[DOUGLAS BRINKLEY] Anybody
have any questions?

[EVAN SMITH] Yes, Steve
will get the microphone set.

Okay, so if you have questions,

you're welcome to come down

and we'll take as many
as time permits. Dan.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER]
Before to go on,

Molly Ivins would
also be a great,

along with Hunter.

There's a great documentary

on her at South By.

[SMITH] Yes. [AUDIENCE
MEMBER] Anyway, what about

the Democratic
field. Your thoughts?

[SMITH] Do you have a view
on the Democrats' prospects

in the next election?
[BRINKLEY] I do,

I think it's all

about whether Joe
Biden runs or not.

And it looks like--

[SMITH] Looks like
he's going to, right?

[BRINKLEY] And if Biden runs,

I think he'll be a front runner

for almost the whole time

and it would really
take somebody

to turn the apple cart over

in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Beto O'Rourke from
Texas has a shot at it

if he could win Iowa.

That's a demographic that
should be good for him.

And if he could be
the darling of Iowa

and suddenly wins there,

he could be on a
great trajectory.

But it he loses Iowa,

Biden's gonna do well
in New Hampshire.

[SMITH] And especially
South Carolina.

He'll do very well
in South Carolina.

[BRINKLEY] --South Carolina.

And then he gets to California

and you have Kamala Harris there

and she's gonna grab
a bunch of delegates.

Where would a Beto
O'Rourke start gathering

all those delegates?

But the Bernie Sanders vote

has been deeply
underappreciated.

I don't think Bernie's going

to shrink in appeal.

He is proven

to have a lot of loyalty.

So you're looking
at Biden and Bernie.

And then there's oxygen for

a third major player,

maybe four.

Cory Booker still has a chance.

I thought Senator Klobuchar,

Amy Klobuchar in
Minnesota is terrific

but her fundraising is anemic.

So she would have
to find a way to

get a little more zip in her.

But the bottom line is,

as a historian speaking,

2020 is a hundred years

of women getting
the right to vote.

And the Democratic party
cannot have a non-woman,

there has to be a woman

on the ticket.

[SMITH] I agree with you.

The rocket booster
of that last election

for the Democrats
in which they were,

they had pretty
good election cycle,

were young people,

women and people of color.

To not acknowledge
that in some way

is really to snatch
potential victory from

or defeat rather from the
jaws of potential victory.

[BRINKLEY] I agree completely,

I mean, what I'm suggesting
if Bernie or Biden

or O'Rourke happen to get

the nomination they
would have to pick

a person of color or a woman.

Kamala Harris would be very
good choice at that point.

You couldn't do
Biden-Klobuchar in my view.

Maybe but I think you have to
show diversity as a Democrat.

[SMITH] You would
agree Doug, also,

in view of the resolution

of the Mueller investigation

the President may very
well get re-elected.

[BRINKLEY] Yes.

[SMITH] Right? Don't
you think you have

to go into it assuming.

[BRINKLEY] There is no question,

Donald Trump is a lot stronger

than the Democratic
Party likes to admit.

I mean if we,

we're divided.

People watch Fox News,

people watch CNN, MSNBC.

You know, people pull
off in different areas.

But Donald Trump now has some,

has some wind in
his sail even with

all the scandals and it's

the most scandal
plagued president.

There are more ugly
scandals surrounding him

than Warren Harding in
the Teapot Dome era.

I mean, this is a
scandal plagued president

but nevertheless when you
don't see Republicans breaking

from him.

I mean, when Nixon

went down it's when Barry
Goldwater and Howard Baker

and leading lights
said you lied,

you're toast.

You don't see Lindsey
Graham doing that.

You know, we're not seeing
the Republicans showing that

'cause they're very
afraid to be nuked

by the Trump machine.

To be ridiculed on Sean
Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

To be, you know,

people were primaried
from the right

and so they're being very mute.

[SMITH] Ma'am?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] Thank
you for being here.

Well, with Trump,

he doesn't read,

he doesn't read
any of the reports

that are given to him

and he just tweets.

And I got to recently
at South By they had,

they had a fake,

faux presidential
library of tweets

of his and to go back and read

what these real things are,

I was wondering how
do things really work

in the White House so quickly

and all the things that
he's changed and he's packed

the court system.

Who is the,

does he have a Carl Rove
type person behind him doing

these things and
making it all happen

because he just doesn't
seem capable of it.

