cable television companies and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, dc and around the country. >> up next on book tv's "after words," citizen united president, david bossy, and former trump campaign manager, corey lewandoski argue that washington bureaucrats are seeking to unmine the presidency of donald trump. the or two interviewed by investigative journalist sheryl attkisson. "after words" a weekly interview program with relevant guest hosts interviewing authors but thunder latest work. thank you for join us. i thought we would begin with the short version of how you know donald trump?

mr. bossy, first you. >> i got a chance to meet donald trump in 2010 so i've known the president for quite some time. i got to meet the president because i was trying to raise money for children's hospital in washington, dc, where my son had one of his major surgeries and we were very blessed to be able to have great medical care for my son, and we wanted to help other families, so we wanted to raise money so that others would have the same opportunity, and i got to chance to meet mr. trump because we were doing a golf tournament at a golf course in washington that he ended up buying, trump national washington, dc, and we were able to -- i got a chance to know him because he wanted to help me with that mission of helping children, and it was something that i didn't forget or take lightly, and he understood that

it was a political guy, so i kind of became someone he would call and ask questions and we would get together when mostly when i was in new york. never came to d.c. very often. but we got to become friends over the years, and it was a tremendous kind of cathartic eevolvement heed a when i saw him in 2012, '134, '14, '15, locking at running for president and i saw what win into the cross. cori and i wrote a book, let trump be trump, last year, that really outlined our involvement in the beginning of that campaign. hosted an event with corey in number, where i invite mr. trump to come, in april of 2014. to manchester, new hampshire and that's where i produced him to

cory who late her would ask me who should manage his campaign, i reintroduced him to cory lewandoski who went on to win more primaries and caucuses than anyone dish gave little credit to the candidate -- the candidate did it, cory helped him a little bit. >> mr. lewandoski, pick up the story from there, mr. bossie introducedow to donald trump. >> yes, life is so amazing. i get a phone call and dave asked me to could come to new york city to meet mr. trump in the office on the 26th floor of trump tower and i had a job at the time but i drove over from nam and he asked me, he was going to run for president, i think he could win and what strategy i would i employ if i wanted to run the campaign in new new hampshire. he said would you run the

wholing? i said yes and would spend his money like it was my own, and then we laid out aing extra to be competitive in the first three states, iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina, and six months late her came down the big, beautiful escalator with mrs. trump, now fir latey trump, and changed the direction of our country and i stood by million and sat next to him listening to the direction he wanted to take the country and knew i was in the right place and with very fortunate that a small role in helping him secure the republican nomination and maybe a small role in helping him win the presidency. >> your book, trump's enemies, we'll go into some depth but mr. lewandoski what would you say you're going to tell people in the book that will surprise them and i'm looking for more of a summary at this opinion. >> i think what this book is really about is two things. reminding the american people that when donald trump came to washington, dc, he was an outsider and he brought with him people who not only did he not

know' and ultimately were debt transcriptal to his agenda and we outlined that, and some of the people heft e have since left and also the intelligence community, and what they did to a political candidate and his team by using their badges and their positions of power through the fisa abuse process, to go after individuals who fundamentally disagree from a political side and if you told me in this country, in this day and age, that those abuses would take place, i wouldn't have believed it but i've seep its first hand, our book is a detailed analysis of what comey and clapper and brennan and the intelligence community did not only to candidate trump but also to member of his team, his -- members of his team and also the mistakes that were made at the beginning of this administration, to surround the president with people who were his enemies but they destroyed him from win his own administration. >> mr. bossie, i want you to pick it up from there how critical is it? because you wrote at length but this, that donald trump entered

office and from day one it sounds like filled important positions with people who had never supported him. >> i think many presidents, all presidents, really, go through this transition process, and every president before donald trump has had some political machine, whether they were a united states senator, governor another have you and long involved in the political process and know a lot of people because they're part of the establishment on the ear party. donald trump was truly an outsider. somebody who was elected as a changing, part of the reason people voted for him and believed in him was that he didn't have this big cadre of establish. figures that would come in and had to take advice and council and he think he --

part of becoming president, he listened a lot to republican leaders in washington and took advice from folks that it don't know he would do that same to go today. think during that transition and the first month or two of his administration, the learning curve was incredibly steep, just like it is for every single president of the united states. there's no classes, there's no degree on being president, and it's a learning curve, and i think once he got his handle on it, he has changed. moved people out, he has brought new people in. if you look at the folks like rex tillerson and gary koehn and rob porter, they're gone and you have people like john bolton and layer kudlow and bill shine in, and i think that's much more reflective of who this president is, and i think he is managing his administration, his white house, in a way that is much closer to how he ran the trump

