May 30, 2025 • 33 mins
In part 2 of our conversation, the Former Speaker weighs in on immigration, taking on Bill Clinton, and whether he's responsible for today's toxic political climate.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is Gavin Newsom and Newke Gingridge continues, you worked
on this book, which again is you know, it's very
much in the spirit of Reagan to you talk about
his last speech. I mean, I mean that's where he
talked about Lady Liberty's torch. And you know, we talked
(00:29):
about that life force of New Americans, et cetera, and
and and and again. My my fundamental concern about this
assault on higher education is the impact that we'll have
in terms of our capacity to get these pH ds
and stem folks and and to be able to pull
uh that chill it's already I think having around the
rest of the world, but pull the best in the
(00:50):
brightest minds and and and keep them as part of
that innovation cycle. But you you specifically, I'm you brought
up in the book, which I loved, the Chinese Exclusion Act,
and you know, so much of that comes from you know,
the embers of that are very familiar folks out here
in the Bay Area. You know, I remember what I
would refer to unfairly. I would admit this guy Dennis Kerney,
(01:12):
who was sort of the original Trump, and he began
and ended every speech by saying, whatever else we do.
The Chinese must go, and they were building virtual walls
to keep the Chinese out, and of course the beginning
of the Chinese Exclusion Act ultimately came out of the
Bay Area and some of those movements. But interesting to
me is we're now close to peak immigration. Again. We
(01:36):
dropped very low in nineteen seventy I think it was
four point eight percent, don't quote me, and now we're
closer to fourteen fourteen point eight wherever it is, again,
don't quote me, but it's significantly grown. How concerned are
you talk about assimilation? You talked about the things you
can't talk about from a European prism. But as you
balance the journey to America and you balance this immigration
(01:58):
debate and deal with the ish of criminal behavior and
quote unquote illegal immigration as you refer to it, how
do we find a balance? How do we strike that
balance at peril we go back to the instincts of
the eighteen eighties, or go back, frankly to well, I
mean maybe we're back there today. Curious you're assessment, I
(02:18):
think no.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think first of all, there were two huge challenges.
One is sheer volume. I mean, you can't have six
eight nine million people crossing the border illegally. The other
which I began writing about in the eighties, I was
visited one of the congressmen in Georgia by vietname. He's
(02:41):
a small business owner who said that when he came
over after the fall of Saigon, he and his brother
arrived and he went straight to work, and his brother
got hooked up in southern California with the welfare office
and learned that you could get public housing, and you
could get food stamps and so forth. And so his
brother never developed the kind of entrepreneurial drive because life
(03:04):
was adequate. And it hit me that what had worked
historically in America, which was very tough, people should not
kid themselves. You know. Clossa's grandmother came through all As Island.
We actually went up and looked at her. Her signature
and her.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
From Poland, Is that right, huh Polish?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, she's her grandmother's Polish on her father's side. Ironically,
since she's been nominated to the ambassador of Switzerland, her
grandmother on the on the Swiss side, which is her mother,
is from Burn, So she's actually gone back to her
grandmother's home area. But the paternal grandmother came from Poland
(03:46):
in nineteen o eight and you can literally track her
coming in. Well, every person that came in was inspected
for health, and if you had a communicable disease, you
were excluded and sent back. Everybody was checked to see
if they were willing to go to work, and if
you weren't prepared to work, you were sent back. I mean,
it wasn't you know, It wasn't an automatic open door.
It was it was a it was a controlled open door.
(04:08):
But there was a second part which was very tough.
People expected you to become American. They expected you to
learn English, they expected you to go to work, they
expected you to be a neighbor, expected you to pay
the law. And so there's a great deal of socialization
that went into being an immigrant in the US. We
(04:29):
went into a cycle which which was captured in a
book called the Tragedy of American Compassion. UH, where starting
really in the big way with the great society, it
became inappropriate to suggest to people that they give up
whatever wherever they came from. UH, to say that the
habits and the culture you came from, aren't you know,
(04:50):
So if you happen to come from a place which
engages in clinterectomy. Who are we to suggest as a
matter of women's rights, then maybe that's not a very
good habit, right. It would be like in the middle
of the nineteenth century when sutti was still practiced in
India and widows were expected to be burned on the
with their husbands. So the question becomes, can we find
(05:14):
a path back to work? And I voted for all this,
And in nineteen eighty six we passed the Simpson Zoliac.
We thought we were giving an amnesty to three hundred thousand,
turned out to be three million. And Reagan and his
diary says, I signed the bill because we were going
to get control of the border, and we're going to
(05:35):
have a work permit system so we could control immigration.
And of course he got neither. So is it one
of the guys who voted for this thing?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, you were an advocate. I think what in nineteen
eighty five, right even before when it was in its
infancy in bill form.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So you know, I think you we're not going to
deport ten or twelve or fourteen million people. No, it's
not going to happen. We are going to deport most
of the criminals. And if you are here without having
yet been a criminal, and you become a criminal, we're
going to deport you and then once. I mean my
(06:13):
theory of all this, which may be wrong, but it's
part of what we did a journey to America is
to remind people that it's okay to be against illegal immigration,
but you want to be passionately for legal immigration, and
you want to recognize that they're dividing lines. I'm very
concerned about the Dreamers, the people who came here two three,
(06:34):
four years of age. Tally, they should be treated differently
than they're being treated right now. It's just it's wrong
to toss them in as though they're illegal in any
traditional sense.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So is it just they're just a political football, then
that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, and most of them don't speak the language of
their native country. They grew up in America. For all
practical purposes, it is their native country. So we couldn't
have that debate until we got control of the border.