And I remember what about
a year and a half ago

something came out
in the New York Times

and it was this group
of people that kept,

they said we're here
in the White House

and we're really
saving the America,

we're keeping his
finger off the button.

[SMITH] That was the
opinion piece, right?

[BRINKLEY] Right.

[SMITH] There was
the opinion piece

that was signed anonymous.

So what about that? How do you--

[AUDIENCE MEMBER]
How is it working?

[BRINKLEY] Well, I think
different presidents use media

in different ways.

FDR with radio, John F. Kennedy,

the press conference.

You know, Obama was like the
first Blackberry president.

Twitter and Donald Trump,

the marriage of them has been,

is grotesque in my
mind, quite disastrous.

Instead of having
thoughtful policy,

the president jumps
over everybody

and puts out inflammatory things

to be talked about.

He is of the school that it's
better to be talked about

than not and be in
the front and center

of every news cycle
no matter what it is.

And I thought the
recklessness of his Twitter,

I knew it was great
for the campaign,

it didn't surprise me
that that would track

but I thought that as
president you would have

to tone it down and he hasn't.

And I still think if
he's ever indicted

for something there may be a
Twitter that's going to get him

into trouble but alas
people now find it just

part of the new normal.

Ah, Trump did a
crazy Tweet today

and he's down some
just crazy wacko things

and it creates a
sense of instability

but it makes him talked about.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] Thank you.

[SMITH] Miss Lava.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER]
Good afternoon.

I'm interested from your point

of view as a historian and a
writer who looks at history,

how future historians are going

to deal with technology

and deal with people
erasing things.

And just having the
record that you rely on

these last decades
and centuries.

How are people in
the future going

to keep an accurate or
try to keep an accurate

evaluation of what's going on?

[SMITH] Do you have confidence

in the archiving of
electronic documents

and communications?

[BRINKLEY] Excellent question.

And I think about it a lot.

I'm afraid it's not gonna
be very satisfactory

I do think there are gonna be

a lot of deletes.

Everything's gonna
be digitalization.

There are,

we're not,

what historians
traditionally do is read

other people's
mail for a living.

The leavings of the past

but now the deletions are
going to be just gigantic.

Where we pick up some capitol
is in the visual world.

You know how many speeches,

you know we don't have taped
speeches of Abraham Lincoln,

but anybody who's
not just president,

but senators being on C-SPAN.

Or they're people taping
every campaign stop.

There's film footage
of everywhere,

all the Democrats running,

every day every speech
is being filmed.

So in some ways the
visual components

and the transcripts
that are emanated

from those are gonna go up.

But the real inside
baseball kind

of personal and professional
documentation I think

is going to get sanitized

or deleted or hidden.

[SMITH] Don't you think
also the campaigns

and candidates and
people in public life,

are on to all of us now?

[BRINKLEY] Yes.

[SMITH] In a way that
they weren't before

so they're much more
conscious of the fact

that anything that they say--

[BRINKLEY] Yes.

[SMITH] --may be
saved for posterity.

That the E in email
stands for everybody.

[BRINKLEY] Exactly.
[SMITH] Right, and so they

no longer will say things
that may have value

to future historians for
fear that what will happen

to them is what happened
to people previously.

[BRINKLEY] Completely.
That's exactly what it is.

And yeah, I tell my students

at Rice University where I teach

you know email is permanent.

This idea, yes it's a good idea

to delete it if
you put something

that you don't like so you
don't have to remind yourself

that you wrote it.

But try not to be reckless

on using something like email.

But here we have the president

of the United States
recklessly using Twitter.

If Donald Trump
had been an emailer

I think he'd be in deep,

criminal problems for the way

that he's dealt with monies.

But he's never done an
email in his entire life.

And that's one of the problems,

Mueller doesn't have
an email record of him.

[SMITH] Right.

[BRINKLEY] And he's learned
to be as well he's reckless

of being a fake person
representing himself

on a phone call,

he's careful on his business
transactions not to put it

in writing and to
be dodgy about it.

So it's hard to get that they--

Everybody says how can
he be president with

all the things he did?

But nobody's been
able to bust him,

a whole career of this.

Building buildings
that he didn't build

and putting his name on 'em

and he's not done jail time.

Jared Kushner is the maestro

of the internet.

He is deeply facile at
bank wires and monies.

[SMITH] Secure apps. [BRINKLEY]
Secure apps and all of that.

And I think

to answer an earlier question,

he's probably will be,

end up to have been more
seminal keeping an eye

on President Trump
than we think.