organization. as a businessman, somebody who wants all the information. not just some. he doesn't needgate keepers. that's the real i think singh e secret. the secret sauce, the president loves all the information. on all sides of any issue and then makes the best decision that he thinks is right for america, as opposed to gait keepers who are trying to control the narrative, control what he learns. i think he is somebody who recognized that fairly quickly, and really has changed how he does the job, and i think he recognizes what those deep state enemies and in our book, we talk about that, and we'll get into it in depth, but that's really the premise of this book. it's all things, congress, the media, and even those in his administration. >> near the beginning, you wrote of the meeting that incoming

president trump had with outgoing president obama. which was described as a pretty friendly meeting with maybe what you call an odd twist. some advice that president obama gave to president trump which may have in some ways set the stage for those early months. mr. lewandoski, tell us about that. >> sheryl, when the president was the president-elect and went down to the white house, he and mr. trump went to see president obama and the first lady. they went there with an open mind of what it would be like to be the president, what was supposed to be a 90-minute meeting with the president-elect and the president turned into a three-hour meeting and during that time, barack obama gave president-elect trump a series of pieces of information that would help him be successful. north korea is going to be a severe -- significant threat no your administration and also said two other things which are very important and set the stage for really the rest of the

administration. he said, don't let anybody tell you who to hire. no matter what. go with your gut and go with your best instinct. and then almost in the next breath, barack obama said, but don't hire general mike flynn. at that time mike flynn was a three-star retired general from the head of the defense intelligence agency, and had been someone who had campaigned with donald trump and the team for a series of months, during the campaign, and president-elect trump got to know mike flip very well, respected his service to the country and we were seriously looking at giving mike flynn a senior position inside the trump administration. but those words, don't let anybody tell you who to hire, with the single exception of don't bring mike flynn into your administration, set the tone of the entire intelligence community, because mike flynn, as the former head of the dia, in other words the intelligence agency, understood the resource that they had and could bring to

bear against individuals both domestically and internationally. and what we talk about in the book is the relationship that foreigners were afraid of mike flynn because he had a different way of doing things. much like donald trump. who is going to come to walk and fundamentally change the way the intelligence community operates. mike flynn did that when he was the head of the dia so candidate trump, president-elect trump, did not take the advice from barack obama, ultimately offered general flynn the job of the national security adviser and then we saw that mike flynn made some misstatements to some investigators who have now gone back and said they didn't think mike was lying and there's some question whether mike is actually -- what he ban accused of by the crooked members of the fbi and the person who speaker views mike flynn was none other than mccabe and strong and page and that whole cab ball at-

cab ball and mike flynn sat with them without an attorney and now he has pled guilty and there's question whether that would hole up. that advice. >> let me read a brief experty you talk about in the first third of the book. you wrote: we have little doubt that obama had let his intelligence agencies spiral out of control during this eight years in office, even going so far as to either implicitly or explicitly allowing them to conduct surveillance on citizens of the united states on domestic style and members of the trump campaign. the people at the top of his government were more left-leaning hand in any administration in history and obviously felt thenned be the income can trump administration. so, you go on to theorize or state that the push against general flynn might be really part of an intelligence agency conspiracy or operation to make sure that he didn't peek beyond

the layer offed the onion what the intelligence agencies had been doing, mr. bossie. >> that's a great, great and very important point in this book, and in our book, trump's enemies, we got a chance to interview president trump. we sad in the oval office in september, with him, and conducted a 45-minute wide-ranging interview and there was several things in the interview which we print in the book. one of the important elements was that the president felt -- he -- we asked him do you believe that barack obama knew about this surveillance operation and you being spied upon. he he said, yes. think that's very important and when whatever mull mueller does, whatever the mueller report is about, we need to see what

mueller says about that fact. then the other issues that the president talked about in the interview is -- and the president talked about howstock and page in their text messages that was uncovered, that they would leak information to reporters, and you know this very well. they would leak information to reporters, those articles would then be used to go to the fisa court or be used by law enforcement agencies for other purposes, to extend their leads, to -- to intensify their investigation or scrutinize people or to get -- put it out publicly they're being look another and it's a very dangerous thing that this basic circle exists in the sense that the law enforcement agency, the fbi agents would leak information, get a story out there, then good and use the story to complete their circle to go get a warrant to go to a