My guess is that by sometime in twenty seven we
will begin to have a very healthy debate. People will
(07:07):
have calmed down and will now be into how do
we solve this problem as opposed as just being so rigid,
and it may even happen starting in twenty six. I mean,
I thought that the speed I don't know what your
reaction was, but I thought the speed with which they
turned around the southern border was almost unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, I mean directionally it had significantly declined in terms
of the total number of border crossings. But unquestionably, Yeah,
the acuity to which in essence is shut down is
rather remarkable considering where we were two years prior. But
clearly the message was delivered a little bit. In the
last nine months to a year, the Biden administration starting.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
To gradually shift, but then Tom came in and.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It really no no doubt. I mean, look, rhetoric matters,
and I'm curious just from that perspect because I think
a lot of it was rhetorical. I mean, it was
substantive in terms of some of the moves that he's made,
mostly rhetorical, I think in terms of the impacts even
occurring before in the executive orders when in effect, and
certainly no fundamental legislative shifts yet. But what are you
(08:11):
what about the rhetoric? What about sort of the pain
a lot of our diverse communities feel about the rhetoric
from the President himself. And you know, is it tactical
you say he supports legal immigration. We saw that debate
play out with a Bannon Musk frame, But that debate
is still pretty alive in the base of the mega
movement right anti immagrant legal too.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Look, the challenge for Trump's critics on this line of
reasoning is that he got the highest percentage any Republicans
ever gotten in the Hispanic community. He got the largest
percentage of African American males of any Republican since Eisenhower,
you know, seventy years ago. Right, He's the first Republican
(08:56):
to get a majority of the Catholic vote. So an
awful lot of people who are first and second generation
legal immigrants who are as mad about illegal immigrants as
people whose relatives came over in seventeen hundred. I mean,
there's a sense of I paid my dues, I waited,
(09:16):
I obeyed the law on at frankly, I left these
people behind. I don't want a Venezuelan gang in my neighborhood.
And while that's exaggerated, it's real enough, and particularly if
you look at the people you know who've been killed
or the people who've been raped. You don't need many symbols.
(09:39):
No country decide, you know, I don't. That's a risk.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I just I miss. What I hate is how it's exploited.
And as we know, I mean, we all know the stats.
I mean, native born are more likely to commit crimes
than forum born, legal or or without documentation. But you're right,
I mean what you just said is Poe accurate. It
doesn't take that many examples.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And I suspect if you limited it down to MS
thirteen gang members be willing gang members. There are enough
examples there. You're right, you can earn a living off
of it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Look, I get your broader point, but I'm encouraged by
your core belief that Trump has the capacity, to your point,
to move if he feels that we've made the progress
on the border to a much more comprehensive conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
You said publicly that we ought to really be thinking
about if you graduate in science or engineering, we give
you a green card with your graduation.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Well that's been challenged by him eliminating all the foreign
students at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But we'll see that's now let me suggest to you
as somebody who's studied Trump a pharamount. There's a there's
a John Wayne film where it's really mad at somebody
picks up a chair, breaks it over their head and
his partner turns and says, God, you get really go crazy.
(11:12):
As several foreign governments have learned. You take Trump head
on and he goes nuts, and he says, I'm going
to prove to you it's classic alpha male. I now
have to prove to you who's dominant. Well, Harvard decided
let's test this theory. Okay, So they now have Donald
Trump about four o'clock every morning figuring out what he
(11:33):
can do next. And he is going to beat on
them and beat on them. There's nothing to do with
the rest of the country. I hope not. Harvard has
decided to pick a head on fight. They're a big institution,
They've got a ton of money, they have great prestige,
and we'll see whether or not they can. This is
a little bit like in I think it's nineteen o two,
they have a huge coal mine strike and Theodore Roosevelt
(11:56):
calls him the coal mine owners and says, this is
going to it's settled, and the coal mine. Unders say, well,
you don't understand, we own the coal mines. And Roosevelt says,
you don't understand. I am the President of United States,
and I will have the army take over all of
your minds. And they said, oh, well, let's talk. I mean,
(12:16):
if Harvard were semi smart, you know, this is a
losing fight, you know, if they win round one in court,
because he's going to be there for four years. They
were in one, win one round in court. The Justice
Department will be there with round two, three and four,
and he's not going to give up until they cawtew.
It's just now he's not necessarily going to go and
(12:36):
pick a fight with you know, uh, the Ohio State University,
partly because he likes their football team. As a general rule,
this is classically Trump behaves. You saw just do it
to the Europeans. The Europeans said, we don't want to talk.
He said, fine, fifty percent tariff next Monday.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And then he negotiates against them.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh facts, you do want to talk?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, well, and then he delayed is the I mean,
I by the you will you open this door? And
mister free trade, I remember you back in the day
I'm old enough to remember after and everything else, and
that was bipartisan. It was hardly new Gingridge speaker, Gingridge.
It was celebrated in my party. So you you've evolved,
(13:20):
a lot of folks have not, just you know, including
by the way Democrats. I mean, the tariff policies were
advanced and uh and increased against China in particular during
the Biden administration, but not across the board, not with
this fits and starts, not negotiating against ourselves. Tell me,
you tell me, tell me that you find the approach
(13:40):
to tariff's under the Trump administration full hearty uh and
not necessarily productive at this stage? Or am I missing
this great negotiators capacity to deliver punches like a chess master.
Five months from now? Are year four? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think I think a couple of things. One I
would say, looking back, I was wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Do you say that conveniently or do you I mean, no, I.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Say that because I evolved over ten I'll give you
the best example. I really thought, as did most of
the people who studied it, that opening up China economically
was a great step towards a more open China. And
I totally misunderstood Dung Challpegs Southern tour where he gave
(14:27):
the speeches about markets and said, you know, I don't
care whether it's a black cat or a white cat,
as long as it catches the rat, and sounded like
he was really talking about openness. Well, a couple of
years ago, I did a book called Trump and China,
and I went back and did a lot of research,
and I was frankly pretty embarrassed. I mean, Dung Shaopeng
was one of the twenty four people in Paris who
(14:49):
create the Chinese Commnist Party. He leaves Paris at the
end of World War One, goes to Moscow and spends
a year at Lenin University studying Marxism. Leninism. He is saying,
and none of us caught this. We have to have
a market to create enough prosperity to strengthen the party's
(15:09):
grip on the country, because if people stay too poor,
they're going to throw the party out. So I'm not
going to an open market so I can open up China.
I'm going to open market so I can sustain the dictatorship.
And by the way, since it is a dictatorship and
since we are China, if I get to rip you off.
