesting story it's a kind of thing you can make a good movie about actually. once john candy died there was no one left to play him. [laughter]

although i hear on twitter that john goodman. [laughter] gave the order to conduct the hostage rescue. it was implemented at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. it was all very dramatic. there were some last-minute curveballs whether we are going to build get in there find the hostages inus time. because they had knives and start playing russian roulette up in the name to the back and stuff like that. anyway it was a success it took less than a minute to reach the hostages and they were all rescued. and so that was an interesting thing. people say was a most satisfying things attorneyy general the first tour that was it did not have much of law books or anything like that. but i went down there that morning i met all the hostages

and their families. it was the most meaningful thing i did because their lives were at stake. shortly thereafter the president decide he's going to point me as attorney general. >> who entered the oval office to have a conversation with him, you said to mr. perez i appreciate i don't bringng it mh politically, can you tell the audience what he said back to you? >> after a cabinet meeting i was waved in the chief of staff of the times a bill here's the deal he wants to go withr you, steady hand at the tiller and all that stuff but you don't give him anything politically by the other people that time being considered were and john ashcroft to governors or former governors. he said we are going to pick your deputy i hope that's not a problem for us and actually i'm not crazy he said you better

tell him about that he offered me the job i said and very excited to have you as my attorney general is that i assume it's not opponents it actually it is a problem. and i'd select the department of justice if there's any daylight between the attorney general and the deputy you are going to have turmoil in the department. it will just crippled the political level of leadership that way. he was a look at me i said let me put it this way mr. president, i am not putting mine and anyone's pocket. who i don't know. [laughter] this look of recognition came over his face. oh, okay to have someone in mind? i said yes. he said okay fine.

if we have some to talk to find just don't growth your guy that's fine too. and that was that. [applause] hoxie also said to the best politics of the d.o.j. is no politics. in reading her book that seems to be your ethos. could you maybe reflect a little bit on the shared value between you and president bush? >> the attorney general has a number of different functions one is legal advice. you are acting as a political official who is politically sympathetic to the administration. t and you try to give advice that will be in accord with the law but also trying to help the administration go to where it to go within the law. the other is a policy advisor

executing programs like fighting drugs or crime. that is a political position for the president was to do something for political reasons from the crime arena, fine there's nothing wrong with the eternal general asking that way. the thing that is sacrosanct in the department of justice is the enforcement of the criminal law. trying to make sure they are not different standards for different people depending upon what party they are in or anything else. the same law has to apply to everyone. now like most of you believe we moved away from that. in fact in practice we do have two standards of justice. but that is what the president meant when he said the best i know i don't see anything political mr. president of the best politics of the justice department is no politics.

and that is what he meant by that and i agree with that. i tried my best to apply one standard for everybody not allow politics to be played. i-5 did not have the evidence is sufficient to indict someone with a reed or anyone else the president would publicly declare should be indicted. biden went around saying this person should be indicted, and he has with respect to the president. people object to that. trump was saying i want the justice department to indict karel and sobu forth that creatd a problem.e but the fact is if i didn't have the evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is not going to indict someone because the president wanted someone indicted we cannot go down that road. i kept on saying to the president int can't do that

mr. president. i know they apply standard but the answer to that just can't be the high politicize of the department and use it as a political weapon. sometimes i paid a price for that. i felt prosecutors were going to seek a penalty on roger stone who by' the way i don't like roger stone i think he is her jerker.o and i thought he violated the law and he should go to prison myself. but he did not deserve to go to prison two to three times longer than other people would go for that very same crime. that is what they were trying to do. and that came on my desk. once it came on my desk i was going to make the decision and i did what he thought was right even though i knew the immediate would attack me say i was doing this because this was the president's friend. no, i did it because it's one

standard of justice forsi everybody and the president's friends are not treated differently by the presence enemies are not treated differently. [applause] [applause] >> it seems you started each of your stance as attorney general something big was going on, tell greg it is one the russian investigation in your latest. can you talk a little bit of a sense of what that was to navigate as attorney general? >> i knew i was getting into a highly charged situation. the left and their media allies which is mainstream media had invested a lot -- had a lot vested in the rush at gate b narrative they trying to bring down president trump.

