at his heaviest william howard taft was 340 pounds. providence historian says it weighed on his service. >> most people don't that, but they do know he was rumored to have gotten stuck in his bathtub. >> he sounds like the poster boy for obesity. >> reporter: unlike his predecessor, taft said no real gentleman weighs more than 300 pounds. he enlisted the service of dr. nathaniel yorke-davies. >> taft contacted dr. yorke-davies. he wrote back and said let me send you some foods to eat foods not to eat. we'll work to help you lose weight and maintain the weight loss. >> reporter: taft was required to keep a food diary, weigh himself daily and report back. at one point he lost 70 pounds. >> but he gained some of it back. >> he gained a lot of it back. you pointed out that taft was one of the first perhaps celebrity dieters, perhaps the first celebrity yo-yo dieter. his weight went up and down over the course of his career. >> reporter: many of the ups and downs were located in letters between the president and his doctor. >> he says dear

at his heaviest, william howard taft was 340 pounds. prove dense college historian deborah levine says it weighed on this presidency. >> he's the only president to serve as president, secretary of war and the supreme court, most people don't know that but they do know that he got stuck in the bathtub. >> he sounds like the poster boy for obesity. >> reporter: taft was mocked in the press. he himself said no real gentleman weighs more than 300 pounds. so he enlisted the services of british physician nathaniel yorke-davies. how did they carry on this patient/doctor relationship. >> taft contacted dr. yorke-davies. york davies said yes, let me send you some foods to eat, not to eat. and we'll work to maintain that weight loss. >> reporter: taft was required to keep a food diary, weighing himself daily and reporting back. at one point, he lost 70 pounds. but he gained some of it back? >> he gain a lot of it back. taft was perhaps one of the first celebrity dieters, perhaps one of the first yo-yo dieters. >> reporter: many of the ups and dow

and an article in internal medicine details how william taft reached out to a physician for diet advice. letters exchanged between the two men revealed a detailed diet plan that called for lean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables. documented his daily weight, eventually losing 60 pounds. researchers say the letters were written as obesity started to be considered a serious health condition. and those are some of the day's top health stories. cbs news, new york. >> so with the trick or treating holiday, a new list of the best and worst kinds of treats. delta dental says avoid the sticky chewy candy. what's better for your kid snz plain chocolate. it melts quickly. you can opt for sugar free gum and loli pop s. >> i'm taking note. 4:55 right now. jolted awake. quakes rock the east bay overnight. the latest on the aftershocks. >> reporter: and we're live in oakland where bart and unions are at the negotiating table. trains will be running today. the details when we return. ,,,,,,,,,,,, the great american novel. so you can happily let life get in the way, while planning for tomorrow. so you

a similar unrelated story today shed new light on william howard taft's own struggle with obesity a hundred years ago. it turns out the portly chief exec who was more famous for his waistline than his presidency followed a diet regimen not different than those used today. a professor dug up correspondence that showed he recently consulted with doctors about his weight and kept notes about it. the result? he lost 59 pounds in less than a year. that's less room in the bathtub of his. >>> up next, who's running the republican party? is it john boehner and the so-called leaders? or the full mooners of the far right? you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. >>> there are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. there have been no decisions about what exactly we will do. >> mr. speaker, the changes in your bill to the president's health care law are pretty minor. were they worth a two-week government shutdown? >> we're working with our members on a way forward and to make sure we provide fairness to the american people. >> didn't answer the question. is it reasonable to bring down

and they added william howard taft to it. what impact do you think that has on people's interest if any in history? i like the way that nationals have made history part of their story. anything that you can get young people to study a presidency, that's a good thing. that's why we use pop cull dhur in the book. it's the attitude to the minds of the young people. >> how long did it take you to do this book? >> the issues for years. the actualing was a full year and about eight months in terms of editing and footnotes and adjustment ms. >> anybody interest in the presidency and pop culture. so a little vim diagram, it's an overlap. it's a pretty broad audience. >> another example of a modern president talking about books and the famous book and the favorite author, bill clinton. >> the finest model in my adulted life is "100 years of solitude." i read it when i was in law school. i keep going back to it. it was a rhapsodic mystical work. i enjoyed that very, very much. a lot of the fiction i read now is more for release. i read

