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leaders, nonprofits. you have been in the limelight, in the spotlight, but all of a suddenou you decided to write a book. what prompted you to tell your story? >> youa miss something in my bi, big fan of donna brazile. thank you for anything me today. this is my memoir which seems odd at 55 because god willing i decades of life left but people are always interested in the story behind the story. where did you come from? did you grow up in a political household? say all that stuff on tv? and what is donald trump really like how was it to work in the white house as a woman for a president trump, so i try to answer all of that and more and i felt ironically as somebody has spoken as you have donna brazil millions of words it public. i felt that people were speaking on behalf of me or at me or about me and not really knowing me or and/or i was speaking on behalf of other people including a president and a white house and a nation. so it was truly my turn in some

in some instances to set the record straight and others to really just pull the curtain back not just on the trump white house because this is not a tell-all and bore most like so many of these other books. this is really my story and in some ways. it's a very unique story about the circuitous path being raised by a single mom and a house of all italian catholic women going all the way to the white house being a working mom before school age children all the while. i'm doing that job, but in other ways, it's really an everyday story. it's every girl and woman story in this country because it does show that still if you have faith if you listen to the people around you if you're willing to say yes and accept no as your career unfolds if you put family first and you allow everything else to old around that and you get a little lucky as i have all along great things can happen. so you are raised as a jersey girl southern jersey between

philadelphia atlantic city. i believe atco very good go as you mentioned catholic family with italian irish italian roots, but your mother diane was a very special was a very special woman. i should say. special in the sense that she took good care of you. she understood your needs she supported you she was a working mom. but there was a early on in the book you talked about that moment when your mother caught you saying a couple of bad words and she walked in and she put that big gold cross and she had managed you. what was it like to grow up not just what a single mom, but also growing in a family with with your aunts and your grandmother. i mean, what was that like donna thankfully my mother is still with us diane she lives with us and she's a great everyday present force in the life of our four children, which is amazing.

you know, my mother was a original forgotten woman and i think president trump talked about many years later. she was forgotten by feminism forgotten by her husband left at the age of 26. no child support. no alimony for us and she just dusted herself off like so many american women have and figured it out went back to work never thought she would with her high school diploma. wanted to be a stay-at-home. mom of six or seven. i'm an only child so life got it. life happened and her best laid plans didn't work out so she figured out another way. and she really devoted her life to me never remarried. never had other children and in making me the center of her life. thought it would be best for both of us to move back to the old homestead with her mother and to her mother's unmarried sisters. so i always say these four adult

women and one child and then we turn the pyramid upside down. it's like one woman and four children now and so my mother in devoting her life to me gave me a great example. of what it means to be committed to be loyal and to have faith family and freedom. i don't remember her ever having a political conversation that i can recall, but she voted it was her civic duty her constitutional right? she just missed the ability to vote for president. john f kennedy. she wasn't old enough just as i just missed voting for president ronald reagan, but i know that they were all inspired by this handsome young camelot catholic president. tragically taken from us too young but there was my mother one day with my best friend michelle. i was visiting we were freshman in high school and it wasn't i said a few bad words. it was that i violated. one of the ten commandments is that i took god's name in vain. yes, and she came around the corner with the gold crucifix off her neck and with a spoon the ladle and the pot of gravy as we call it tomato sauce to the rest of the world. what did you say and i said, i don't know. what did i say, don't you ever take god's name and then out of her mouth this wonderfully

gentle woman with the gold crucifix shining out of my mother's mouth where f bombs and f bombs, you said don't you ever take god's name in me again? so it tells you an awful lot about i think in some ways how progressive the women who raised me were ironically they talked about abortion adultery. they talked about inflation. they talked about everything you can imagine except politics and because the matriarch of our extended family my grandmother and two in it lived in that house. that swing screen door had just a flotilla of constant traffic of people who knew if they had a problem or just needed a warm meal or an open ear they they can come there and do exactly that and so i grew up. i think that george's often told me that the world is like your focus group and i think it started right there around that wooden table and little atco new jersey where i would sit underneath and listen to adult conversation the gift of my professional life.

for decades donna was going out literally around the country and listening to people night after night around larger wooden tables like this and focus groups and learning to appreciate the essential wisdom of americans and no they weren't all just republicans or conservatives. i was talking to i was deeply interested in what everybody had to say this story what motivates in their stories, they're frustrations their aspirations and you know, as well as i do. that the essential wisdom of americans is often lost on people in this town in washington dc and if we put them in charge of representing their their states their congressional districts, they would do a pretty solid job. they have thought this through

again and again, and we should all be listening more to them. echo was a small town. i think you lived off the highway, which i was interested in knowing a little bit more about so i had to google your town but as i got deep into the first couple of chapters about