fisa judge to use as evidence of a potential crime, and the president said don't forget what these people did using a badge to go after people but that these people were also watching us, meaning during the campaign. these are bad, bad guys. the men and women of the fbi, who are by and large incredible agents, the agency is an incredible agency, time-honored agency that all americans should respect and honor, but what strock and page and comey did was besmirch, leave a mark, a stain, on that incredible agency by doing and conducting investigations in this way, against a political enemy. >> one other point just to fine-tune this. we have from our sources who have seen documentation that is

still classified, have told us that they believe barack obama's name was in the meetings when these conversations were taking place. there's no way for the former president of the united states to say he didn't know that this insurance policy was in place, the meetings taken place were at the highest level of the governments there's only one name the documents which continues to be redacted and we believe based on our sources that name is barack obama. >> while we're on the subject, you just mentioned insurance policy. at least three people that we know of have used that terminology, it was two fbi officials, stroc and page and a friend of comey who wrote before trump was elected we need an insurance policy in case he is elected. some people call that conspiracy theory but that came from the mouths of the people themselves. what do you define as the insurance policy from what you see, if one exists? what would you say it is,

mr. bossie? >> i think -- >> let me say this. i believe, sheryl, the insurance policy was between struck and page who made a deal with andy mccabe, who was the acting director of the fbi because jim comey was removed on main and an dip took over the same day he was interviewed by horowitz, the iago, and has now been referred for lying under oath on three separate occasions but that insurance policy was to make sure that donald trump was never elected president and if he was elected president, to then go and implement the series of events which took place which was jim comey taking a salacious, unverified document and providing it in a restricted meeting that just between jim comey and the president-elect of the united states, he put that dossier in place, and then he turned around and leaked that information with the hopes of

basically overturning -- i believe, over turning the outcome of the u.s. eselection that donald trump never served a day as president of the united states, and i know that sounds like tinfoil but jim comey should have never presented an unverified document to president-elect of the united states during a meeting where they just went through the nation's most secretive information and he did that so that he could good out to the media immediately following and say that the document has now been presented to the president-elect a classified setting and this whole russia collusion investigation all stems from the actions of one individual, and that was their insurance policy. >> separate from the intelligence agency aspect of this, you talked about those early days imply that now president trump kind of has gotten his sea legs when it comes to his staff and who to trust and who surrounds him.

but let's talk about maybe some of the earlier days and some of the people that you say were never trumpers, who were hired in the administration and maybe the impact that had, whether in terms of leaks or policy direction or chaos. you want me to name a couple name is found in the book or do you want to go down them yourselveses? are in bossie? >> i think -- we can -- i think we can do it both ways. let me just say that we talk about rex tillerson, the first secretary of state. we talk bottega cohen, the former economic advisor. we talk about rob porter. those are individuals who worked at the highest levels of the trump administration. but through their actions, and through the president's observations, i think, he came to understand that they weren't on his team and that they were undermining him or playing --

slowed the process down whether it was on trade -- mostly on trade issues with gary cohen. the president use and wants to continue to use tariffs and gary cohen was very much against that policy. and i think that you -- we have the story in our book, and it's been widely report that gary cohen actually took a document, off the president's desk, the resolute desk in the oval office he took a document of the desk that the president was but to sign in order to slow down the policy. in order to stall it. in order to make sure that the president didn't enact that at moment, and i think that the president, as he learned about the job, because there's no class on being president. there's no masters degree or college degree on it. it's a learned process. and every president in american history, all 44 before this president, has had a learning

curve and -- but the one thing they've had is these big political machines they brought with hem and that's the difference here. president trump was starting an administration truly from scratch. he had to build an enormous operation overnight and part of what he was told as being presidential, is listening to the guidance of these washington geniuses who will tell him how to do it and he took advice, and i think he's learned who to take advice from and who not to. >> were these people in your estimation, though, in fairness just people who differed with president trump on some policy issues and were trying to steer him in what they thought was simple play better direction? or do you see that these people were sort of placed there to kind of steer things on behalf of other special interests and program money interests? one is a more altruistic interpretation which may impact the case, one is more