That's fine, now part of my education. After I left
(15:31):
the speakership, I was approached by a former Walmart president
who's going to do a deal in China, and he
thought having a former speaker would help given negotiating. So
my lawyer talked to the Chinese lawyers and after he
looked at the proposed contract, he said, let me get
this straight. You can you can define what his interest
is worth on any given day, and you can buy
(15:52):
it at your definition. They said, yeah, that's how we
do things. He's not with my client. So it's been
looking at that. And then in the European case, the Europeans,
and this is a genuine tragedy, and I think you
have to read JD. Vans's speeches in Paris and Munich
in this context. And again I'm a European historian. I've
(16:13):
lived in four European countries and I have an enormous
affection for Europe. Historically, the Europeans decided to go to
litigation and regulation rather than innovation, literally the exact opposite
of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
In the long run, that's a losing game. So what
they have to do is they have to somehow tax
Amazon or Apple or Google or Meta or Microsoft because
they literally can't compete with them, and this isn't so
they rig the game in clever ways. And for a
very long time we operated within a model of somehow
(16:53):
trying to get to a balanced world where it would
also you know, the World Trade Organization would work. I
mean I was for China joining the WTO, and then
you realize after a while it just this current system
doesn't work. Now what Trump has done, which I don't
candidly don't think he's explained very well. Trump is a
reversion to the late nineteenth century Republican model, best articulated
(17:17):
by William McKinley, that we are going to have higher
tariff walls, we're going to have higher paid workers, we're
going to have huge prosperity, and in the end, because
we're the largest economy, we have and I mean he
loves this. Yeah, he knows in every negotiation, including China,
in the end, he is the bank they're going to
have to negotiate with it. Sure, And so he's now
(17:40):
going to have an exciting and enthusiastic six or eight months.
I tell all of my friends, do not look at
your stock until August, right.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Or the lack of stock in the warehouse because of
all the indecision and the business chill. I mean, a
lot of people that aren't going to make it five months.
That's my fear and disproportionate number out here in America's
largest economy, California, with all that goods movement, that dock
workers and truckers, and obviously the small business supply chains.
I mean, it's being felt. It's pretty profound. I hope
(18:11):
there's an endgame here, but time is not on the
side of a lot of these small entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think that's right. Look, there's gonna be a lot
of floundering around, and ultimately we may be at a
better future, but the interim is going to be I
tell people, this is not a beer party on a
houseboat on a quiet lake. This is newing in the
rapids of a wild river. And that's just a fact.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
All right, Let's go back, just briefly, because I'd be
remiss if we didn't talk about it. So I here's
this is how I spent my Memorial Day. I somehow
landed on a New Hampshire town hall that you and
President Clinton conducted together. It was shockingly civil tuned in
because I was expecting the opposite, and the fact that
(19:04):
the President of the United States, the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, at the peak of their differences, engaged
in a civil conversation. It makes me long for those
days or wait or not, because my reflection was one
of critique and constant you know, just you know, confrontation, victriol,
(19:27):
government shutdowns. So which was it? What was your relationship like?
Do you remember that day in New Hampshire? What the
hell were you two thinking? And what's happened to our
country since? And how how much do you feel, mister
speaker in the lunch conversation responsible for the first some
(19:48):
of that sort of toxicity as some have described in
our politics as a relations to the relationship that you
had with our party, our party with you and the
contract with American Oh.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Wellther you just managed to ask about three different questions.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I did, Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So off, Gwen and I had a I think remarkably
good personal relationship. We were about the same age group,
We're both we're both inherently graduate students. We like to
sit around and shoot the breeze about occasionally late at night.
I go down and have a drink with him, and
we just bsked. I mean it was just you know,
(20:27):
as you know, he is one of the great Yes,
it's in American history. I mean all that does relax
and let him roll for a while. And so in
that sense, what happened was which was, which was? And
I wrote a book on it called March to the Majority.
We spent sixteen years growing on Majority. All of it's
standing on Reagan's shoulders. The contract is entirely Reagan, but
(20:51):
when we won, because we had based everything we were
doing on the American people, So every single item in
the contract is seventy percent or better. There's a big
fight in the White House in June of ninety five
and Reagan's staff, I mean Carter Clinton's staff says, you've
got to fight Gingrich. You know, you owe it to
(21:13):
the to the party. And Clinton, Clinton, who had been
beaten in nineteen eighty for reelection and knew that there
wasn't fun, said to them, I do that. I want
to lose. I'm not going to fight Gingrich. I'm going
to protect the things that I have to protect, and
I'm going to take shots I didn't want to can
but I want to work with him because if I
work with him, I'll probably get reelected, and I like
being in the White House. And it was a huge braw.
(21:35):
I mean I remember one point, Leon Panetta. We were
in a negotiating session and Panetta was screaming at him
and saying, you can't give that away. We had Democrats
who lost their seats because they voted for that, and
Clinton's long, yeah, but I don't want to lose my seat,
you know, And then he turned to me and said,
I guess I can't do that one. This may surprise you.
(21:56):
We negotiated for thirty five days, face to face. We
produced this.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I mean literally the two of you in the room,
not outsourcing.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Staff other people around, but the two us sitting across
the table for thirty five days, and we produced the
only four balanced budgets in a century. And we did
it because we listened to each other and we talk
with each other. Now, I was a harsh partisan for
a reason you'll understand perfectly. I mean it's what you
have not You haven't really had the kind of quality
(22:25):
of opposition you should have in California that Methought goes
out and spends sixteen years and gradually becomes the majority,
which is tragic. It's not good for the state.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I hear you again. I mean I get that
argument absolutely, yeah, so sincerely, Yeah, No, So I.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Had to be polarizing because I'm the minority. I mean,
if I'm going to get in, I've got to make
sure that people decide not to vote for the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And so it's not your natural state. I mean it was,
I mean, I mean it was. It was a very
intentional strategy.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I mean, like this, because I think in some ways
you'll identify my natural state is winning.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
There you go, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
If sitting for thirty five days wins, I'm for winning fighting.
If closing the government for twenty seven days is a
necessary prelude negotiate, I'm for closing the government for twenty
seven days. But they were It's not a personality thing.
They were instrumentalities of getting something done.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And so that town Hall sort of reflected that that
you guys had a civil conversation outdoors in New Hampshire.
I think he said you happened to be there already
he was coming down. Do you remember it at all?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, Bo Bob Dole had we had this deal. Don't
wanted to run for president, and he didn't want me
because I was the brand new guy on the block
and I was nationally pretty popular at that time. He
didn't want me to run for president. So he loaned
me his entire New Hampshire organization, and I went up
and toured New Hampshire. And while we were up there,
we suddenly heard, Oh, Bill Clinton's going to be here,
(24:01):
and so we promptly said to the press, wouldn't it
be great to get together and have a debate about
or a dialogue about election reform. Well, the White House
suddenly gets this call from the press corps. Is the
President willing to sit down with new Gingrich in New Hampshire.
You can imagine what Clinton's staff said. Wow. And so
they then interviewed me, and I said I'd be delighted
(24:23):
because a great thing for America to have the two
of us told, oh, I wish one. Clinton goes, oh, yeah,
I guess we'll do it. And if you watch it,
I mean he's very good.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, but I mean candidly, it was not I didn't
enjoy it. You were. You were very good. I mean,
answered tough questions. I mean a lot of seniors are
there and you're talking about, you know, cuts to their
programs and others. I mean, it was, it was, it was.