a similar unrelated story today shed new light on william howard taft's own struggle with obesity a hundred years ago. it turns out the portly chief exec who was more famous for his waistline than his presidency followed a diet regimen not different than those used today. a professor dug up correspondence that showed he recently consulted with doctors about his weight and kept notes about it. the result? he lost 59 pounds in less than a year. that's less room in the bathtub of his. >>> up next, who's running the republican party? is it john boehner and the so-called leaders? or the full mooners of the far right? you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. is a daily game of "what if's". what if my abdominal pain and cramps come back? what if the plane gets delayed? what if i can't hide my symptoms? what if? but what if the most important question is the one you're not asking? what if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation? for help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisinfo.com to get your complimentary q&a book, with inf

of william howard taft. >> guest: i believe so, yes. and--so we were able to get these interviews. we di--put enormous amount of leg work in, which you have a lot more energy i think when you're that young, and came up with this book that was a best-seller in washington. and again, we were 23 years old it was a terrific opportunity. c-span: how did it come that ron brownstein had placed the ad and then how did you meet and get married? >> guest: well, he just--he likes to tell the story of how he included that--he was looking for writers and he included that berkeley thing at the last minute as--as a chance--as--as those things happen. he--anyways, i came out to washington and we worked together, we wrote that book together, and that's how we... c-span: what was he doing? >> guest: he was working for ralph nader as well. c-span: now los angeles times gets in this somewhere. >> guest: yeah. i--i worked for ralph a short while, a n--a year and a half, an--and decided i really needed to be a journalist journalist. and i wanted to--at the time, it was really important for journalists t

host: the supreme court building was authorized by chief justice william taft in 1929 and completed in 1935 with the cost of $9.7 million, $3 million domestic and foreign marble used in the building. if you watched our supreme court documentary, you learned that the building came in under budget. .hey return money many in the documentary saying it might be the only building in washington that came in under budget. a lot of this money, the $71 million in the annual budget, goes to salaries. the chief justice makes $223,000. an associate justice makes $213,000. a law clerk, $75,000. how does -- how are the salaries and and is caps on the high -- and is this on the high-end? thet: i think it is on high-end of government employees, but it is set by congress. it does not very often. -- it goes up and not very often. federal judges have not gotten many races over the years, which is quite an issue with them. is as far as how high it compared to private lawyers, private practice lawyers who ,ould be doing similar work though salaries are quite low. have often commented that as soon as their l

william howard taft. once he was back in america, it was almost immediate. tr started speaking out on politics and found himself more and more at odds with taft. those two men roosevelt and taft symbolized what was then a deep split in the republican party. on the one side were the progressives. they wanted reg laegss to protect workers. they liked unions, they believed in cons vacation, roosevelt, the trust buster president was their man. on the other side, there were the conservatives, friendly to business and finance, speshs of labor, uninterested in expanding the franchise. they were the old guard and were with taft. those two sides, roosevelt's progressives and taft's progressives went to war in 1912. they were a brand-new concept. few sides had them. they were a reform progressives like roosevelt championed. the 12 state primaries, not surprisingly roosevelt nearly swept them t. real power was in the back rooms. at the national convention in chicago, taft flexed hess muscle. one top official owed his job, owed his prestige or career to the taft white h

only one other president has been buried at arlington cemetery, william howard taft. noller notes that he has no eternal flame at the cemetery. those are the latest atlanta c- span radio. >> author and astrophysicist neil the g -- neil degrasse tyson. so,s nasa's future goes, too, does that of america. if nasa is healthy, you don't need a program to convince people that science and engineering is good to do, because they will see it writ large on the paper. there will be calls for engineers to help us go ice fishing where there is a notion of water that has been liquid for billions of years. we are going to dig through the soils of mars and look for life. look at the nasa portfolio today. chemistry, physics, geology -- planetary geology -- chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, all the stem fields represented in the nasa portfolio. umps that, asa p flywheel that society taps for innovations. >> booktv has aired over 40,000 programs about nonfiction books and authors. booktv, every weekend on c- span2. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back to the last re