conspiratorial, the notion that maybe the establish. did not want this president looking a certain corners or changing certain policies. >> well, i don't want to be a conspiracy theorist but we refer to these people as the november 9th club, meaning they became a fan of president trump the day after the got elected. they didn't support him during his campaign and likely didn't vote for him on election day but found an opportunity to joined a administration which crazy young and inexperienced to further they're own agenda. we have seen this with people who went into certain portions of the executive office building where they oversaw policy on specific things, and they came from the lobbying world and made sure that their friends and their clines war taken care of when they were in the building so they could return back to them afterwards. that doesn't mean i'm a conspiracy theirist but i think that means some of the people who ended up sending in the administration did so to enrich. thes at the cost of the president's agenda, and people

like gary co hundred and rob porter and sean spicer and rex tillerson. they had their own agenda but they weren't elected to be the president of the united states, and, look, we saw this too many times with the president asked for a specific policy or specific action item to get done and staff would walk out and completely disregard. that use sub version and stalling and the old man is going to forget. that's not what happens but they used their position of influence with the president to say, we can't get it done this way, sir hitch wants to get things done, he is a businessman who brought the business mentality to washington and his staff by and large at the beginning did a very serious disservice to him and really i think to the american people. >> you mentioned sean spicer who was i'm not sure what his title but spokesman for a time. and you wrote in the book he really initially didn't want to be part of the campaign, and

came aboard as he said reluctantly, after president trump won. how significant was that or was he as a player in all of this? >> well, sheryl appreciate say, in the it most of candor, i offers sean spicery job in the came pan raying after president trump became the republican nominee. he decide he didn't want to work for kid trump and then sean spicer as the rnc cleaverring extraist was leading reporters, telling them why president trump was going to lose and u but they saved governor seats and then we find out donald trump wins, of which i knew was going to happen, and all of odd sean spicer has conversion and decided i want to good inside the billing to enrich myself and that's what he did. i don't think that served the president well. i don't think he is a person who ever wanted to see donald trump actually be successful. he is part of the g.o.p. establish. and he is a prime example of one

of those people who joined with the administration and only supported the president when he found out it would be good for him and that's why we post him as one of the november 9th november 9th members. >> if people are not watching this is a carefully and closely as you are they might not understand what you mean when you say the g.o.p. establishment or the republican establishment does not want to see president trump succeed. why wouldn't they, mr. bossie, i'll dress this to -- i would wouldn't we republicans when they have a candidate who won, even if he is maybe more liberal on some policies than they would like or wasn't part of the establish. -- why wouldn't they embrace him and prop him up as much as possible to be successful in where is the push me pull you there? >> you know, that's a -- we have been asking ourselves that question for a long time, whether it is been corker, whether it is jeff flake, whether it is somebody we both respect a lot, ben szasz, they

same to have much more of a problem with this president's style than his content and policy objectives and the agenda the has been successful and his long, long list of accomplishments. the president in our interview tells us that if these folks, whether it's bill crystal, or any of these writers that -- the conservative writers, around washington, dc, if his name had been john smith, president smith, with this agenda, with these accomplish. s he would be considered the most successful republican president of all-time. but because they don't like donald trump, he believes they treat him differently, and that nothing he does is going to satisfy them. and they are going to be never

trumpers, until the very en, and for them, they look at it now as an industry, a cottage industry they created for themes in my opinion, and they disagree with this president, even when he is doing things that they have espoused for years and years, including a federal judiciary. you look at what the president has done to transform the federal judiciary, whether it is judges or the united states supreme court. two tremendous picks by this president, who conservatives across theboard have thought highly of as picks but even those folks this bill crystals of the world, it's never good enough, not right. they hate this president. more than they love the country. and i believe that. >> what is the behind the scenes story of what happened with

chris christie, the new jersey governor who was -- came aboard and got behind donald trump at some point, and then kind of disappeared from the stage, and you write about what was going on. i don't think the public was heard much about that. mr. lewandoski? >> glory christie is a good friend of mine, very good man and of dave's, so i was the person who recommended that we bring on governor christie as the chairman of the transition team. was there when governor christie dropped out of the presidential race and said i'm going support donald trump and i was there in texas when he endorsed then-candidate trump and stood by him. think governor christie is a very good and honorable man. and i would have loved to have seen him go to the administration in a senior leadership role, and i think there's still that opportunity for him to do that. but after president trump became president-elect -- went from candidate to president-elect trump, there was a decision at