they thought as ami st. george killingly dragon. and so i realized this was going to be a can of worms. and they also walked into a department that had been fighting both republicans and democrats on the hill. everyone was attacking the department. and so i knew it was going to require some fancy footwork here if you will. mubut as you know mueller as i described in the book mueller came in, he talked to me i sawd he was certainly not the bob mueller i worked with before that i'd been friends over thein years with. he came in not to my surprise, found no collusion but he tried to punch on the issue of

obstruction just throw out all these facts and a lot of verbiage 200 pages of stuff that come to no conclusion. so i had asked him what he told me what is going to do group could someone make the decision based on your report? and he said yes, someone could make a decision as to whether there is a prosecutable offense. so after he gave me the report,l here's one of the things that media has always claimed i lied about the report. i think anyone who could read the english language would know that is crazy. i told mueller look, here is the problem. ife' you give me a report i cant make public a very quickly and there is a delay the country is going to be at risk. everyone is going to think the president is about to be prosecuted and that will hurt our national security, the stock

market and so forth. so if you give me that report you have to already indicate in the report has to be redacted under the law something that legally has to be redacted. i said i am not going to know what they are you guys have to tell us. he said he understood.t but when he gave us the reportre he did not indicate any of that stuff so i knew we were talking about a two or three week delay. in that situation i thought the only possible thing to do was to tell the public the bottom line. there were news reports that friday going into the weekend the president was about to be indicted and his family. and so i said i'm going to tell the public thes bottom line whh is there's no finance collusion, he punted he did not reach a decision on obstruction. he did not exonerate the president i said that in my letter.

but i said i am going to make the decision and i explained the decision i made which was no obstruction. the media was so deflated by this and so upsets they claimed i misrepresented the content of the report. a report i knew was coming out in two weeks anyway. anyway that's the story there. >> the following on the heels of that obviously ukraine's president zelenskyy has been in the news a lot lately. but back then he is at the center of a storm that would ultimately be a trigger points for proceedings as attorney general how did you tried to steer d.o.j. through the time when you learned about the call between president zelenskyy and president trump? and then the eventual release of the transcript delayed which was always to the trigger point for impeachment proceedings, how did you try to navigate that? >> the day mueller testified in

june of 2019 i realized his testimony wasn't not going to be what the president opponents wanted. and so when he testified for all intensive purposes the whole russia gait scam was over. the very next day he had the call withs zelenskyy. that's one thing afterer anothe. we thought the night after mueller testified we pull our scotches at the end of the day clinking our glasses. we thought we had gotten past russiagate we could focus on the successful program of the administration. and then boom the whole zelenskyy thing happened. i did not find out about it immediately because i normally would not find out about a call from a foreign leader.

but over the ensuing weeks we heard about this call. i looked at the transcript, i was angry with the president because he lumped me in with rudy giuliani. the present is typical imprecise way of talking was like yeah i want you to cooperate with the durum investigations you can work with bill barr on that. i want you to investigate biden, that has to be looked at and you should talk to giuliani and the attorney general about that. we were not investigating biden at that point, joe biden we did not investigating while i was attorney general. but ibu was angry because he lumped me in together with rudy giuliani it was not the time i am rebooting an assignment he was up to in europe.

but, what i was focused on this evidence of crime they were claiming he was soliciting a political contribution is actually there were trying to bend p the law that is what politics is about enemy prosecutors trying to bend the law to prosecute their political opponents. and i didn't think there was. and then congress moved very sharply to impeach him basically overtook anything the department would be doing. it is very interesting, my read of the situation was they were so upset and russiagate that i made the decision there is no obstruction and that was the end of it. they did not want me too act on the ukrainian saying. they wanted to move impeachment first so the same thing would not happen to ukraine.

so they went on impeachment the department is not a party to that. we don't really have a mission in that. we sit back and watch the show. but i always thought the president was really in jeopardy. >> you think things might have gone differently if the transcript might have been released earlier would it not have mattered? >> i don't think it would've mattered. >> in s the book you say you thk the civil rights issue of our time is religious liberty you use examples during covid and how some of the religious liberties were infringed upon the d.o.j. worked on. talk a little bit about your thoughts on religious liberty and some of those cases during the covid shutdown? >> it's during covid did a lot of the governors, mayors and other people thought they had this power for a long period of time to do this were clearly treating religious activity as second-class activity.

they would leave a lot of commercial activity and other comparable non- religious activity free of restrictions, freer of restrictionswo they wod pose draconian on churches we said no it can't be worse. you cannot treat religion worse then you are treating other people. the reason i say it's civil liberty of our time is because a ghost back to the speech i gave at notre dame which got a lot of attention which is the framers -- the foundation of our system of government in our political philosophy is actually religion. not in the sense we establishedw religion in a sense we compel people to be religious or what have you. people have freedom of conscience. the framers believed that our society could have limited

government, limited role for government because people would be able to control themselves they would be a virtuous at people who were generally religious people therefore they had internal moral compass is therefore they did not need external coercive power that was over leaning it could be curtailed and limited. that was their philosophy. but we have seen in the west generally and in the united states specifically as a crumbling of that foundation left fewer and fewer people have that self-discipline and self government, ability to govern themselves that is what they mean by self-government's not so much how count of votes it's governing your selves. there's a whole chapter that discusses this and its relationship to education. there used to be a consensus in this country that educationo

should require some kind of moral formation and so forth. starting in the 60s started stripping away all vestiges of s religious belief in treating with hostility in schools. i said starting in the obama administration they been trying to secularize a public education not by subtraction of religion but by edition of secular philosophies and isms light critical race theory and other things that explain an alternative system to support a set of values. i k am saying what is the government get off teaching people ideology? instructing and indoctrinating people in ideology telling people what to believe. especially if it is subversive inof traditional beliefs of families trying to raise her children with. i think that raises some serious constitutional issues.