your childhood and growing up and and that environment i learned something that i didn't know about you that you pick blueberries, right? i packed blueberries in the packing shed you you packed and yes they pack them which meant that there are 12 planes in a crate and we would take out each pint put a piece of cellophane a forum to smash it down and then a rubber band and i was the

fastest that i had ever been because we were told the fast you were the more you get paid but the pay was as follows. it was 16 cents a crate. so 16 cents for 12 pints packed and then by the time i left eight summers later don, it was 25 cents, but i made a few thousand dollars back in the day ages 12 to 19 packing blueberries, and that was legal. then everybody calmed down. it's been outsourced now to machines do that work now, yes, but to grow up and literally have a summer job as a teenager where you have to show up and be ready to go by 8 am work until four or five pm an hour break for lunch with your friends and your family members to appreciate the value of teamwork punctuality a work ethic pride in your work that you're not just there for the money or there because you're making a difference for someone somehow i credit that blueberry farm for an early early education on what it means to be a hard worker that plus i grew up around small business owners my aunt and uncle had a roadside farm market 30 yards. to my house then it expanded into frozen italian food specialties because they would feed people who came to buy a buck a creative blueberries or a bucket of peaches. they say, what do i smell? oh sit down have some brazil have some subways you just made fresh ravioli and people would encourage them. so that's america you said let me take my skill set. and expand that into a commercially profitable business, so i grew up around

small business owners and entrepreneurs my mom took jobs. that allowed her to be with me in the mornings before school. pick me up after school and and i just credit her for day after day showing me the value of of work of hard work and honest days wages for an honesty's work and that's really the backbone of this country. yes, but soon kellyanne would discover that there was life outside of southern, new jersey and you decided to come the washington dc to attend college trinity college. tell us about that experience and that drive down and and that first moment that that you arrived here. what what caught you what what made you decide the dc was to place to be so my parents did not go to college again. i think fairly typical for somebody maybe of my age and stage in that area and my mother drove me down here herself, and i know it was very hard for her to just leave for only child in washington dc in the storm. i'm sure she cried the whole way home. thank you, mommy for allowing me to spread my wings and do that. i really wanted to be in washington dc. i wanted to be a car ride away from home three hour car ride. i had been accepted at boston college and it was the year after. doug flutie won the heisman trophy and the applications were way up. we went to see boston college lovely campus fabulous school, of course, but i really wanted to be in washington dc. i thought even early on i had this a little bit smitten and bitten by the political bug donna and i think a lot of that had to do with meeting ronald reagan very briefly, but you were just being in his company ferraro. that's i wrote that i said, wait a minute you you were excited about geraldine ferraro until you met ronald reagan. i was indeed, so just to back up this a summer of 1984. you'll remember it. well, yes, and it's the republican and democratic national conventions are going on now the democrats my party out of power. and i was so enthralled with geraldine for i thought well there she is just like the women who raised me in italian catholic woman. she was a congresswoman from queens walter mondell the

democratic nominee tapped her and she's going to give her prime time speech and accept that nomination as the first woman ever on a major party ticket and i listened to her and i thought she was a great messenger, but the message really didn't grip me the way president reagan's message the next week at his convention with me. peace through strength calling out communism. i think he just had a very joyful way of communicating free market capitalism of communicating why it's important to invest in military strength why it's important to going back to an honest days wage for an honestly you were attracted to this message or we were you attractive to the fact that you had a sense that he could lead his instincts. what was it? oh, he was both of the above and indeed. there was a big sweep that election cycle. i mean, obviously he won every every state including geraldine. ferrar's new york. he went every state except walter mondale's minnesota in the district of columbia, but i got to meet him because at that time republican presidential candidate seoul new jersey is

competitive and they came and campaign and here is ronald reagan and hammonton, new jersey in september 1984. it was code captain of the field hockey team is a senior and i had been blueberry princess, so i got to meet him. it was only a brief encounter, but you know how that goes and you're hooked, and i know you know that because you have you been the counselor the consultant for the advisor for so many strong leaders in your party, but across this country, and i know now you mentor so many young people and so you've seen on both sides and we have to remind ourselves that those chance encounters can be so incredibly important to people and it was to me but you grew up and before we get into candidates and there's so much in your book that i've learned about not just the republican party, but also some of the individuals that you consulted with i mean, it was a very well balanced book in terms of telling us about not just your journey, but also to journey of the republican party, so i want to go back to that moment you lived in an area of with

democrats. yes. definitely. we're probably raised being catholic in new jersey with a lot of democrats. i was but in ronald reagan you saw something else a lot of other democrats so that but at the time you were not registered to vote right? i was not registered to vote i missed voting for ronald reagan by two and a half months. that's right because you're born in january 20th, and that's right being able to vote for him. i was still 17 for his re-election. you're absolutely right the first words in my entire book. here's the deal donna, you know, by every imaginable metric. i should have been a democrat and liberal and a feminist and probably a man hater too. my father left the men in my life my uncles my cousins. they expanded family members all these great male role models in my life who stepped in and and stepped up for me. they pretty much were all members of the private trades carpenters and welders and iron workers plumbers and who you know graduated high school with their skill certificate and their high school diploma went to work right away and

