WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:03.040 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Welcome to the Extra. I'm Robert Costa. 00:03.040 --> 00:08.980 align:start Tonight we return to that Washington Week bookshelf, where we bring the nation's best 00:08.980 --> 00:13.240 align:start authors to our table to discuss their latest work. 00:13.240 --> 00:18.600 align:start Our guest is John Dickerson, 60 Minutes correspondent, political analyst for CBS News, 00:18.600 --> 00:25.820 align:start and author of the fascinating new book The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. 00:25.820 --> 00:30.810 align:start But before we bring in John, let's recall some of the biggest moments of those who have 00:30.810 --> 00:34.850 align:start held the hardest job in the world in modern times. 00:34.850 --> 00:38.910 align:start FORMER PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY: (From video.) Ask not what your country can do 00:38.910 --> 00:42.610 align:start for you, ask what you can do for your country. 00:42.610 --> 00:45.020 align:start FORMER PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: (From video.) People have got to know whether or not 00:45.020 --> 00:47.920 align:start their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. 00:47.920 --> 00:51.180 align:start FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: (From video.) Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. 00:51.180 --> 00:54.090 align:start FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: (From video.) I can hear you. The rest of the 00:54.090 --> 01:00.950 align:start world hears you. And the people - (cheers, applause) - and the people who knocked 01:00.950 --> 01:06.150 align:start these buildings down will hear all of us soon. 01:06.150 --> 01:10.950 align:start FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.) Out of this terrible tragedy God has 01:10.950 --> 01:20.890 align:start visited grace upon us, for he has allowed us to see where we've been blind. 01:20.890 --> 01:35.040 align:start (Singing.) Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. 01:35.040 --> 01:41.400 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) This American carnage stops right here and stops 01:41.400 --> 01:50.950 align:start right now. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first. 01:50.950 --> 01:56.420 align:start JOHN DICKERSON: Thank you, Bob. What a - what a panoply of sound that was. 01:56.420 --> 02:01.450 align:start COSTA: And John, we did not play sound from the Founding Fathers because it does not 02:01.450 --> 02:07.600 align:start exist, but if we had sound from the Founding Fathers talking about the American presidency 02:07.600 --> 02:13.260 align:start and the amount of power that should be contained in that office, what would they say? 02:13.260 --> 02:17.510 align:start DICKERSON: What the founders would say about the presidency is when you need it, you 02:17.510 --> 02:22.860 align:start really need it. Gautam Mukunda, who's a professor at Harvard, says the presidency's 02:22.860 --> 02:26.980 align:start like an airbag; you may not think about it, but in an emergency you need it. 02:26.980 --> 02:30.630 align:start And that's the way the founders thought about it, and that's what we see in the multiple 02:30.630 --> 02:33.650 align:start emergencies the president faces today. 02:33.650 --> 02:38.430 align:start That's what the presidency is required to do, is answer those moments of crisis. 02:38.430 --> 02:42.060 align:start But they would have quickly hastened, the founders would, to say we may give the 02:42.060 --> 02:46.560 align:start president emergency powers and give the president powers to do things alone as a single 02:46.560 --> 02:51.250 align:start human that are very tempting - because they worried so much about ambition and the abuse 02:51.250 --> 02:55.780 align:start of it - we may give a president these powers, but we are going to shackle the president 02:55.780 --> 03:00.930 align:start and weigh Congress against him and give the courts power so that a president doesn't get 03:00.930 --> 03:04.620 align:start out of control. Which means if they looked at the presidency today, with its 03:04.620 --> 03:08.730 align:start multiplying duties and the power that's been given to the president sometimes by 03:08.730 --> 03:14.060 align:start Congress itself, they would be quite in a state of fretting and worry. 03:14.060 --> 03:21.120 align:start COSTA: John, we just saw a photo of Lyndon Baines Johnson go across our screen here, and he is a 03:21.120 --> 03:29.580 align:start prominent character in your book. Why did LBJ matter when it comes to understanding the presidency? 