[applause] automatic violent crime talk about why you're so passionate in your two administrations. people right now say people are upset by crime. they should be more upset by crime. fighting crime, protecting the citizens from violent predators is the number one duty of government. it is. [applause] it is the reason we establishedr government. we are given to the point in many jurisdictions people will be just as safe if they protected themselves through their own police that is an

outraged we've been here before we apparently have to learn this every 40 years. here's what has happened to violent crime in the 60s and 70s it's tripled almost quadrupled the timer releasing people from prison. reagan it comes in and flattens the trajectory for the 80s. it is still going up. the peaks at the time i become attorney general the first time in 1991, and the crime -- the level of crime is twice as high as it is today or it wasn't till the last couple of years. the reason we all know what it is the cops have always done theirr job pretty well.

it is the rest of the system and it is a revolving door. it b is not a mystery at most predatory is committed by a very small group less than 1% of the population probably. but they are repeat violent offenders they are career criminals they start committing crime when they are young theyyv keep on they have a long rap sheets for they'll be violent for a long time. hundreds of crimes and their out on the street. you have to get these violent predators into prison to serve long sentences, incapacitate them. that is the only thing that can happen. 1990 when the federal government had not done much on violent crime in street crime. but in 1991 we started leaning forward using our gun laws, are gang laws and our drug laws setting up a joint task forces with state and localss and going after the shooters, the violent criminals and putting them away.

the d.a. loved this. if they could only get 18 months we could get 18 years on some guy who it had a long criminal history and still using a gun in crime. we push the states to stop their releasing of her prisoners and stop the revolving door. for 22 consecutive years starting in 1992 the last rows attorney general for 22 years crime rate went down. guess what? the present rate went up. we doubled the prison population in the united states with 7.5 million. but the crime was cut in half. orders went down from 24000 year to about 14000 a year. the beneficiaries of that were

mostly african-americans were the main victims of homicide. under obama, 2014 the war against cops, ferguson, the crimes are going up again. after 22 years of going down and started going up under obama. under trumper a went down again until the second half of the covid year 2020. the bottom line is it's not like we don't know the answer to dealing with violent crime. we have heard all of these arguments that we have to give these guys more chances, more chances, more chances. thein only way that has ever worked of reducing crime and protecting society's get the violent repeat offenders off the streets. it's just a question of will. that is done, crime goes down. [applause]

[applause] >> you all get a chance to read the book there so much policy in there that general barth really worked on for mexican drug cartels to big attack, to china prints really worth the read wes will not be able to cover all of it tonight there's 2020 stuff i like to jump into. so, it is spring of 2020 and the election was looking really good for president trump in your eyes at one point then it starts looking not as good. like you do with president bush when you saw the tide started to turn he tried to give advice. that seemed to free your relationship a little bit. can't talk about what you saw what you were trying to help the president with in terms of reelection and advice? quick so from my standpoint i was worried the president was going to lose the election. the president was going to lose the election without its going to lose the election because he had alienated about 10% roughly

of educated suburban voters who typically voted republican. either as republicans leading independence. they were completely repelled by trump. mostly women but not exclusively women. i saw this in my own state of virginia where the republican party essentially collapsed from a party that could actually win in virginia for the one that was hopelessly behind because of the defection of suburban republicans under trumper. this was true in a lot of key states. he was advised by his campaign advisors, buys other advisors who had been around the track you've got to stop the pettiness pretty got to stop punching down and getting into these fights with some grade b movie actor

that insulted you or somethingop prints beneath the office and makes you seem petty, stop the stuff. he would not listen. his mantra was, his base liked it he would get his base out. people wanted him to be a fighter. i said yes people want you to be a fighter you are a fighter and stuff but there is a time and place. sometimes you got to pick your fights. i went into suggests it was time to sort of pull back a little bit. an address this problem and the suburbs preheat listened as he listened to everyone else. all of the cabinet secretaries agreed with this it's not like i was taking an unusual position i think most of you probably saw the same thing. and he just would not listen. i think it is because -- it's funny and 16 when he made that