have those jobs to support themselves for their families and those wonderful people so they tend towards the hedemocratic party. i was italian catholic at that time and not to over generalize but they had an affinity to the democratic party. john kennedy and it was the height of feminism, no wars so i talk about that and ronald reagan not unlike many people in my generation inspired me with a very optimistic message. i also felt he wasn't scornful towards other people. he was inclusive in his words and i grew up in a house where people came to that factory and at lily god rest her soul she's my mother's oldest sister, the only one who went to college and i applied atthe age of 6620 years ago and was a huge loss for our families but she packed so much life in . i told mykids here's a woman you never met, always ready for the next adventure .

always off key singing and dancing the way you should with abandon but she was very progressive. she was in eighth grade public school math teacher and she'd run the family rt business and got mad at the george herbert walker bush campaign in 1992 for saying that bill clinton was a draft dodger. she said if that were my nephew i would help him get down to that. i believe she was pro-choice. she's sort of a feminist icon in a way. she's very vocal so she would bring friends over of all backgrounds and all affiliations and looking back we didn't know that. people felt comfortable to be in my house and nobody felt the need to say and i'm this and i'm that. they felt comfortable and

welcome. i tell young people now that i'm very worried about not being able to speak up or say who they are. that goes for right left and center in many spaces . i'd rather listen. what god has made no man or woman can ever cancel. hold your head high and the you are and you be proud of that and make sure you let your light shine and don't let anybody dim or diminish your light. i didn't learn it in any book or political conversation >> your family had such a role model but most importantly your friends. i got to know your family by reading the way you guys would drive the three hours down to dc. it just reminded me in my family maybe something catholic about us that you always have to make your own sandwiches and bring your own food as if the people in the next town didn't cook as well. my mother would have loved your mother and your grandmother but i want to talk about your inwashington dc . you're clearly becoming more and more interested in

politics and public service. but it wasn't until you went to law school and graduated that you really got into poland. unit built brooklyn, neil. you got into the business but i kept reading and reading and i'm like it's all men. so much of my own background that when i finally got to washington dc i had all of the guys but there were no women. no women. what was it like for you on the republican side being the only woman in the room especially haat that age. just starting a career. were you ever discouraged and did you justwant to stand up and walked out ? i read in the book you were patient. but i'm sure there were some days you just wanted to walked out. >> there's no question about that and there were amany days that men in theroom would have preferred i walked out . no doubt thereand that's why you can't . if you know your skill set and you know who you are and you got something to add then

you do that. i learned early on that i had some gifts and insights that maybe others did not. maybe not just because i was a woman but i was listening to women and there i was as an unmarried non-mother as many women are and choose to be in this country. for many years i got married at 34. i had a child in my 30s. and i said there were two rolling around in there but .that's the growing percentage of women in this country to. the point is because i learned to listen to women i was able to draw on that in these different conversations and tables that only included men mand i started to do that and because so many of those men in bold and particularly the new voice network which including me from being able to pitch certain businesses at the republican national

committee or in this company or that company forced me to go and find work elsewhere so i have major riots like martha stewart or major league baseball or american express at the time. major clients and allow me to listen not just to what likely voters were saying but to what all of america was doing. are you making your decisions on how you spend your money? are you going to professional insporting events, a kids sporting event? are you as a woman who doesn't have children of her own i guarantee a woman like that because you and i have been there are suing back at other people. kids, giving them money, giving them a lot of guidance and mentorship. i learned to not people in these needs demographic clinical boxes either. so sure we can all sliced and diced the electorate by gender, by race, by age , by socioeconomic tennis and biogeography but that's not

the beginning of the end of the story for any of us. you let people tell you who they are and what motivates them and you learn to appreciate so sure, there were many times. cnn plucked me out and gave me a tv contract and it transforms as you know transformed my relationship with america and with a lot of washington because no longer could the guys say she doesn't know that much she's not going to show up or she's a tv star . all of a sudden that feminism fans are saying i saw you on cnn. that's a great pointabout how taxes affect economics . >> you did a lot of things in life before becoming a pundette, punditry without the talking points. being a political talking head we used to call ourselves talking heads

before they gave us a title but you were effective in that role because you had an opportunity not only to talk to the country but also with them but i also believe you impressed a lot of people nt within the republican establishment. what did you give the republican establishment that they did not have at that time? i thought when you described in the book about what you brought to the table , it was something that would lead to eventually becoming donald trump's campaign manager as well as the first republican woman that ever managed to campaign also the first woman to win a major presidential campaign. you hahave something and i want youto say it because i know what it is . i often whatever you and i are on tv together i would look at you and i say okay. i get it now . >> two things. they call me sally soundbite. it's my ability to distill complex information into easy-to-understand phrases and ideas. >> you are a wordsmith.