It was a remarkably civil conversation at the highest level.
And but there's not been anything like that since well.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, it was a tragedy. There's a book called
The Pact, written by guy I think a Duke, in
which he found all the papers, interviewed people. Bill and
I actually had an agreement in late ninety seven that
we were going to launch an effort in ninety eight
to reform Medicare and social security, and he would do
(25:16):
it in the State of the Union. I would do
it in a major speech in Georgia, and we were
going to work together. And then Lewinsky occurred. Well, at
that point I had to become partisan, and he had
to go to the left because it was the left
that was going to save him, and so boom. But
the book's kind of fascinating because it's really true. We
did a lot of We created the Heart Rudman Commission,
(25:38):
which was the deepest and biggest review of national security
since nineteen forty eight. And actually after I stepped down,
even though I had helped him impeach him in the house.
They called him, said would you like to serve on
the commission? Since you created it? She said yes, So
so it just did that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's fascinating. And you reminded me of the impeachment. I mean,
so what do you And it was the third part
of that three legged stool question. And forgive me for
not articulating it more effectively. But and again this is
not an indictment, but it was in the conversation of
Lunch who said he was never more proud to be
associated with anything than the Contract with America, which was
(26:17):
fascinating to me, how quick he was to not only
defend it, but how reverential he thought it was at
the time, in terms of just being a communication document,
how it had transparency, how it did represent, as you said,
the will of the American people, at least in terms
of the seventy percent threshold, and the fact that you
submitted it to the public, meaning you tested that theory.
(26:39):
But the impeachment, the toxicity, the winning at all costs
hardly new in novel and politics. So I'm not suggesting
you're the OG in this space. But the tea part
people connect this moment to those moments? Is that fair unfair?
Did Democrats oversimplify?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think we founally mishandled the impeachment, and I think
it was partly because of Kenneth Starr. In my mind,
the impeachment was about committing perjury, and it actually goes
back to arguments we have today about one or not
whether the Supreme Court is ruled. And I suspect that
the Supreme Court already ruled, we wouldn't have had a
(27:20):
leg to stand on. But the question was it was
pretty clear that he had been convicted of committing perjury,
which you know is a follow me, and in fact,
he later on was barred from practicing law for five
years in Arkansas. I thought it was important as a
matter of constitutional record that a president should be held accountable.
(27:42):
But when Starr came out with his report, it was
so lurid and so related to sex that it poisoned
the whole project. I'll never forget that summer. I was
home in August and my two daughters and I went
to lunch at Okay Cafe, and and they both looked
at it, and they said to me, if our four oh
(28:04):
one case get destroyed, because of some stupid intern We're
going to be really pissed off. I thought, okay, I
had clearly misunderstood the American people and how they were
going to rank, how this was going to work. And
in a way, Clinton's a whole behavior from ninety two
on changed the whole context in which you deal with
(28:27):
sexual issues in politics. Yeah, you couldn't imagine the Hillary
Clinton Donald Trump the last debate in a pre Bill
Clinton world. That's insponsible.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Well, and of course Bannon bringing out the ghosts of
the past in the front row of that debate as well.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
That it was Bannon who said to me, we concluded
she was going to go to the basement and we
were going to get there first.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, that was a look. Look in closing, give me
something more optimistic. Are we get Look, I'm new scum? Yeah,
mean here we are. I appreciate your book. Like June third,
we got We've got Trump's triumph. But in new scum
everything's scum. This, this sort of divisiveness, this everyone's longing
to figure out a way to get damn back together
(29:16):
and start to solve problems.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Says a historian, One of two things has to happen either,
there has to be a very concerted effort to reach
out and to try to find bipartisan ways to work together.
I just did a podcast with Ted Cruz, who had
worked with the Amy Kloboshar, the Democrat from Minnesota on
(29:41):
the cour you would be very aware of just last week,
jump sign that bill right, totally bipartisan. Yeah, and it's
possible that you could see just enough bipartisanship on practical
things begin to reknit the system. Uh. Otherwise, what has
to happen is one side of the it has to win.
I mean, historically, when you're in a period where both
(30:05):
sides think it's life and death, and both sides think
they potentially could win or lose, the drive to more
and more extremism. I was right struck. Alan Gwelso is
an extraordinary professor of Abraham Lincoln, and Welso wrote me
at one point in the two thousand and four campaign
and said, the level of vitriol against Trump resembles the
(30:30):
level of vitriol against Lincoln among Southern slaveholders in the
eighteen sixty campaign. He said, you can row almost an
exact parallel, and it's because both the left in its
modern form, and the slaveholders actually saw their way of
life about to be extinguished. I mean Trump is a
mortal threat if you're AOC. He's not just a competitor.
(30:51):
But if he wins, her world has shrinks radically. So
you either have to get to a point where one
side clearly one this is FDR in thirty four thirty six,
where he wins so decisively that everybody operates within the
Rooseveltian world Jefferson after eighteen hundred, I would hope you
(31:13):
could have a combination. That is, I encourage constantly finding
ways to be bipartisan, because I think it's better for
the country. It's how the founding fathers designed the system.
They wanted to make it so hard that it's very,
very difficult, as we just saw in the House, for
a purely partisan effort to work. Yeah, and that's by design.
(31:33):
I mean they wanted to avoid dictatorship by creating a
machine so hard to work that we can't we can
barely get it to work voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I appreciate it. And you have a chapter in the
book you talk about the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
and you know, and our pride and the best of
Greek democracy and the Roman Republic, three co equal branches
of government. I hope that's the spirit that defines that.
I have two final questions over under simple questions, Speaker
(32:03):
Jeffreys sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Chance, oh forty five?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay, Well see we're gonna have to have another episode
on that. And then twenty twenty eight, President Vance.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Probably runs against Governor Newsom. Vice President Advance runs against Advance.
And look at some of your other candidates. I mean,
the governor, of all due respect, the governor of Illinois
as a presidential can give me a break.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I'm not I'm not getting the middle, but I would
not be at all shocked to have a Newsome Advance election.
Well that's a hell of a way to end this podcast.
By the way, I appreciate you doing this. Uh it's
it's a hell of a thing, and I hope folks
got a lot out of it. I certainly did. And
congratulations on your forty fourth book, Trump's Triumph on sale
(32:57):
June third, good sale. Good to see you, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it.