the transition team at some of the higher levels to the campaign they wanted to mange a change and then bring vice president pence to become head of the transition team and that includes a whole new team at the transition. and the staffing positions and the vice president and the family being much more involved. now, governor christie has had a long relationship with mr. trump and candidate trump. he and mary pat have been friends of the trumps for almost two decades. so i think you'll see governor christie operating as an outside adviser to the president. they still speak on a regular basis but also may come a time when governor christie decides we want to city serve the cup fry in -- and president trump will bring him into the administration. >> you told fairly earlan about he kind of advice president trump was get being who he was getting it from, not having plowed this ground before. you talked about how speaker paul ryan coming in and senate

majority leader mitch mcconnell, the two leading republicans in congress and you talk about msnbc hosts joe scarborough, former congressman in the republican pear and mika brzezinski, co-host on -- who used to work with me at cbs, and they were giving president trump advice. this is before i guess things went completely wrong between them because now they speak as mortal enemies. can you explain mat? what was the advice they were giving president trump and how did that relationship go from being one where they were friendly adviser to perhaps one of the more contentious media relationships they president has among consensus relationships. >> right after donald trump became break break trump, people were call withing advice and recommendations and the first major decision that the transition team had to make who is is going to he serve as the chief of staff in the white house. there were only a couple of

candidates, steve ban nonwho was the chiefing extraist, and reince priebus, who was begin the chief of staff job but joe scar bow called me and said we never meet with steve ban non, could i arrange for a meeting at trump tower. they were glowing to speak to then president-elect donald trump about some ideas. and they went and sat with mr. trump and recommended that reince become the chief of -- >> can i discover you just a second. sorry. these news people, they're more hosts so i think they would say they're analysts, opinion people, and news people -- is that odd they would call you and say, we want a meeting with the president to give him some advice and meet with the potential candidates i've not done that. i'm a news reporter. would love to have a meeting with the president or people being considered but i went presume to be giving advice on matters. hough did that come about? >> i'll tell you in crazy world of politics, the people that you

talk to in front of the cameras sometimes who are the most difficult to work with, are your best friends off camera and it's not uncommon -- let's call them personals from across the board, from right, center, left to call me and say i've got some recommendations, people from cnn, fox news, msnbc, and not the journalists, not the ones doing the hard reporting, but those who have talk shows, that are still on television today, and say, hey, we'd love it if you can think but hiring mr. x are miss y and joe called me and asked me if i could help arrange a meeting with then-president-elect trump and with steve ban nonwhich i did and the decision was made that reince would be the chief of staff and steve would be the chiefing extraist and i don't know writ got off the rails but there are a number of people who you know who the people who are watching this schöpf will know,

that on camera are absolutely skying to trump and -- scathing to donald trump and his administration and policies but offcamera they call him and say do you think you could consider me for the communications director or i would be honored to work in the white house at some point. some of it is a shtick. maybe some people have no value but it's very different when you're not the camera, taking calls from empeople on the television who just attacking the boss just before. >> who did you butt heads with in it talks your last book you said was call, let trump be trump and reminds me a quote, d-day say that about reagan. some people said let him be himself? and people who didn't want trump to be this. who were you butts heads with in that philosophy, mr. lewandoski, you thought let's let trump be trump and what does that mean? >> well, when i met donald trump i saw a man who at the time was

70 years old, had made billions of dollars in new york real estate market, very difficult thing to do, a man who has wind 17 "new york times" best sellers, the number one television show on network tv for a series of years and had been very successful at a number of things the accomplished. so, i never thought it was my job to try and make him somebody he wasn't. so if donald trump wants to fired off a tweet but something, it wasn't my job as a staff to tell him, he shouldn't do that. his name was the one on the ballot and i wanted to empower him to be the person he wanted to be and bring his message to american people. people like paul manafort who decide it would be more presidential to reel donald trump in to make him more of a tradition calal candidate in the sense of john mccain and mitt romney who lost the election they've thought that being a traditional candidate like we saw in the primaries of so many others, there were 17 republican candidates in that field, and

donald trump distinguished himself by being a straight talking person, who went out and told the american people what was on his mind so paul and i had a fundamental disagreement pout the way the campaign should be run and because paul is much more of a contemporary to donald trump in age, their fresh children and people not involved in the n politics before thought i was no longer capable of managing a successful general election campaign, and so the decision came down to to ask me to do something else and had paul take over which was a complete disaster, paul lasted eight weeks now spending probably this of heir natural life in prison. >> any way you ever go back for allowed back or wants to be back with this president? he's going to run again in 2020. >> well, you know what? we fully expect to continue on what we have been doing for the last two years, which is be