>> all wordsmith and i hung that on my eight dollars an hour job. it's not much more than eight dollars an hour, loveyou frank . and he really i credit frank with giving me my great adopportunities to get into polling after i had a law degree but i had something else that i brought to the table which was they all talk like pollsters.what does the data mean? even over the decade i've had in my own polling company i would say to my team okay. that's the data. when you're reading the analysis stopped every two paragraphs and ask yourself what does it mean ? how do we communicate it to peopleng? i'll give you a great example . i saw you were the campaign manager and i saw early on in 1997 i believe it was. or even 1997 or so. this ridiculous rpolling question that asked who would

you vote for president, al gore or george w. bush? december 1997 is closer to the 96 election than the 2000 election, how do you know who the candidates are going tobe ? the answers at the time were rs40 percent and 47 percent and of course everybody goes on tv and says it's tighter than a tech. gore and bush are both under al50 present, it's a one point race. and i looked at it totally different. i said are you telling me in 1997 and 1998 only five percent of the country are going to decide. i bought five percent of the gore and bush families let alone the rest of us. i learned to respect when people say i don't know i'm not sure i need to know more information, that's a rich insight. most of the male pollsters were never willing to take i don't know for an answer it's a which way do you lean .

if you had to guess, if you had to say right now and eventually you surrender and say okay, eileen gore, eileen bush . you're not committed voter. you're somebody was right the first time. i need to suck it up and watch for the next couple of years i learned to appreciate make people feel comfortable enough to say i don't know. is this the quiz western' markets not the quiz your opinion matters because you matter and i was able to distill republicans would say how do we get more women and i go through this long war and peace you know what, women tend to think more republic and more conservatively when they get marriage, motherhood and mutual funds and one day i realized i had a longer version for it and one day i realized i have a mortgage and a mutual fund. then i realized wait a second, women are choosing which of the onfour ends. 1234, whatever it teis and i started to realize women are prouder of the choices that you should be holding them up

and respectfully, i thought at the time the democrats were always back putting republicans in a corner on just abortion and i said excuse me, we women p.don't talk just from thewaist down. you've got to talk from the waist up . and i would do things like that as well that would outrage some people and engage other people. i engaged some, enraged others but at least it was memorable. >> you were telling the t country the story of women. women were evolving and as women voters became more active in the electorate as voters after the year of the so-called woman in 1992 i think you were one of the few pollsters and tv and analysts who got it right about the needs of women and why they wer'making the choices in the electorate . so let's talk about the choice you made and i kept reading. i know there's george.

george didn't come into your life until you werein your 30s . and introduce you by and coulter. i've known and for a long time. i've known some of the people you mentioned in the book. i didn't know their relationship to you and i had no idea that an insisted on trying to get you to meet george and finally you decided you would take a day off, not a weekend off to go to the hamptons where you had rented a house. >> tell us the story of george conley. >> i of course dated a guy named rowe fernandez for the better part of a decade on and off. it was a great mentor of mine. he was in my immediate boss. and relative to this moment is a very dear friend of mine . he's happily married to a wonderful woman, has three great kids but he e was a mentor of mine. i was focused on my business,

running. i've taken up running and had talked at the time with chris matthews who we both know well. they the only thing it ever helped me with was running. so i dswas disinterested, i didn't want to date anybody. i said i'm sure they're nice but she introduced us. i drove up from new york city to a beautiful hamlet in the hamptons. george was in the house in august and we finally met in january 1988 and my 19 months later i was still available. i wasn't dating and luckily george was or was it again and i call it entry at first sight. i thought he was mysterious and i enjoyed his company but george persisted.i felt what was different about him was that he came mout with charming ways to courtney and i say good god, i did that all week long. i just want to sit here and watch this crazy movie eating out of my ben and bjerry's containers and you wanted to

go to sporting events and it helps me to really bonded with the men in my life as i ' was growing up. my uncle and later my father and my cousin jay certainly so george and i would court at yankee stadium and he had tickets and then we went to eagles games so we fell in love and we married. we fell in love and got engaged about a year later. 14 months later got married, six months after that and we've been married for 21 years and people really focus on the part of the book towards, donald trump is a tweeter, egeorge and what's happening now, me thanking him at the end of his book for his love but me also saying i don't know what happened. i'll never understand. i have consternation, some frustration and sadness i feel i was traded in for twitter but george and i, we spent a lot of years together building our family.