03:29.580 --> 03:34.580 align:start DICKERSON: Lyndon Johnson mattered in looking at the presidency because, one, he loved 03:34.580 --> 03:40.180 align:start political power. He loved husbanding it. He loved finding it. He loved using it. 03:40.180 --> 03:44.610 align:start And so he was a - he was a political animal who believed that if you gained power in all 03:44.610 --> 03:49.810 align:start of its different ways, including flattering your opponent or flattering somebody you 03:49.810 --> 03:54.920 align:start needed something from - he wasn't just a bully; he was also a great flatterer as a way to 03:54.920 --> 03:59.880 align:start gain power through that - that you could use power and do good with it. And he was presented 03:59.880 --> 04:04.530 align:start with a moment in the assassination of John F. Kennedy to move and do something with it. 04:04.530 --> 04:08.690 align:start He was presented with a moment after the beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to use that 04:08.690 --> 04:12.190 align:start moment to try to get civil rights legislation passed. 04:12.190 --> 04:17.880 align:start And he was also a complicated, failed, gnarled person with lots of carbuncles on his 04:17.880 --> 04:22.060 align:start character, which represent the full complexity of the presidency. 04:22.060 --> 04:26.730 align:start We do not elect angels in part because the job of getting the presidency - and this was 04:26.730 --> 04:30.980 align:start something the founders worried about - the job of getting the presidency requires some 04:30.980 --> 04:36.720 align:start low acts now and again, and nevertheless you are elevated to a job where you can harness 04:36.720 --> 04:42.200 align:start your ambition and your skill to do great things for millions of people and generations. 04:42.200 --> 04:46.600 align:start COSTA: And one of LBJ's tactics was - they called it the treatment, right, where he 04:46.600 --> 04:52.250 align:start would lean up against people and physically loom over them to try to get a deal done. 04:52.250 --> 04:57.940 align:start But John, we don't see those kind of LBJ-style deals as much anymore; we see a lot more 04:57.940 --> 05:03.560 align:start executive orders, presidents having their own orders from the Oval Office, rather than 05:03.560 --> 05:07.550 align:start working with Congress. Is that a product of the lack of bipartisanship in 05:07.550 --> 05:10.450 align:start Congress, or is something else happening? 05:10.450 --> 05:13.510 align:start DICKERSON: It's a product of two things. 05:13.510 --> 05:17.090 align:start You and I have been in a lot of those gymnasiums and VFW halls and listened to candidates 05:17.090 --> 05:21.430 align:start make promises that just balloon outside the room they are so grand and they are on every 05:21.430 --> 05:27.220 align:start scale. And we have come as a country to expect presidents alone to do the job, and what that 05:27.220 --> 05:31.480 align:start does is it creates an expectation from the campaigns that when they get into office they 05:31.480 --> 05:34.620 align:start will move quickly and with great results. 05:34.620 --> 05:38.020 align:start And under that kind of pressure once you get into office, you have to do something. 05:38.020 --> 05:41.930 align:start The work with Congress is slow, dull, patient, full of compromises. 05:41.930 --> 05:46.060 align:start That's not the pace that you set when you're out there campaigning, so you use a lot of 05:46.060 --> 05:50.570 align:start executive orders to make it look like you're making more progress than you actually are. 05:50.570 --> 05:53.930 align:start But the other thing that has changed is something you and I have covered a long time 05:53.930 --> 05:58.220 align:start too, which is the structure in politics has changed so much since the days of Lyndon 05:58.220 --> 06:02.440 align:start Johnson or even the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill could make a deal together. 06:02.440 --> 06:06.320 align:start And in writing the book I went back to sort of try and trace the roots of what happened, 06:06.320 --> 06:09.950 align:start and basically what happened is we lost split-ticket voting. 06:09.950 --> 06:13.580 align:start Voters who used to vote for a Republican president but a Democratic senator, or a 06:13.580 --> 06:17.150 align:start Republican president and a Democratic House member, they don't exist so much anymore for 06:17.150 --> 06:20.550 align:start a variety of reasons which I detail. 06:20.550 --> 06:24.220 align:start And so the structural thing that made people get into a room and reason with each other, 06:24.220 --> 06:28.850 align:start because the voters were going to hold them to account, a lot of those structures have disappeared. 