president trump's outside advisers and friends, two two people who will tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. two people who will be involved, whether it's as a volunteer, whether it's helping with the messaging on television, or directly involved in the campaign, will be helping this president get reelect because it is so important. you look at miss accomplishments. the list of accomplishments from the first two years. look at what he is going to do in the second two years to build on that. where america can go in the future. you look at foreign policy. domestic policy, economic policy. and you see the transformation that has already taken place in two years and it's a transformation when, as you pointed out, and we talk about earlier, paul ryan, not exactly on board with the president's agenda, not somebody who was --

in agreement with a lot of policy positions of this president had, but worked with us on certain things and worked against us on others, as speaker over the house, not going now going to have a democratic house to deal with. a bigger majority in the united states senate. and i think that is an opportunity to get more people into his administration. chuck schumer, crying chuck, chuck has done america disservice because he is not allowed ambassadors, not allowed subcabinet members. there's several hundred people who have been nominated and through the senate process who are waiting senate floor votes. that chuck schumer, one person, is standing in the way of the american government working better, faster, more efficiently, and in a way that this president wants because he can't have his people in these jobs which allows these career deep state folks to have much

more power than they should have because our, meaning the president's political appointees, not in those jobs. so, we are going to continue to talk about his successes. going to continue to talk about this agent for the american people. all american people. and hope that he puts a team around himself inside the white house and in his administration that is going to allow him to succeed in two years time for his re-election. >> you brought up paul ryan in congress and you both wrote in your book, broadly speaking the enemies of president trump in congress fall into two categories, in the first we have activists who will never have a nice towards say it boom can economy, tax and a safer american and they're quote ped news stories and constant presence on the never trump networks and the second category you say we have the quiet band, including both democrats and a handful of squishy republicans who are behind the scenes

sabotaging the trumping a and the congressional shade doughs. both groups of politicses are doing all they can torise trump's policies for all the wrong reasons. how much does the fact that president trump had a republican senate and a republican house but could not get full support behind a lot of things he wanted to do, even when maybe he should have been able to, and terms of party affiliation, how critical what that his first year and a half? >> i think it's a huge missed opportunity for us. i remember at the very beginning of the administration, the senior members of congress came in to meet with the president ask said if you do health care first we'll get that done, and then three months later we'll have your historic tax cuts done and then by november or december of your first year, we'll have passed the historic bill to revitalize our country with transportation infrastructure spending, and they didn't lead up to their -- didn't fulfill

their prom mys. the republican party waited until donald trump got elects to start writing the healthcare legislation to repeal obamacare. not only did the house not get it done right the first time, but the u.s. senate in their infinite wisdom didn't start writing their legislation, which is a completely separate document, until the house actually passed the bill. so they slow-walked the president's agenda. the agenda that he ran on. and that was a huge detriment to the president and we still don't have a transportation and infrastructure spending bill done. so, looking forward, we have a president who is a dealmaker. going to reach across the partisan divide, going to work with nancy pelosi if she is the speaker of the house and say, let's rebuild our roads, rebuild our bridges and aways and train stations and sea ports because we are the biggest economy in the world and our people deserve to drive on roads that are safe and secure, not have bridges fall down on them.

that should have gotten done in the first two years and the republicans in washington, dc stopped his agenda because they didn't fully -- couldn't work well enoughing to so now let's see if we can get something done the next two years moving forward for the american people. >> the deep state always a huge topic. i called it something else working in d.c. after 20 something years under different administrations and realized certain things didn't change win you would have a new property and you might expect some positive change when obama came in and promised complete transparency and overhaul of foia laws but the deep state comes into play, the persistent bureaucracy, you wrote, one of the ways in which the deep state abuses its power is by hoarding information and keeping it from the public. it's easy to forget that when a person takes a job with the federal government they're effectively an employee of the american peek.

that meanes every piece of paper or line of text that crosses his or her desk is technically stumpage to review by the american people. what you're getting at is, when we try to see this information that we own, and sometimes when it's pertinent to some very important investigations, often times these federal bureaucrats act as though they own the information, it's propretty -- proprietary and good luck trying to see it. >> sheryl, the organization that i lead as president i citizen is united and citizen is united and judicial watch or two of the only organizations that have -- that during the obama administration and sense, have been trying to uncover a lot of this information and we have to go -- you file your foias, which we had dozens and dozen of over the last several years, and you then have to -- because the federal bureaucracy, because

these bureaucrats don't respond, don't answer, they don't give you the information you want so you have to go to court. we actually -- if you can believe this, we have a case right now that is going on for information related to the state department, and it is victoria newland, top policymaker at the department of state, is somebody who we think was involved with this fake russian dossier, and involved with these same people. well, we issued a subpoena and in court, the state department said it would take 45 to 65 years, 45 to 65 years, to give us one year's worth of e-mails of this person victoria newland. it is simply outrageous. you cannot do -- literally my grandkids would have to go through that information.