very much in love. as a great couple and also just staying out of the public eye believe it or not. sure i've been on tv here and there we weren't well-known. kelly and conway's husband th wasn't a household name for all that changed and i'll tell you this, you could not ns ldfind many pictures of us and our kids online anywhere. i've never been on instagram. i don't dislike those who are, it's a wonderful way to communicate but i don't aspire to be an instagram mom showing the world how happy we are. so it's all been very jarring in that way but we also i think george and i separately ohadfocused on our careers . i orwas 34, he was 37. where older and wiser parents . where not ungrateful for all that love . >> first of all i don't know

george but i follow him on twitter. i'm one of his followers. i don't know george. i've known you for a long time but i never got to know george. i know there was a george because it was kelly and fitzpatrick and she became kellyanne conway. i got the back story on george. george also went to law school, he's a lawyer with kellyanne conway. he worked at a prestigious firm. he was wealthy and well-off but you were also wealthy and d well off with a beautiful wife in virginia. of course that brought you two together. we were jealous of all the games you went to. i'm not going totalk about that . seriously, the man took you to all of the best games and not just the world series but the super bowl. come on, he has good taste and he treated you very well. but this is also an in addition you're married. you're in love.

i'm reading about the pregnancy, about the twins. i've never been pregnant. you've got announcing that on mother's day that you two were expecting twins. and then he was in the hospital. he was with you atevery birth . barely made it at the last y birth. but this is your friend, your husband. your confidant. and you know, , it's a little painful as an outsider. i never involved in anyone's marriage, thank god . i'm reading your book and it gets really personal. >> so much of it is a loving nostalgic lookbackward at george and my life together . there's no question. there's those were great times. obviously he's by my side and very funny story.

thanks first of all for t reading the book. some people interview me and asked me books that they could have asked me without a book and it's obvious they haven't cracked it open so i appreciate you reading it. this is a love story and a ha family that has nothing to do with twitter. that's how amgeorge became famous and as kellyanne's husband on tv and i want to make clear george's house are not to donald trump or any lyrical party or they were to me. to love honor and cherish but we moved to washington as a couple, as a family both having accepted a job from president donald trump and people seem to want to forget or never know it or gloss it over. a very important part of the story. >> you tell the story. look and i really should get to the park because i'll just

stop now and say you and i also have another thing in common which is the reason i couldn't stop reading the book that is your ex-boss like my ex-boss called me in, nobody in there, look me in the eye and said can you run this thing, can you be my campaign manager and you basically say would you think about it? and call me back. i also saw that in the book.k. oh god, and as i read this book i wanted to call you and invite you over to sit on my porch and are white rocking chairs drinking wine. >> i will be there. >> i want to go back. you're right about george. george had a big job and he declined. >> he accepted it in donald trump's white house. he wanted to be solicitor general. it was a bignomination but he did accept and it was to be the chief of the civil division at the department of justice . hehad started entering and wentfto see his offices .

this was not just a conversation .and i was the one reluctant to come and ut work in the white house. first and foremost if the kids and using four kids down to washington dc at the time were 12, 12, eight and seven and it was particularly hard in seventh wgrade. at the time washington post reporter said we see claudius got this changed up work. and i said well, claudius obviously and objectively brilliant and beautiful but she also is honest about the fact that she liked most americans don't like change. we all pretend we like change and we go to mcdonald's every night and we are creatures of habit but she said you know, she doesn't want to go to washington so i told her i'll be known as claudia's mother and she probably will one day because she's brilliant george is the one who wanted to come to washington donald

trump was his way to do something different from the law firm . and then he changed his mind about donald trump and. >> that's why, he's amember of the federalist society . >> he's a real person. >> he's in his hat on election night saying shedid it about his wife . and people i write in the book people say without kellyanne conway as campaign manager he would have one and that's debatable but what will never be in doubt is without george conway encouraging incessantly to take my shot at many telling us what to do, without him saying say yes that campaign manager and offer position that donald trump gave me i could not have been campaign manager i. george said i'll help out with the kids, you have to do this . you can learn from him and george had witnessed a lot of

the new voice network. of folks always giving each other money on the gravy train, you witnessed many of them sidelining me. trying to diminish me. he heard my pitch so many times for what i would do if i had ever got my shot and he nasaid here it is, take your shot. george is the only one i told that night that donald trump offered me the campaign manager job and then george was my person alter that campaign through the front days after access hollywood he said you're not leaving that position, when you do that ? he went to the debates . he went 12 days after access hollywood came out, took the redeye back. drove me to trump tower. eni was the only woman in the room . after the access would g drove me back the next day. i boarded the black suv with donald and bill oneonta go to st. louis. he was all in and not just for his wife but for donald