This is Gavin Newsom and Newke Gingridge continues, you worked
on this book, which again is you know, it's very
much in the spirit of Reagan to you talk about
his last speech. I mean, I mean that's where he
talked about Lady Liberty's torch. And you know, we talked
(00:29):
about that life force of New Americans, et cetera, and
and and and again. My my fundamental concern about this
assault on higher education is the impact that we'll have
in terms of our capacity to get these pH ds
and stem folks and and to be able to pull
uh that chill it's already I think having around the
rest of the world, but pull the best in the
(00:50):
brightest minds and and and keep them as part of
that innovation cycle. But you you specifically, I'm you brought
up in the book, which I loved, the Chinese Exclusion Act,
and you know, so much of that comes from you know,
the embers of that are very familiar folks out here
in the Bay Area. You know, I remember what I
would refer to unfairly. I would admit this guy Dennis Kerney,
(01:12):
who was sort of the original Trump, and he began
and ended every speech by saying, whatever else we do.
The Chinese must go, and they were building virtual walls
to keep the Chinese out, and of course the beginning
of the Chinese Exclusion Act ultimately came out of the
Bay Area and some of those movements. But interesting to
me is we're now close to peak immigration. Again. We
(01:36):
dropped very low in nineteen seventy I think it was
four point eight percent, don't quote me, and now we're
closer to fourteen fourteen point eight wherever it is, again,
don't quote me, but it's significantly grown. How concerned are
you talk about assimilation? You talked about the things you
can't talk about from a European prism. But as you
balance the journey to America and you balance this immigration
(01:58):
debate and deal with the ish of criminal behavior and
quote unquote illegal immigration as you refer to it, how
do we find a balance? How do we strike that
balance at peril we go back to the instincts of
the eighteen eighties, or go back, frankly to well, I
mean maybe we're back there today. Curious you're assessment, I
(02:18):
think no.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think first of all, there were two huge challenges.
One is sheer volume. I mean, you can't have six
eight nine million people crossing the border illegally. The other
which I began writing about in the eighties, I was
visited one of the congressmen in Georgia by vietname. He's
(02:41):
a small business owner who said that when he came
over after the fall of Saigon, he and his brother
arrived and he went straight to work, and his brother
got hooked up in southern California with the welfare office
and learned that you could get public housing, and you
could get food stamps and so forth. And so his
brother never developed the kind of entrepreneurial drive because life
(03:04):
was adequate. And it hit me that what had worked
historically in America, which was very tough, people should not
kid themselves. You know. Clossa's grandmother came through all As Island.
We actually went up and looked at her. Her signature
and her.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
From Poland, Is that right, huh Polish?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, she's her grandmother's Polish on her father's side. Ironically,
since she's been nominated to the ambassador of Switzerland, her
grandmother on the on the Swiss side, which is her mother,
is from Burn, So she's actually gone back to her
grandmother's home area. But the paternal grandmother came from Poland
(03:46):
in nineteen o eight and you can literally track her
coming in. Well, every person that came in was inspected
for health, and if you had a communicable disease, you
were excluded and sent back. Everybody was checked to see
if they were willing to go to work, and if
you weren't prepared to work, you were sent back. I mean,
it wasn't you know, It wasn't an automatic open door.
It was it was a it was a controlled open door.
(04:08):
But there was a second part which was very tough.
People expected you to become American. They expected you to
learn English, they expected you to go to work, they
expected you to be a neighbor, expected you to pay
the law. And so there's a great deal of socialization
that went into being an immigrant in the US. We
(04:29):
went into a cycle which which was captured in a
book called the Tragedy of American Compassion. UH, where starting
really in the big way with the great society, it
became inappropriate to suggest to people that they give up
whatever wherever they came from. UH, to say that the
habits and the culture you came from, aren't you know,
(04:50):
So if you happen to come from a place which
engages in clinterectomy. Who are we to suggest as a
matter of women's rights, then maybe that's not a very
good habit, right. It would be like in the middle
of the nineteenth century when sutti was still practiced in
India and widows were expected to be burned on the
with their husbands. So the question becomes, can we find
(05:14):
a path back to work? And I voted for all this,
And in nineteen eighty six we passed the Simpson Zoliac.
We thought we were giving an amnesty to three hundred thousand,
turned out to be three million. And Reagan and his
diary says, I signed the bill because we were going
to get control of the border, and we're going to
(05:35):
have a work permit system so we could control immigration.
And of course he got neither. So is it one
of the guys who voted for this thing?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, you were an advocate. I think what in nineteen
eighty five, right even before when it was in its
infancy in bill form.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So you know, I think you we're not going to
deport ten or twelve or fourteen million people. No, it's
not going to happen. We are going to deport most
of the criminals. And if you are here without having
yet been a criminal, and you become a criminal, we're
going to deport you and then once. I mean my
(06:13):
theory of all this, which may be wrong, but it's
part of what we did a journey to America is
to remind people that it's okay to be against illegal immigration,
but you want to be passionately for legal immigration, and
you want to recognize that they're dividing lines. I'm very
concerned about the Dreamers, the people who came here two three,
(06:34):
four years of age. Tally, they should be treated differently
than they're being treated right now. It's just it's wrong
to toss them in as though they're illegal in any
traditional sense.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So is it just they're just a political football, then
that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, and most of them don't speak the language of
their native country. They grew up in America. For all
practical purposes, it is their native country. So we couldn't
have that debate until we got control of the border.
My guess is that by sometime in twenty seven we
will begin to have a very healthy debate. People will
(07:07):
have calmed down and will now be into how do
we solve this problem as opposed as just being so rigid,
and it may even happen starting in twenty six. I mean,
I thought that the speed I don't know what your
reaction was, but I thought the speed with which they
turned around the southern border was almost unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, I mean directionally it had significantly declined in terms
of the total number of border crossings. But unquestionably, Yeah,
the acuity to which in essence is shut down is
rather remarkable considering where we were two years prior. But
clearly the message was delivered a little bit. In the
last nine months to a year, the Biden administration starting.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
To gradually shift, but then Tom came in and.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
It really no no doubt. I mean, look, rhetoric matters,
and I'm curious just from that perspect because I think
a lot of it was rhetorical. I mean, it was
substantive in terms of some of the moves that he's made,
mostly rhetorical, I think in terms of the impacts even
occurring before in the executive orders when in effect, and
certainly no fundamental legislative shifts yet. But what are you
(08:11):
what about the rhetoric? What about sort of the pain
a lot of our diverse communities feel about the rhetoric
from the President himself. And you know, is it tactical
you say he supports legal immigration. We saw that debate
play out with a Bannon Musk frame, But that debate
is still pretty alive in the base of the mega
movement right anti immagrant legal too.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Look, the challenge for Trump's critics on this line of
reasoning is that he got the highest percentage any Republicans
ever gotten in the Hispanic community. He got the largest
percentage of African American males of any Republican since Eisenhower,
you know, seventy years ago. Right, He's the first Republican
(08:56):
to get a majority of the Catholic vote. So an
awful lot of people who are first and second generation
legal immigrants who are as mad about illegal immigrants as
people whose relatives came over in seventeen hundred. I mean,
there's a sense of I paid my dues, I waited,
(09:16):
I obeyed the law on at frankly, I left these
people behind. I don't want a Venezuelan gang in my neighborhood.