06:28.850 --> 06:33.650 align:start Now the structure of politics encourages a lot of behavior that's basically acting out, a 06:33.650 --> 06:39.820 align:start lot of frantic declarations on cable TV, a lot of behavior on Twitter that doesn't 06:39.820 --> 06:45.130 align:start produce anything other than rage in your political base, which keeps getting you elected 06:45.130 --> 06:49.580 align:start but doesn't actually get anything done once you are elected. 06:49.580 --> 06:53.890 align:start COSTA: John, one thing this pandemic has brought to the fore of our national debate is 06:53.890 --> 07:00.440 align:start the question of who is in charge - is it a governor in a state that's dealing with an 07:00.440 --> 07:04.920 align:start outbreak, is it President Trump, is it Vice President Pence and his taskforce? 07:04.920 --> 07:09.690 align:start And you interviewed Vice President Pence last month and got this issue that's mentioned 07:09.690 --> 07:15.080 align:start in your book, the tension between presidents and state officials about who's in charge, 07:15.080 --> 07:18.490 align:start especially during crisis moments. Let's take a listen. 07:18.490 --> 07:21.970 align:start VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: (From video.) One of the elements of the genius of America is 07:21.970 --> 07:26.350 align:start the principle of federalism, of state and local control. We've made it clear that we want to 07:26.350 --> 07:31.050 align:start defer to governors, we want to defer to local officials, and that people should listen to them. 07:31.050 --> 07:34.090 align:start DICKERSON: (From video.) But Mr. Vice President, the virus doesn't know federalism. 07:34.090 --> 07:36.910 align:start A virus that hits in Texas is in New York tomorrow. 07:36.910 --> 07:41.820 align:start This is a problem that requires a coordinated national result. 07:41.820 --> 07:47.060 align:start COSTA: John, what did the vice president's answer reveal to you? 07:47.060 --> 07:52.530 align:start DICKERSON: Well, it revealed a couple of things. It revealed, basically, an attempt to 07:52.530 --> 07:57.250 align:start find a rationale for criticisms of the administration's tardy response to this pandemic. 07:57.250 --> 08:01.550 align:start We know there is a federal expectation of a response to the pandemic because they've been 08:01.550 --> 08:07.230 align:start practicing it for the last three presidencies. The Trump administration coming into 08:07.230 --> 08:12.410 align:start office practiced with the outgoing Obama administration what they would do if a pandemic 08:12.410 --> 08:16.240 align:start hit, what the federal government would do if a pandemic hit. There are all kinds of 08:16.240 --> 08:20.440 align:start reports within various different agencies about the federal response. 08:20.440 --> 08:25.240 align:start The Obama team had a response, a 90-some-odd-page booklet they wrote about how to respond 08:25.240 --> 08:29.790 align:start at the federal level to a pandemic. George W. Bush went on vacation and read the book 08:29.790 --> 08:34.920 align:start about the 1918 swine - Spanish flu, came back and told Fran Townsend, who was his top 08:34.920 --> 08:40.640 align:start domestic terrorism advisor, we need a plan for a pandemic; she came up with one. 08:40.640 --> 08:44.350 align:start So we know there's a federal response. That doesn't mean governors don't have a lot to 08:44.350 --> 08:49.850 align:start do too, but there is a federal response, and the president has been tardy in embracing that. 08:49.850 --> 08:53.080 align:start The reason there's a federal response is, as I discussed with the vice president, the 08:53.080 --> 08:55.690 align:start virus travels across state lines. 08:55.690 --> 08:59.390 align:start The principles of federalism, which are important in the response - for example, if 08:59.390 --> 09:03.710 align:start you're trying to get somebody to wear a mask, it's more powerful if your local official 09:03.710 --> 09:11.120 align:start encourages you to do it than if a distant bureaucrat in Washington, or even a politician 09:11.120 --> 09:14.700 align:start in Washington, does it. There are elements of federalism. But the coordination, the 09:14.700 --> 09:19.610 align:start fast movement, the emergency action is really - you can - the federal government has a 09:19.610 --> 09:24.010 align:start very significant role to play. And there is a national rallying job for the president. 09:24.010 --> 09:29.310 align:start You played that clip from FDR at his first inaugural, nothing to fear but fear itself. 09:29.310 --> 09:33.250 align:start He talked in that speech, mentioned the word "action" eight times. 09:33.250 --> 09:37.980 align:start Presidents rush to the challenge usually in the American system. 