it is a literally a joke, and you can't take that seriously. what they want you to do is narrow the scope, narrow the scope. where you -- it's an investigation, you're looking for more clues, not less, and you don't know how to narrow the scope. and that's how they get you, how they don't give you the information. so, we have continuously in judicial watch, had to fight these battles in court, time and time again, literally every day, every month, we're in court, having to do this, and it is not the way it's supposed to work. the american people should have access to this information. >> you did switching topics briefly, you have long interviews with president trump for the book. about a lot of these topics. what would you say you learned from that -- he does a lot of interviews. not exactly hard -- doesn't play hard to get in terms of information but what would you say we learned in the interview

you had with him? >> cheryl can he asked him, know hogue the media has treated you and how they've disparaged you and attacked your family, do you have any regret running for president, knowing you had such a great life before? and the question, when i asked it of him in she interview was so foreign to him, he has no regrets. he said that this is the moe important thing that has has ever done and nobody realizes what the job of the president really is and it's the best decision he has ever made. regardless of all the negative stories wherein against him, he is so happy that he can take our country in the direction that it's going and i said, sir, if they can only remember you for one thing, what will that be? he said the jobs i've created, the economy i've brought back, the people who are back to work, and the historic members of the african-american community and the hispanic american cute and the asian american current that

are workinged to because they told us two and four years ago the jobs would never come back. so he sees the work that he has done in the first two years as an opportunity to make people's lives better, and he knows there's a lot more work to do, but i don't think anybody realiles how important that is to him. ... i would add, i think he's right. one of the other things that stood out to me, in the interview. the president believes, truly that the use is incredibly detrimental to america. he believes of the most

important things he's done is educate the american people on the fake news. if you read the full interview of our time with the president, he talks about that statement. he talks about how reporters get up and get stages. we saw that with the judgment from cnn. he gave it to us, it was going to happen. these people want to be more self-important. they wanted to be about them. not about uncovering the fact. he doesn't care about getting a negative story, he cares about getting a story that's not actually right. they put in their own biases. that's the biggest issue. one of the reasons he used twitter during the campaign. to speak directly to the american people. and educate them on issues of

today. whether it's a small issue or a large issue, he's able to bypass the mainstream media go directly to the people. that's one of the reason he uses it i think that was a transformation for him. he always used twitter but how he uses it and why i think has grown. the power of that message has grown. i take that as one of the big things. i'll also add, i took away from the interview, the president talked about barack obama knowing about him being spied upon. he talked about the fbi using their badges in inappropriate ways, and abuse of power if you will. i there are many important things people will learn and lean from our interview. it's the first interview.

the president has sat for for a book. we were honored to be able to get that. >> how are the two of you viewed by those in the white house now? if you wanted to pick up the phone and have a conversation with president trump, could you? you have to go to people? >> it depends on what people you are talking about. i think we talk about this in the book. there are people who fear -- i'll use that word, your. our relationship with the president because we don't want a job. we don't want to work in the white house, want this president to be successful. the information we tell him is unbiased, unfettered and things no one else is willing to say to him for whatever reason. i think people fear that. do they want to limit our access? sure. we write about it in the book. john kelly, the chief of staff requires we have an escort anytime we are on the white house campus. we can fly and therefore is one

of the president, i worked with the president's team of the time but if we are on the campus, john kelly literally gets notified every time we come to the white house and he makes sure that we have an escort as we walk around the campus. i think it's a very sad thing. we are to live were only here to help the president be successful. whether it's on television, to office, or a policy matter that will help on capitol hill if we can, any way we can. it's unfortunate. i think people trying to restrict our access? you but i do. have you stopped us? no. >> what is this this -- where does this fit in your mind? either helping him or maybe not helping him? >> i think when john came in to the white house to establish a sense of order and rules and policies and procedures, it was probably necessary.