And while that's exaggerated, it's real enough, and particularly if
you look at the people you know who've been killed
or the people who've been raped. You don't need many symbols.
(09:39):
No country decide, you know, I don't. That's a risk.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I just I miss. What I hate is how it's exploited.
And as we know, I mean, we all know the stats.
I mean, native born are more likely to commit crimes
than forum born, legal or or without documentation. But you're right,
I mean what you just said is Poe accurate. It
doesn't take that many examples.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
And I suspect if you limited it down to MS
thirteen gang members be willing gang members. There are enough
examples there. You're right, you can earn a living off
of it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Look, I get your broader point, but I'm encouraged by
your core belief that Trump has the capacity, to your point,
to move if he feels that we've made the progress
on the border to a much more comprehensive conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
You said publicly that we ought to really be thinking
about if you graduate in science or engineering, we give
you a green card with your graduation.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Well that's been challenged by him eliminating all the foreign
students at Harvard.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But we'll see that's now let me suggest to you
as somebody who's studied Trump a pharamount. There's a there's
a John Wayne film where it's really mad at somebody
picks up a chair, breaks it over their head and
his partner turns and says, God, you get really go crazy.
(11:12):
As several foreign governments have learned. You take Trump head
on and he goes nuts, and he says, I'm going
to prove to you it's classic alpha male. I now
have to prove to you who's dominant. Well, Harvard decided
let's test this theory. Okay, So they now have Donald
Trump about four o'clock every morning figuring out what he
(11:33):
can do next. And he is going to beat on
them and beat on them. There's nothing to do with
the rest of the country. I hope not. Harvard has
decided to pick a head on fight. They're a big institution,
They've got a ton of money, they have great prestige,
and we'll see whether or not they can. This is
a little bit like in I think it's nineteen o two,
they have a huge coal mine strike and Theodore Roosevelt
(11:56):
calls him the coal mine owners and says, this is
going to it's settled, and the coal mine. Unders say, well,
you don't understand, we own the coal mines. And Roosevelt says,
you don't understand. I am the President of United States,
and I will have the army take over all of
your minds. And they said, oh, well, let's talk. I mean,
(12:16):
if Harvard were semi smart, you know, this is a
losing fight, you know, if they win round one in court,
because he's going to be there for four years. They
were in one, win one round in court. The Justice
Department will be there with round two, three and four,
and he's not going to give up until they cawtew.
It's just now he's not necessarily going to go and
(12:36):
pick a fight with you know, uh, the Ohio State University,
partly because he likes their football team. As a general rule,
this is classically Trump behaves. You saw just do it
to the Europeans. The Europeans said, we don't want to talk.
He said, fine, fifty percent tariff next Monday.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And then he negotiates against them.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh facts, you do want to talk?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, well, and then he delayed is the I mean,
I by the you will you open this door? And
mister free trade, I remember you back in the day
I'm old enough to remember after and everything else, and
that was bipartisan. It was hardly new Gingridge speaker, Gingridge.
It was celebrated in my party. So you you've evolved,
(13:20):
a lot of folks have not, just you know, including
by the way Democrats. I mean, the tariff policies were
advanced and uh and increased against China in particular during
the Biden administration, but not across the board, not with
this fits and starts, not negotiating against ourselves. Tell me,
you tell me, tell me that you find the approach
(13:40):
to tariff's under the Trump administration full hearty uh and
not necessarily productive at this stage? Or am I missing
this great negotiators capacity to deliver punches like a chess master.
Five months from now? Are year four? Well?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think I think a couple of things. One I
would say, looking back, I was wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Do you say that conveniently or do you I mean, no, I.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Say that because I evolved over ten I'll give you
the best example. I really thought, as did most of
the people who studied it, that opening up China economically
was a great step towards a more open China. And
I totally misunderstood Dung Challpegs Southern tour where he gave
(14:27):
the speeches about markets and said, you know, I don't
care whether it's a black cat or a white cat,
as long as it catches the rat, and sounded like
he was really talking about openness. Well, a couple of
years ago, I did a book called Trump and China,
and I went back and did a lot of research,
and I was frankly pretty embarrassed. I mean, Dung Shaopeng
was one of the twenty four people in Paris who
(14:49):
create the Chinese Commnist Party. He leaves Paris at the
end of World War One, goes to Moscow and spends
a year at Lenin University studying Marxism. Leninism. He is saying,
and none of us caught this. We have to have
a market to create enough prosperity to strengthen the party's
(15:09):
grip on the country, because if people stay too poor,
they're going to throw the party out. So I'm not
going to an open market so I can open up China.
I'm going to open market so I can sustain the dictatorship.
And by the way, since it is a dictatorship and
since we are China, if I get to rip you off.
That's fine, now part of my education. After I left
(15:31):
the speakership, I was approached by a former Walmart president
who's going to do a deal in China, and he
thought having a former speaker would help given negotiating. So
my lawyer talked to the Chinese lawyers and after he
looked at the proposed contract, he said, let me get
this straight. You can you can define what his interest
is worth on any given day, and you can buy
(15:52):
it at your definition. They said, yeah, that's how we
do things. He's not with my client. So it's been
looking at that. And then in the European case, the Europeans,
and this is a genuine tragedy, and I think you
have to read JD. Vans's speeches in Paris and Munich
in this context. And again I'm a European historian. I've
(16:13):
lived in four European countries and I have an enormous
affection for Europe. Historically, the Europeans decided to go to
litigation and regulation rather than innovation, literally the exact opposite
of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
In the long run, that's a losing game. So what
they have to do is they have to somehow tax
Amazon or Apple or Google or Meta or Microsoft because
they literally can't compete with them, and this isn't so
they rig the game in clever ways. And for a
very long time we operated within a model of somehow
(16:53):
trying to get to a balanced world where it would
also you know, the World Trade Organization would work. I
mean I was for China joining the WTO, and then
you realize after a while it just this current system
doesn't work. Now what Trump has done, which I don't
candidly don't think he's explained very well. Trump is a
reversion to the late nineteenth century Republican model, best articulated
(17:17):
by William McKinley, that we are going to have higher
tariff walls, we're going to have higher paid workers, we're
going to have huge prosperity, and in the end, because
we're the largest economy, we have and I mean he
loves this. Yeah, he knows in every negotiation, including China,
in the end, he is the bank they're going to
have to negotiate with it. Sure, And so he's now
(17:40):
going to have an exciting and enthusiastic six or eight months.