trump as president. he changed his mind but not until after a full year as a guest of donald and melanie are doing cool things with his kids. we went to dinner a year later. that's fine but the facts matter. the ofacts matter and i just do not choose to live my life online. i choose to live my life off-line and i don't think people who don't you know you on social media are necessarily your friends. not that they want to be your enemy but they're not your friends and i take from my friends and family off-line and thank god i've got a great posse of them. >> i know we can go more and more deeply into this conversation about the tweeting and george and the former president referring to him as mister kellyanne conway. there's a alot there that i wouldn't know you were enduring. just, it must be gratifying

that you're away from some of that stress but it's also still public. the tweets. george calling the president narcissistic. and you're working for the president. you have to get up every day and get to work and your colleagues must be what, snickering behind your back? >> somewhere snickering and some were working overtime to get the president to get rid of me. i give donald trump a ton of credit for not ever coming through which he could have an saying kellyanne, we love you but i've got worry about min jong un. he mentioned george three times specifically and frankly about george that was also very scary.

george sent over 100,000 tweets and counting. p i think when president trump 0,left the white house it was about 20 or 30,000. it certainly wasn't 100,000 and she still added this is a free country and george can tweet if he wantsbut there's a cost to spending our time a certain way . i choose not to spend my time that way. i don't want to regret living so much of my life online. now let alone with these four kids but it's a hell of a way . >> of course i always love george it's a hell of a way to try to get your life wife to leave her job. >> you think he did it to get attention to get you on? >> i think he did it to get attention and he got attention but people should not confuse popularity with notoriety or fame with insulin. george changed his mind about donald trump, changed his mind about me and what the

media did was, but i wasn't ready for and i write in the book about his all these moms sending goofy packages to our house as if they know him. >> also for people like dana bash and others. >> i don't know the time if it was there. i i like jan a lot. she's another one like you and me. i think she started as an intern at cnn, practically runs the place as one of the best reporters there is a very newsy week and it was a cheap shot. i didn't ask then about either of her marriages or i'm sensitive to the fact that her son jonah maybe watching so i don't say certain things and i wouldn't do that but all this comes back to a simple principle. you should be looking out for

each other at some level and no i don't think every question is fair game. i don't and i think people y dissecting me, my hair, my looks, my voice, my marriage. it's inappropriate at some level because your distracting from the news of the day. i don't think my marriage is anybody else's business and it's being dissected by thin-skinned terrified trouble people living in iglass houses . i also think it's a pact among civilized people that you don't go after each other's kids. you don't need to be a mother to care about people's kids. it's not even an affirmative criteria and i give shout na outs to the non-moms out there but i need to say because i don't know how close we are to the end of this interview.people who are watching this need to know how i feel about you. i wanted you to interview me because america needs to see

two women at the height of their careers sitting at the table are 50 percent, one half of the women who have ever been asked to run a us presidential campaign. the other two are not here, two otherdemocratic women . we're the only ones and i feel like women it's a great time to be a woman in america . what's missing is that representation. not just in politics because that's the choice if people want to run and more and more people are in both parties actually as a practitioner, as the people who are in the ears of the folks who are going to run the country or want to run the country. i think that's incredibly important. i want to know how much i admire you and also how much i learned from you. r allison cnn told me she said you know, you're the first person and i really literally said i don't know that. i know the other three but i know donna brazil the best she's a friend of mine look,

you smooth over a scraggly path for me and a lot of other women and people need rs to know that i know joe biden pe and others unify the country, this is how you do it. >> by talking to one another and learning from oneanother and that's something you learned and when your friends would come and visit you at your home . not yelling, just listening but t sometimes yelling can be quite entertaining and informative and i learned that about the family too. you and i should have been neighbors because i would have been over with the wine. i've got to tell you in the time we have left . we'vegot enough time to talk about this . the road to 2016. as a democrat, i read this one way. as a political strategist i really absorbed all another dimension. and ti wrote this down in one of my notepads. you basically said voters are , the media is working for who can win.

i'm paraphrasing you. but sivoters want to know who can lead. >> that's the difference hobetween electability which is this fictional game played by pundits and media, all kinds of media and the politicians. can shewin . and that question particularly in the republican party has diminishing so many great candidates from rising further. because if you asked can win, the your missing the question which is who can lead. it's about who can show leadership, it has nothing to to do with liability. learning about education and healthcare. let me be part of your plan and your governance. so i told donald trump when he offered the campaign manager job he said in you do

this and i said mister trump i would need three things in return and i wasn't sure you would give me anything alone all three agree to all of them immediately. is a savvy business guy who makes crass decisions like that. he knows when to take a risk and when to reward one of the things i asked him was the need to shift away from electability which you're already blown to smithereens because everybody said you can't win.. this is how you do or don't win the presidency and he splintered that immediately. was willing to take that and go to states and cities and states that were definitely part of hillary's blue wall thatrepublicans had not assigned. pennsylvania, michigan . >> i wanted to ask you about how to understand the blue wall. you also again going back tto what i've learned in this book getting trump voters that we see. you did crack the blue wall. also this whole notion that you about that the republican