it seems to be the west wing was wild in the first six or seven months of the administration. i think what happened was arou around, the morale of the white house has gone in the opposite direction. most believe john has checked out. you hear rumors that he will be leaving. whether it's true or not, but the for the president to decide. john is the first chief of staff who had no political background and no media background and i think that hurt the president during the midterms. many believe in the white house that the president should be behind the desk, making policy discussions and they are limiting who speaks to the president. i believe, he's best when he's on the road. when he's talking to the american people. interacting with others, having the conversations. that's where i president has excelled. that's why he won his presidency, i think, he went to

the american people. >> what is your take on the fbi director, james comey? was it you who called him the last boy scout? had a lot of respect for him? >> no. i worked with jim coming for a short period. in 1990. he was a staff member along with me, working on the senate whitewater. michael was the chief counsel, we had an incredible team. people dedicated to uncovering the truth about the clinton administration at the time. james comey was one of those folks who worked with us there. he left the committee. they had a tragedy in the family and it was an incredibly terrible thing for jim and his family to go through.

so i know him and i know what kind of person he is. in my view, before this. , i did, i called him the last boy scout. i was always happy to see that he was in these positions over the last 20 years because he does the right thing. little did i know that as fbi director, from the use of the dossey, from having stock and page and all of these characters, that on race within the fbi, running an operation with an insurance policy. misusing the application process. having james comey drop this dossier in order to beget, for james comey to leak information through this columbia professor in order in his own words, to

get a special counsel appointed. all of those things, things that i never thought i would see somebody that i thought had the highest integrity. i was incredibly disappointed. for those reasons. i look back and i don't understand where he could have gone wrong. it looks like it was all about jim coming. at least in the final stretch. it became about him and his war this president. he just got in a position where he hated president trump more than he loved his country. that's a difficult thing for me to say because i respect him. but that's where, i think that's where it comes down. >> and fairness, is a possible looking at the other side that

coming did not change? he simply thinks what he has done is right? for whatever reason, he thinks president trump is not good for the country or is some sort of threat. >> that could be. you are exactly right. i wish i could believe in the thinking that that would be a good thing. sixty plus million americans voted for president trump. they voted for the president for a reason. one of the reason was because of the changes. somebody is going to come and break, broken status quo if you will, whether it was the gridlock, that policies, north korea, our economy, you name the issue. they voted for their own reason. it's not one person's job to upend an election. it is not one person's job to try to use his power to overturn

a duly elected president of the united states. we've never had that happen before. i think -- i've never like to see it happening in. the democrat party and i don't think the misuse of power justifies the end. >> the special counsel investigation, robert mueller, will go down in history as the most critical part of his presence the beginning of his first term. how do you feel the molar investigation and robert mueller's specific role in it? considering his place of respe respect, perspective man, former fbi director, someone in charge during some of these surveillance abuses. what is your take on that? >> i think the whole premise of the special counsel

investigation was built on a policy. should never have gone off the ground. here is where we are though. he's been investigating a potential collusion operation ordination between the trump campaign and the russian or outside entity for two years. there's no evidence. i was there for most of the campaign and no we didn't coordinate or collude or cooperate with any outside force. only camping that did that was the clinton campaign. they took $5 million and give its way is to go to russia to come up with a false dossier put it into the hands of fbi agent to use it to secure wants to spike on american citizens in violation of the fourth amendment on u.s. soil based on his political belief. i think robert mueller, and he has been best friends for a long time. robert mueller was his direct subordinate. they've known each other for a long time. long relationship. i call into question if he can actually be disengaged enough to come up with what really transpired.

there was no collusion. the only people, those individuals who did think that either predated their time at the trump campaign, 2010, 20, 30 years ago. or lied to the fbi about what took place. what we've seen is to separate sets of rules. we sing one set of rules for the conservatives, for the trump people lied to the fbi and are not being prosecuted and sent to jail we've seen a separate set of rose for the clinton people. they were given immunity by peter strauch who gave cheryl know immunity to testify. hillary clinton lied to the fbi -- multiple occasions, not one criminal referral from the clinton campaign. two separate sets of rules. we have entered have accountability from the more investigation which needs to come to a close and in my

opinion, should be made public for every american to read exactly what is in a after two years and tens of millions of dollars, we have a right to see that this step did not exist. that should be made public. it should all be also criminal referral we know took money, give it to him, and when after individuals in the trump campaign based on the political belief. not one criminal referral for those people has happened yet. that's a shame. >> you go into a lot of detail about all of this in the book. the name of the book is trump semis. trumps enemies. interesting inside look behind the scenes. thank you for describing the book with us today. >> if you'd like to be a other

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