I tell all of my friends, do not look at
your stock until August, right.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Or the lack of stock in the warehouse because of
all the indecision and the business chill. I mean, a
lot of people that aren't going to make it five months.
That's my fear and disproportionate number out here in America's
largest economy, California, with all that goods movement, that dock
workers and truckers, and obviously the small business supply chains.
I mean, it's being felt. It's pretty profound. I hope
(18:11):
there's an endgame here, but time is not on the
side of a lot of these small entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think that's right. Look, there's gonna be a lot
of floundering around, and ultimately we may be at a
better future, but the interim is going to be I
tell people, this is not a beer party on a
houseboat on a quiet lake. This is newing in the
rapids of a wild river. And that's just a fact.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
All right, Let's go back, just briefly, because I'd be
remiss if we didn't talk about it. So I here's
this is how I spent my Memorial Day. I somehow
landed on a New Hampshire town hall that you and
President Clinton conducted together. It was shockingly civil tuned in
because I was expecting the opposite, and the fact that
(19:04):
the President of the United States, the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, at the peak of their differences, engaged
in a civil conversation. It makes me long for those
days or wait or not, because my reflection was one
of critique and constant you know, just you know, confrontation, victriol,
(19:27):
government shutdowns. So which was it? What was your relationship like?
Do you remember that day in New Hampshire? What the
hell were you two thinking? And what's happened to our
country since? And how how much do you feel, mister
speaker in the lunch conversation responsible for the first some
(19:48):
of that sort of toxicity as some have described in
our politics as a relations to the relationship that you
had with our party, our party with you and the
contract with American Oh.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Wellther you just managed to ask about three different questions.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I did, Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
So off, Gwen and I had a I think remarkably
good personal relationship. We were about the same age group,
We're both we're both inherently graduate students. We like to
sit around and shoot the breeze about occasionally late at night.
I go down and have a drink with him, and
we just bsked. I mean it was just you know,
(20:27):
as you know, he is one of the great Yes,
it's in American history. I mean all that does relax
and let him roll for a while. And so in
that sense, what happened was which was, which was? And
I wrote a book on it called March to the Majority.
We spent sixteen years growing on Majority. All of it's
standing on Reagan's shoulders. The contract is entirely Reagan, but
(20:51):
when we won, because we had based everything we were
doing on the American people, So every single item in
the contract is seventy percent or better. There's a big
fight in the White House in June of ninety five
and Reagan's staff, I mean Carter Clinton's staff says, you've
got to fight Gingrich. You know, you owe it to
(21:13):
the to the party. And Clinton, Clinton, who had been
beaten in nineteen eighty for reelection and knew that there
wasn't fun, said to them, I do that. I want
to lose. I'm not going to fight Gingrich. I'm going
to protect the things that I have to protect, and
I'm going to take shots I didn't want to can
but I want to work with him because if I
work with him, I'll probably get reelected, and I like
being in the White House. And it was a huge braw.
(21:35):
I mean I remember one point, Leon Panetta. We were
in a negotiating session and Panetta was screaming at him
and saying, you can't give that away. We had Democrats
who lost their seats because they voted for that, and
Clinton's long, yeah, but I don't want to lose my seat,
you know, And then he turned to me and said,
I guess I can't do that one. This may surprise you.
(21:56):
We negotiated for thirty five days, face to face. We
produced this.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I mean literally the two of you in the room,
not outsourcing.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Staff other people around, but the two us sitting across
the table for thirty five days, and we produced the
only four balanced budgets in a century. And we did
it because we listened to each other and we talk
with each other. Now, I was a harsh partisan for
a reason you'll understand perfectly. I mean it's what you
have not You haven't really had the kind of quality
(22:25):
of opposition you should have in California that Methought goes
out and spends sixteen years and gradually becomes the majority,
which is tragic. It's not good for the state.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I hear you again. I mean I get that
argument absolutely, yeah, so sincerely, Yeah, No, So I.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Had to be polarizing because I'm the minority. I mean,
if I'm going to get in, I've got to make
sure that people decide not to vote for the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
And so it's not your natural state. I mean it was,
I mean, I mean it was. It was a very
intentional strategy.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I mean, like this, because I think in some ways
you'll identify my natural state is winning.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
There you go, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
If sitting for thirty five days wins, I'm for winning fighting.
If closing the government for twenty seven days is a
necessary prelude negotiate, I'm for closing the government for twenty
seven days. But they were It's not a personality thing.
They were instrumentalities of getting something done.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
And so that town Hall sort of reflected that that
you guys had a civil conversation outdoors in New Hampshire.
I think he said you happened to be there already
he was coming down. Do you remember it at all?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, Bo Bob Dole had we had this deal. Don't
wanted to run for president, and he didn't want me
because I was the brand new guy on the block
and I was nationally pretty popular at that time. He
didn't want me to run for president. So he loaned
me his entire New Hampshire organization, and I went up
and toured New Hampshire. And while we were up there,
we suddenly heard, Oh, Bill Clinton's going to be here,
(24:01):
and so we promptly said to the press, wouldn't it
be great to get together and have a debate about
or a dialogue about election reform. Well, the White House
suddenly gets this call from the press corps. Is the
President willing to sit down with new Gingrich in New Hampshire.
You can imagine what Clinton's staff said. Wow. And so
they then interviewed me, and I said I'd be delighted
(24:23):
because a great thing for America to have the two
of us told, oh, I wish one. Clinton goes, oh, yeah,
I guess we'll do it. And if you watch it,
I mean he's very good.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, but I mean candidly, it was not I didn't
enjoy it. You were. You were very good. I mean,
answered tough questions. I mean a lot of seniors are
there and you're talking about, you know, cuts to their
programs and others. I mean, it was, it was, it was.