[SMITH] How's our time?

Take these last
two? Very good. Sir.

We'll do these
quickly. Yes, sir.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] I've
never read any of your books

but now I'm a fan of yours.

I'm a big space junkie,

and also Hunter S.
Thompson fellow alumnae

of the Air Force
public affairs field.

[BRINKLEY] Oh my goodness!

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] Yeah,
you ever read his articles

when he was--

[BRINKLEY] Oh, I've
read everything Hunter,

I mean, I became
quite friends with him

and that's why I'm
Literary Executor

but he was in the Air Force

for a while and would
write incredible articles,

the Bart Star ones and
all. It's amazing stuff.

[SMITH] Question?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] My
question, I'm sorry,

it's gonna be about space.

[SMITH] Sure, of course.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER]
Is that all right?

It's a little off topic.

[SMITH] Please, please.

It's on topic.
[AUDIENCE MEMBER] But um,

about 2009 we sort of,

NASA had to come away from

the whole space exploration
program, sort of.

You know the budget
was cut drastically.

I'm just wondering how you
feel where we'd be right now

if we didn't lose all
that time you know

almost 10 years now
plus we lost time

with disasters.

Do you think we'd
be further along?

Do you also believe we'd
be allowing civilians

to go ahead and start
working out on the moon.

Or even on the asteroid,

yeah asteroids.
[SMITH] Where would we be

if we hadn't lost that time?

[BRINKLEY] We would
have been to Mars.

We would have been
aiming to go to Mars,

we would have been
back to the moon

and perhaps built some
sort of facility there.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER]
A gateway project.

[BRINKLEY] A gateway project.

And, you know,

NASA still has a relevance

with meteorological
forecasting when you deal

with climate change,

it's a lot of,

the GPS of today grew
a lot out of NASA

anti-icing devices,

you know, the
satellites we put up

to look at planet earth

and all of that have
been incredibly useful

for the modern world

but you can't just
keep defunding

something like NASA
and expect the results.

And we just are,

it's become an easy slash item

for people looking to do cuts

in government expenditure.

Which is ironic because it's one

of the government agencies
most Americans adore.

[SMITH] Love it,

right that's exactly
right, good question.

Thank you.

Last question here. Ma'am. Hi.

[AUDIENCE MEMBER] Hello.
In your career of research

and writing books have
you noticed your mode

of research change as
technology changed?

And then if you could speak on,

what is your favorite
part of what you do?

[BRINKLEY] My favorite
part on the first part

is I love traveling

to places in the United States.

So I actually love
going to unusual places

to do research,

to going to Huntsville, Alabama

to research NASA. To go

to the jet propulsion
laboratory in Pasadena.

You know, these
kind of trips to me

are really fun.

The research part
I love the most.

The part I don't like is having

to whittle down all your
research into something

that's not too fat.

Contrary--

[SMITH] So this is the
whittled down version?

[BRINKLEY] That is whittled.

That's as whittled
down as I can do, guys,

without because there's
such large topics.

And that's why Robert Caro

of Lyndon Johnson has it right

doing LBJ in a lot of volumes.

You can really do it,

but it's hard to do FDR

in 300 pages.
[SMITH] Yeah, right.

[BRINKLEY] And so lately I've
been trying to do aspects,

Kennedy and the moon,

or Theodore Roosevelt
and conservation.

Because then you can do a part

of their legacy but doing it all

in one volume is a
little bit tricky.

But I'm old fashioned.

Well, let me just
say it's I came out

of the book culture.

I still read my
books in this form.

I don't read Kindle.

Nothing against Kindle.
Please use Kindle for my book.

But I went to graduate school

and worked my way
through working

the used book business,
antiquarian books.

I was the night manager
in Washington, D.C.

at Second Story Books,

at Dupont Circle.

And then I managed Idle Times

in Adams Morgan.

I then got sent buying
rare antiquarian books.

I used to see Larry McMurtry

all the time up in DC constantly

because he was in the
same book world up there--

[SMITH] Yep.
[BRINKLEY] --when I was young.

And so I'm a book collector,

I like signed books.

I liked first editions,

I like the dust jackets,

I'm a book person.

[SMITH] It's not gonna change.

[BRINKLEY] And that's,

I will continue to like books
more than anything online.

[SMITH] Good. Give Doug
Brinkley a big hand.

Thank you so much
for being with us.

[BRINKLEY] Thank you.

[SMITH] Thank you all.
We'll see you again.

(audience applauding)