off-color remark to billy bush shortly before the election, he was really shaken and people thought he might pull out when the election was over. he was scared enough to listen to advisors. he mended his ways for the last few weeks and he pulled out now a victory. 2020 he thought he had a mystical relationship with his base and he knew better than everybody else. and so he was not listening to t advice. and i think that is why he lost the election. and so later after the election results -- the whole question of fraud obviously is low. people sort of a meld together different things that can happen in an election. changes to election law and

practices that arece unfair and skewed the playing field but noy necessarily against the law. ayou pass a law or some rule tt helpsat one side not the other y not be against the law. a lot of the stuff is like that. it is stuff the republican party has to fight tooth and nail to make sure it is a level playing field going forward. the other kinds of violations were not fraud they were rules that are designed to prevent fraud were not observed. like not requiring an application for an absentee ballot in a state that required one. or people that harvest about the state that prohibits harvesting. the point is, that does not allow for the negating of the votes you still have to come in and show the votes that were cast under that situation were not valid votes. and then there is fraud were

votes are stolen false votes are putt in or good votes are takent out. there was no evidence put forward of that of any degree of scale that could have affected the outcome of the election. all the stories circulating in all of the excessive remarks made by the president and there's proof and more peopleer voted in philadelphia than there were voters is false. turnout in philadelphia it was actually lower than the average turnout. in pennsylvania it was 70% range it was high. but the same statewide. so i looked at the votes later. to me it was sort of obvious why he lost which is what people had been telling him, and states like arizona there is 75000 republicans who did not vote for him. they voted otherwise republican.

the number and wisconsin was at least 60000 the same in pennsylvania it was a least 60000 the same. he ran weaker in those three states than the republican ticket. the state candidates that led congressional candidates those pickets did well. he was the weakyo link on the ticket. you cannot win that close a race if you are running weaker than their republican ticket in the battleground state. that is why he lost the election. culture pretty critical of political leaders of both parties you describe as "a more attached to self-serving narrative than the factual truth. you juxtapose thatal this sort f seeming disease in our political system with the role d.o.j. plays in our federal government of holding the truth. can you reflect on that in terms of these troubled times we live in? can we work as a government to uphold the truth their politics

so soured that seems an impossibility? >> right now the politics arere pretty intense, sour. the justice department is the agency that is the most battered. we have to stay with the evidence is in what r we say the truth is regardless of politics. we live in an age where that is not considered being a part of the team. i do think that the hope. i'm very worried about the t country. i think this is probably the biggest crisis we've gone through. with a lot of aspects to it the different factors at work. but when people get discouragedl

i always say look, the first step on the road back is a decisive victory that we can translate intong lasting changes and addressing some of these things that are off-track like education. or the fact we have moved away from the principle of federalism and so forth. we have to start addressing the basics we need a decisive electoral victory. and i think what we are going through today is like what we went there in the 60s and 70s for the democratic party took a sharp return to the left. i think they are more now than they were then. they are essentially -- they cannot be liberals are not within the liberal tradition. they are totalitarian in their approach. they have taken a sharp turn to

the left, divided their own party, they tore down president nixon who had 149 states. and then they come up with this empty vessel in jimmy carter they see what they want to see in him he was overwhelmed by the problems it was a one term failure. does that remind you of somebody? [laughter] [applause] [laughter] so, what i say to the people i agree with, it grieves me that many people who are maggot supporters are mad because i think the president lost the election. but, i say to the maggot supporters that is what i want. i want to restore america but

that will take more than one narrow victory of a president who punches it back publicly all of the time. but that will take is a reagan type victory. reagan was a reaction against the democratic success but he won 40 states the first time, 49 states the second time. his advice president george w. bush 140 states. the democrats had to go too the middle of the democraticc leadership conference guy in clinton who then had to reform welfare and passed to tough crime bills. so they debate in the policies for over 20 years that dominated by the republican. liberal was a dirty word in those days. that is what kind of victory we need too. we will produce that kind of victory. [applause]

am not hostile to trump.k i just think 78 is a lame dunk present was to settle scores he's not theat guy to deliver tt kind of victory. that is the hard brass facts. [applause] does that mean everything is sold by that? no it's going to take hard work. it's going to take an administration that has talented presidentsag. nixon was this way. reagan was this way i think h.w. bush who can strategically figure out what we have to do to deal with the educational crisis in our country. and some of the other factors as work that are leading to this poisonous atmosphere. at least that will be the firstn step on the road back. i got the essential step in until that happens i don't see anything preventing this or

reducing the trench warfare weio have today. final question is a quick one we have a book signing right after this. so, you are the only two people to be attorney general for two different terms. would you go for third? [laughter] [applause] >> at first i would like to say i'm the only one to do it in two different centuries. it. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. >> thank you very much for your time tonight's. the attorney general will be available to sign your books on the front lobby paired with seal up their printhead to your right down the hallway per thank you for coming tonight, god bless. bye-bye. [applause] barks recently on book tv author