It was a remarkably civil conversation at the highest level.
And but there's not been anything like that since well.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, it was a tragedy. There's a book called
The Pact, written by guy I think a Duke, in
which he found all the papers, interviewed people. Bill and
I actually had an agreement in late ninety seven that
we were going to launch an effort in ninety eight
to reform Medicare and social security, and he would do
(25:16):
it in the State of the Union. I would do
it in a major speech in Georgia, and we were
going to work together. And then Lewinsky occurred. Well, at
that point I had to become partisan, and he had
to go to the left because it was the left
that was going to save him, and so boom. But
the book's kind of fascinating because it's really true. We
did a lot of We created the Heart Rudman Commission,
(25:38):
which was the deepest and biggest review of national security
since nineteen forty eight. And actually after I stepped down,
even though I had helped him impeach him in the house.
They called him, said would you like to serve on
the commission? Since you created it? She said yes, So
so it just did that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
It's fascinating. And you reminded me of the impeachment. I mean,
so what do you And it was the third part
of that three legged stool question. And forgive me for
not articulating it more effectively. But and again this is
not an indictment, but it was in the conversation of
Lunch who said he was never more proud to be
associated with anything than the Contract with America, which was
(26:17):
fascinating to me, how quick he was to not only
defend it, but how reverential he thought it was at
the time, in terms of just being a communication document,
how it had transparency, how it did represent, as you said,
the will of the American people, at least in terms
of the seventy percent threshold, and the fact that you
submitted it to the public, meaning you tested that theory.
(26:39):
But the impeachment, the toxicity, the winning at all costs
hardly new in novel and politics. So I'm not suggesting
you're the OG in this space. But the tea part
people connect this moment to those moments? Is that fair unfair?
Did Democrats oversimplify?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I think we founally mishandled the impeachment, and I think
it was partly because of Kenneth Starr. In my mind,
the impeachment was about committing perjury, and it actually goes
back to arguments we have today about one or not
whether the Supreme Court is ruled. And I suspect that
the Supreme Court already ruled, we wouldn't have had a
(27:20):
leg to stand on. But the question was it was
pretty clear that he had been convicted of committing perjury,
which you know is a follow me, and in fact,
he later on was barred from practicing law for five
years in Arkansas. I thought it was important as a
matter of constitutional record that a president should be held accountable.
(27:42):
But when Starr came out with his report, it was
so lurid and so related to sex that it poisoned
the whole project. I'll never forget that summer. I was
home in August and my two daughters and I went
to lunch at Okay Cafe, and and they both looked
at it, and they said to me, if our four oh
(28:04):
one case get destroyed, because of some stupid intern We're
going to be really pissed off. I thought, okay, I
had clearly misunderstood the American people and how they were
going to rank, how this was going to work. And
in a way, Clinton's a whole behavior from ninety two
on changed the whole context in which you deal with
(28:27):
sexual issues in politics. Yeah, you couldn't imagine the Hillary
Clinton Donald Trump the last debate in a pre Bill
Clinton world. That's insponsible.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Well, and of course Bannon bringing out the ghosts of
the past in the front row of that debate as well.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
That it was Bannon who said to me, we concluded
she was going to go to the basement and we
were going to get there first.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, that was a look. Look in closing, give me
something more optimistic. Are we get Look, I'm new scum? Yeah,
mean here we are. I appreciate your book. Like June third,
we got We've got Trump's triumph. But in new scum
everything's scum. This, this sort of divisiveness, this everyone's longing
to figure out a way to get damn back together
(29:16):
and start to solve problems.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Says a historian, One of two things has to happen either,
there has to be a very concerted effort to reach
out and to try to find bipartisan ways to work together.
I just did a podcast with Ted Cruz, who had
worked with the Amy Kloboshar, the Democrat from Minnesota on
(29:41):
the cour you would be very aware of just last week,
jump sign that bill right, totally bipartisan. Yeah, and it's
possible that you could see just enough bipartisanship on practical
things begin to reknit the system. Uh. Otherwise, what has
to happen is one side of the it has to win.
I mean, historically, when you're in a period where both
(30:05):
sides think it's life and death, and both sides think
they potentially could win or lose, the drive to more
and more extremism. I was right struck. Alan Gwelso is
an extraordinary professor of Abraham Lincoln, and Welso wrote me
at one point in the two thousand and four campaign
and said, the level of vitriol against Trump resembles the
(30:30):
level of vitriol against Lincoln among Southern slaveholders in the
eighteen sixty campaign. He said, you can row almost an
exact parallel, and it's because both the left in its
modern form, and the slaveholders actually saw their way of
life about to be extinguished. I mean Trump is a
mortal threat if you're AOC. He's not just a competitor.
(30:51):
But if he wins, her world has shrinks radically. So
you either have to get to a point where one
side clearly one this is FDR in thirty four thirty six,
where he wins so decisively that everybody operates within the
Rooseveltian world Jefferson after eighteen hundred, I would hope you
(31:13):
could have a combination. That is, I encourage constantly finding
ways to be bipartisan, because I think it's better for
the country. It's how the founding fathers designed the system.
They wanted to make it so hard that it's very,
very difficult, as we just saw in the House, for
a purely partisan effort to work. Yeah, and that's by design.
(31:33):
I mean they wanted to avoid dictatorship by creating a
machine so hard to work that we can't we can
barely get it to work voluntarily.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I appreciate it. And you have a chapter in the
book you talk about the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
and you know, and our pride and the best of
Greek democracy and the Roman Republic, three co equal branches
of government. I hope that's the spirit that defines that.
I have two final questions over under simple questions, Speaker
(32:03):
Jeffreys sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Chance, oh forty five?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Okay, Well see we're gonna have to have another episode
on that. And then twenty twenty eight, President Vance.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Probably runs against Governor Newsom. Vice President Advance runs against Advance.
And look at some of your other candidates. I mean,
the governor, of all due respect, the governor of Illinois
as a presidential can give me a break.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I'm not I'm not getting the middle, but I would
not be at all shocked to have a Newsome Advance election.
Well that's a hell of a way to end this podcast.
By the way, I appreciate you doing this. Uh it's
it's a hell of a thing, and I hope folks
got a lot out of it. I certainly did. And
congratulations on your forty fourth book, Trump's Triumph on sale
(32:57):
June third, good sale. Good to see you, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it.
Host
Gavin Newsom
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