09:37.980 --> 09:42.750 align:start And in this case, there was an opportunity for the president to rush into the challenge, 09:42.750 --> 09:48.330 align:start to speak to the country as its most powerful spokesperson, to deliver clear information 09:48.330 --> 09:50.960 align:start about what was going on. 09:50.960 --> 09:54.630 align:start That's, when you talk to disaster experts, the most important thing is clear information. 09:54.630 --> 09:59.190 align:start Even if the information is to say we don't know much what's going on, is to have one 09:59.190 --> 10:02.880 align:start single, clean piece of information coming from a high level. The president could have 10:02.880 --> 10:07.610 align:start done that. Instead, he gave very conflicting - and continues to this day to give 10:07.610 --> 10:12.980 align:start conflicting advice about everything from masks, to tests, to a host of other things. 10:12.980 --> 10:18.950 align:start COSTA: John, you book ends with a chapter about this upcoming election 2020, and it 10:18.950 --> 10:23.110 align:start anticipates President Trump's appeals to suburban voters. 10:23.110 --> 10:26.520 align:start You write, quote, "Suburban Republicans, particularly women, who took a chance on Trump 10:26.520 --> 10:30.440 align:start in 2016 moved away from him over time. 10:30.440 --> 10:34.530 align:start So to win reelection, Trump must go for the throat, pushing his strategy against 10:34.530 --> 10:42.350 align:start Democrats even further." What did you take away from your own reporting and research 10:42.350 --> 10:49.190 align:start about President Trump's suburban strategy in 2020, and how history informs it? 10:49.190 --> 10:53.680 align:start DICKERSON: One of the downsides of writing a book is that at some point you have to put 10:53.680 --> 10:57.950 align:start the pen down. And the book was finished before George Floyd's death, before COVID, 10:57.950 --> 11:03.550 align:start before the economic collapse. And so that picture of the suburbs, which is still true, 11:03.550 --> 11:06.810 align:start has been changed a little bit in the wake of those things. 11:06.810 --> 11:11.480 align:start We've seen extraordinary movement even further away from the president in the suburbs 11:11.480 --> 11:15.790 align:start because of his failed response, as those voters see it, 11:15.790 --> 11:20.170 align:start to the racial questions in America, and the notion of implicit racial bias that a lot of 11:20.170 --> 11:24.960 align:start people in the suburbs believe exist and have seen the president not only have no real 11:24.960 --> 11:29.620 align:start answer to those issues, but not even seem to be able to hear the complaints that are 11:29.620 --> 11:33.660 align:start being voiced in the streets of America about the racial inequities. 11:33.660 --> 11:36.810 align:start And so that has hurt his position in the suburbs. 11:36.810 --> 11:40.400 align:start What I was writing about is what we see the president trying still to do, and which he 11:40.400 --> 11:45.590 align:start is having some difficulty doing, which is essentially criticizing the other, which is 11:45.590 --> 11:50.340 align:start talking about those radical liberal Democrats, talk about the Chinese, basically follow 11:50.340 --> 11:55.150 align:start the playbook that we've seen before, going all the way back to Governor Wallace, to 11:55.150 --> 12:01.880 align:start Richard Nixon, where they raise boogeymen in order to basically say to their base: You 12:01.880 --> 12:07.200 align:start may or may not like me, but the enemy on the other side is at the door, and they are 12:07.200 --> 12:11.290 align:start dangerous. And so we must all gather together against them. 12:11.290 --> 12:14.850 align:start The problem for the president is that as he tries to do that, following his traditional 12:14.850 --> 12:19.910 align:start playbook, reality has inserted something else, which is the consistent question of 12:19.910 --> 12:25.040 align:start whether he has been up to the task of handling these three big problems he faces. 12:25.040 --> 12:31.760 align:start COSTA: You almost said Mike Wallace there, 60 Minutes on your mind on a Friday night, John, clearly. 12:31.760 --> 12:36.630 align:start DICKERSON: (Laughs.) You have a good ear, Bob. 12:36.630 --> 12:41.980 align:start COSTA: Hey, John, just to wrap up here, I was really intrigued by your book because it 12:41.980 --> 12:47.240 align:start comes three and a half years into the Trump presidency, the ultimate outsider to this 12:47.240 --> 12:53.050 align:start institution. And you're grappling with this institution, its history, its power in the Trump era. 12:53.050 --> 12:57.880 align:start But we're also in the middle of an election where Vice President Biden could in less than 12:57.880 --> 13:02.630 align:start 100 days become president of the United States, president-elect. You've covered Biden 13:02.630 --> 13:08.070 align:start for a long time. He's about to make his vice presidential selection. Based on your 13:08.070 --> 13:14.380 align:start experience with him over the years, how does he see the presidency, and why does that matter? 