party at least was frustrated with the status quo, with the establishment and you took key messages from both the tea party and the maga movement that understood to understand that donaldtrump was not just a campaign but the movement . here's the question. what gave you those insights. you talk a little bit in the book but there are things that i want to know that sauce because you talk about that sauce in defeating hillary clinton.and again i thought these insights in my judgment as a political strategist tells us something about the electorate is going to face in 2022 and 2024 so what wasthat hidden sauce? why was trump the perfect messenger and why is that movement here to stay ? >> excellent question. very quickly, 2016 witness the conversions of a couple of donald trump elected president one was him as

messenger and elevating into the public consciousness at top of the issue set issues like illegal immigration trade which had been nowhere on the radar. if you think about a guy standing up tape saying they're going to take on china, but these emtrade deals and make them more fair, puts america first making sure we have a manufacturing base and making sure where not shipping our jobs overseas and making sure mexico and canada and the united states have a modernized paratracheal so other people wouldn't upset because it's not-the polls and it doesn't make youelectable but he wasn't willing to do that . number two, president trump was a true political outsider. most americans see themselves t as true political outsiders. part of this is what you are not part of the solar system. and he had hillary clinton a fairlydamaged candidate . that's e'not a personal insult.

she had lost to president obama eight years later because he was seen as the t toutsider freshfaced new blood, new ideas. he stood up and said i was against the war for end you put for . she was seen eight years earlier at the establishment and went out of her way in 2018 to say that this means i have experienced. now and secretary of state and i know this in the washington post easy news poll that her blue wall is perishable if you're willing to go visit the states in her blue wall and he was a in and day out and also recognize the two percent of abc news washington post all fine and is neither trustworthy nor honest . if you feel that way about a presidential candidate what can possibly want her to be commander-in-chief and president of the united states? i said if we can make the selection a little bit more

about hillary because at that moment the election was about trump and he likes it that way and hillary liked it that way so we tried to even it out a little bit and remind people swhen you go into that box is not going to say or not trump which many people saw in 2020 was trump or not trump but i coined the term in july of 2016. undercover ly01hidden trump folder. i said it to nbc in london and was international ridicule. the hidden trump voter but that was my way of texplaining that people dwho don't seem formal holsters as would be trumpbevoters for non-hillary voters are going to vote for donald trump . maybe even ted cruz or john mccain certainly. he truly is a political outsider who comes pre-verified thmaking these promises and is showing up in your community.

i noticed something else. that when he would campaign ok in every nook and cranny the national median is. they were already in their mediocre out. it was in the back sending interviews to local print radio and tv reporters saying if you lived in the community , if you're in macomb county michigan is going to take you through the week so they missed that i noticed was he was willing to take his message directly to the people and the people were showing up so he transformed the way political campaigning happened but definitely got cut off in 2020 because covid prevented him from doing a lot of that type of campaigning when i said the undercover hidden trump voter its people not feeling they're embarrassed to vote for trump, it's hispanics and african-americans and women and young people and people

who had never voted or voted in a long time and never votedrepublican . union members for sure. in certain states, not a majority three percent more here, five percent more there. and that was building a coalition of folks who said you know, i think i've had enough. i think with out the country voting for president obama in 2008 who took a huge dump for somebody different, they elected the first african-american president but even beyond that milestone was the fundamental chance that people took on somebody who didn't have a kind of experience in washington. they were going to do it and they did it again. nowthey rent went right back to the guy who's been in washington for 15 years . people feel today that was not very fruitful and it's going to fail a little more about that. back to the midterms but the last four years with donald

trump you were in a lot of important meetings, discussions i read sending your kids to the white house. the fun and joy your family would have want to talk about the whitehouse events . i'm sure they have a great time. you were there during some momentous, i need some big moments. big occasions and he relied on your voice. your leadership. what could you have done differently? and let's use one or two examples. we know that the president celebrated the tax cuts but you probably didn't like the returns during the midterms in 2018. we know covid hit during this moment.looking back, what would you have done differently r? what would you have tried to change you describe a lot of it in knthe book and god knows

i can, there were so many things you had to deal with. >> there were amidst all that there were subpoenas and investigations and russian collusion a lot of logs thrown in our policy path and trying to forge ahead and focus on the commitment he made to the people and i believe that in those first few years before covid when you see the economy was rebuilt, the unemployment rates being the lowest ever for african-americans and asian americans, women i felt it was all white house administration, trump administration that helped the job creator, the job seeker but also the job holder. people talk about you didn't build that job creator, that's fine. maybe seven percent lower now, people who are jobseekers but the vast majority of american households are the job holders and that's how donald trump got elected in his commitment was to say to them