13:14.380 --> 13:20.310 align:start DICKERSON: It's a great question. He sees the presidency, of course, from two special 13:20.310 --> 13:23.820 align:start vantage points in Washington. A long-time member of the Senate who has worked with 13:23.820 --> 13:27.600 align:start presidents of both parties, but then working inside the administration. 13:27.600 --> 13:31.530 align:start And one of the things I did in the book is go back and look at a lot of what Mitch 13:31.530 --> 13:35.850 align:start McConnell had said and then what he wrote in The Long Game, his book about Washington. 13:35.850 --> 13:40.010 align:start And in that book he gives Joe Biden all kinds of credit for being able to work with him. 13:40.010 --> 13:44.590 align:start Mitch McConnell was no pal of Barack Obama's, and the feeling was mutual. 13:44.590 --> 13:48.600 align:start And yet, Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell could get business done, in part because they 13:48.600 --> 13:53.330 align:start recognized something we don't talk much about in campaigns, but which is a truth of 13:53.330 --> 13:56.820 align:start Washington, which is deal making is a little ugly. 13:56.820 --> 14:00.290 align:start And deal making requires you to kind of put aside the fact that you may violently 14:00.290 --> 14:04.880 align:start disagree with the person you're negotiating with on 90 percent of what they believe. 14:04.880 --> 14:10.200 align:start But you focus on the 10, and you make the deal, and you make the progress you can on the 14:10.200 --> 14:15.880 align:start 10 percent. And Joe Biden believes that. Ronald Reagan believed that. FDR believed that. 14:15.880 --> 14:20.420 align:start And so Joe Biden believes in working within the system. And so his vice presidential 14:20.420 --> 14:24.780 align:start pick, I think, while it will spend - first of all, it's the best window into his 14:24.780 --> 14:29.180 align:start current state of decision making. And the presidency is a job of making decisions. 14:29.180 --> 14:32.660 align:start So we are going to get to see in real time how the vice president makes decisions. 14:32.660 --> 14:36.790 align:start And one thing he wants to do, of course, is keep his party unified at a moment where 14:36.790 --> 14:41.160 align:start America is having a complete rethinking of its racial landscape. 14:41.160 --> 14:44.820 align:start And he wants to take advantage of that as the person who can reshape that landscape in 14:44.820 --> 14:48.650 align:start the best and most equitable way that's consistent with our founding principles. 14:48.650 --> 14:51.930 align:start But he also wants to show that he can do the job. 14:51.930 --> 14:57.420 align:start And so he wants somebody who can be - who can step into that job and can work with him to 14:57.420 --> 15:01.980 align:start explain what the job is to the American people, because his ultimate case is that Donald 15:01.980 --> 15:06.500 align:start Trump has not done the job; he will be able to do the job, not only in terms of handling 15:06.500 --> 15:11.360 align:start things in the day-to-day excitement of the presidency, but also tend to those values 15:11.360 --> 15:16.220 align:start and play that role as a steward of the American presidency. And I think that will be 15:16.220 --> 15:22.080 align:start somebody who will try to bring his vice president into that same lane for the American people. 15:22.080 --> 15:28.070 align:start COSTA: That's so well-said, John. The presidency is a job about making decisions. 15:28.070 --> 15:33.320 align:start It has an onslaught of other issues and challenges, but at the end of the day about making 15:33.320 --> 15:37.520 align:start decisions, and leadership. That's it for this edition of our Extra. 15:37.520 --> 15:41.710 align:start Thank you very much to John Dickerson for joining us, and to our viewers. 15:41.710 --> 15:44.950 align:start And you can listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on our website. 15:44.950 --> 15:48.330 align:start While you're there, sign up for our Washington Week newsletter. 15:48.330 --> 15:52.790 align:start It has a lot of information in there, great stuff to keep you updated on the show. 15:52.790 --> 16:00.050 align:start It's for our most fervent viewers, our long-time Washington Week regulars, like yourself. 16:00.050 --> 16:12.800 align:start But for now, I'm Robert Costa, and we'll see you next time.