or not even looking for a job or worrying about replacing lost jobs. it doesn't feel like enough, how that happened so try to relieve the burden on the cost of energy regulation, all business formation and certainly the economy and i also think the president trying to hold china to account or rental account or kim jong-il. trying to, the great strides made in the drug crisis. he and the first lady who was his original counselor, the one person i say in the book and he actually reduced fears about. the consultants but he cares very much what she thinks. so an amazing relationship really. >> what i would have done differently and i thought about this, i wasn't involved in the election campaign at all $1.4 billion, they should have one overwhelmingly to the point where the election results should have been more like 84. frankly been there done what was . >> you but you werepushed out a little . >> i was offered late in the

game my own plane, my own staff. i was told it's going to be don junior and you will have your own team and i did not see that because it wasn't my campaign and i was already leaving. i was about to leave for my family and that wasn't going to change. i couldn't shift to go and actively campaign but one thing that i think should have been done differently. that campaign should have been more reflective of what the present was able to accomplish including on covid. instead of pretending that the economy is going to come in as a big issue recognized women in particular as a key household. disproportionately a majority of providers were very nervous about covid and the kids were home from m school. the women were pushed out of the workforcereally . even the men if there were men in the household they were home working from home. so it transformed the

country. people were not just trusted, they wereworried . and i felt that with the president was dealing with early on that the surgeon supplies. the ppe, the gowns and masks. they're covering 100 percent of the cost with testing and treatment for uninsured americans. the supply 95 million meals to schoolchildren who rely upon them but were in school. some of the great things that you hear about this first time. not standing up and sticking with it and i think to me people had covid on and a cutter. we're done with that now. thevirus had a way of persisting . but i think donald trump developed the vaccines as one of his greatest accompaniment along with that money and maybe i should have spoken up more about i think hebehind-the-scenes friction i don't like to be the whiny woman . they don't have me, they're ignoring this great work

stream thatsomebody has put together. not me, somebody has put together . you should look at. it was a lot of gamesmanship that way.>> and i know in the time we had we cannot really talk about the media, some of the controversies and you and i both know that if you are out here in the public you're going to make news and you have been a newsmaker. you're a troublemaker to but we're not going to talk about the personalities. thank you for confirming what i thought was the truth about certain of your colleagues that iwill remain nameless . and also as you began to put the oand to this book which was really remarkable. because of your journey, the moments, the final moments with your dad in the hospital talking about sports, the eagles. talking about your upbringing. thand the final months you

really describe. and as i was finishing up a book it led to january 6. it led to another encounter or a lunch or dinner with the president. i think it was a lot. it was a lunch. and here we are now. some two years away from the next presidential election, just a few months from the midterm elections. whatgives you hope . >> so much. first of all this is america. for all our stars and our battles and ourdivisions , our culture, our political divisions it's a beautiful country filled with amazing people and i tell my own children don't stop worrying about people who have less than us. and that gives me a lot of hope for the future. i'm also hopeful that the 74 million americans for trump in 2020 and were not at the

us capitol on january 6 who like me have nothing to do with that, never saw it coming, didn't participate in it, are still in shock, not that people should be languishing in prison andjail . but i am hopeful that this is america and we are resilient and we need to be optimistic. but i'm very worried that people are suffering right now and their suffering because of policies that are harming them. if they have an energy job or if they are relying upon filling up a couple of trucks for their small businesses. i'm worried that babies right now are getting insulin. i'm worried about problems in small and use all these problems as a senior white house counsel to the president . so here's the deal. on memoir, a very personal, very deeply in my judgment

spiritual book about your life. your struggle with your family. but also the rise. the rise of american politics to lead a winning presidential campaign. your guidance, advice to the president and of course your thoughts on the future of america including what happened on january 6. so this is a great book. i hope you find many readers. i think i have a couple pages left that i didn't mess up that i would like you to autograph for me. but thank you for joining us . thank you for sharing your story. your insights and of course thank you for being a great mom to four beautiful children. >> most important job i ever have. charlotte laudia, and vanessa . i'llsee you on the porch .

>> exploring the events and people that tell the american story. at 2 pm eastern on the presidency in honor ofnancy williams first birthday we look back at the first lady's legacy . her years in the white house through congress, staff remembrances and a new postage stamp honoring mrs. reagan which was unveiled by first lady joe like. at 4 pm eastern feature author bruce ramsdell in this year's george washington book price. mister ramsdell one for his book washington at the plow. the founding fathers and the question of slavery. exploring the american story what american history tv saturday on c-span2 and a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at history.

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intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america stories and on sunday book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that's why charter has been upgrading technology, empowering opportunity and in communities big and small. charter is connectingus. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service . >> i want to welcome you to what i think is a veryspecial program tonight . we're honored tonight to be able to spend the evening with ambassador andrew young marking his 90th birthday. we were part of that celebration and we're going to hear a lot about his remarkable life