government shutdown, current gornment funding expires o september 30. lawmakers areacing end of the month deadlines to reauthorize e faa and pandemic preparedness programs. the senate will continue work on more president biden's judicial in exec of nominaon including for the federal reserve. watch live covere the house on c-span, the saton c-an and a reminder you can watch allf r congressional coverage with our free video app c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress. from the house and senate floors, to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely

unfiltered. c-span. your unfiltered view of government. >> next, a former advisor to presidents nixon, ford, reagan and clinton gives his assessment on the state of the nation during a virtual conversation hosted by jews united for democracy and justice. he was asked about donald trump's legal challenges, the state of the republican party, and president biden's influence heading into the 2024 election. this is an hour. >> it is great to be back. a minor absence. only a temporary absence. i'm happy to be back with you and excited to speak with david gergen, political analyst who i grew up watching on my television screen. white house speechwriter for

president nixon, director of comedic asians for both presidents ford and reagan, and as a senior advisor to president clinton. he graduate with honors from yale in harvard law school and has been awarded 27 honorary degrees. he's a professor of public service and the founding director of the center for public leadership at the harvard kennedy school. also a senior clinical in-laws for cnn. welcome. nice to see you. david: thank you, marilyn. looking forward to the conversation. we have something to talk about. david: it's so quiet. do we have anything to talk about their? the latest indictment or maybe the fifth if you proceed -- include the superseding out of georgia. donald trump and 18 others covering racketeering and 40 other crimes. what is your assessment so far about the strategy you can

surmise through reading this indictment from the da? david: from the prosecutor or donald trump? madeleine: we will get to donald trump or start with the prosecutor. david: one thing that is striking is how sweeping and how many charges and counts there are verses the kind of approach which was taken by jack smith. when he was going through his portion of the investigation. the questions were very precise and to the point. he really had done his homework. it appears the new set of allegations could knock down a lot of things that it may not be as compelling. -- as compelling when you're more precise. madeleine: because it is so diffuse? david: you have 19 people with

90 counts. you can see this becoming a cottage industry over the next two years. -- few years. you cannot treat all people alike. you have to consider what the role was. does that merr -- merit being asserted in the group or should they be dropped? those of the questions you face. also, is it easier for jack smith? he's in federal cases. the four indictments, two are federal and two are not federal. a question on the federal ones, if you are indicted for violating a federal law and you are found to be a criminal, the president of the united states cannot pardon you. nor can the governor of the

state where this occurs. you are in a situation where -- two people would very much like to get into a position where he can be pardoned. it is much tougher with the prosecutor in the case against the 19. she can carry that case. the chances of her getting -- the only way trump gets off his he would have to win the general election and somehow navigate the justice department to get away with the case. in that case you can see trump walking away. otherwise, the chances are rising rapidly he's going to jail. madeleine: yeah. imagine that. if he wins and he's also in prison, what happens then? david: iffy wi -- if he wins he

's no longer subject to the laws of georgia but subject to federal laws. under federal laws he could arguably, and this has never been tried before, but he could arguably get to victory and then resign from the presidency for one day, give it to the vice president to pardon himself, and then test that in the courts. that would have to be tested constitutionally. the other way is to, in with guns blazing -- come in with guns blazing, fire the attorney general, play someone else in charge of the apartment and fire everybody. start again and ride it out. he could do that but i think it's extreme the unlikely to succeed. madeleine: fani willis said she

wants a march 3 trial date. looking at all the other trial dates that have been announced or the desire for these trial dates to be announced you have january 2 for jack smith's federal case. the generally six case. then you have the march 3 georgia case. then the new york city case, the stormy daniels case. and then in may the classified document case. during the gop and democratic primary season. the georgia primary is march 12. all of this would happen next spring. mr. gergen: there are 19 people involved, this is complicated.

in my judgment, i don't know the prosecutor personally, she has a lot of experience and is well-regarded. on this particular question, that she has a big trial date in march, that is the people of the march 4 primaries, that is super tuesday. it does seem to me -- it may be it was chosen randomly, but there will be a lot of suspicion on the right that that is a manufacture date to overwhelm whatever comes out of the primaries and force trump into a minimal position. i thought that was not very smart. it gives the enemy ammunition. you could be sure of the enemy will use them. madeleine: they are already

saying it is politically motivated. mr. gergen: but particularly tied to the primaries. that is a magical date in the minds of people in politics. madeleine: if you want a speedy trial and want to get it done before the election, there are only so many days you can choose. mr. gergen: that's true. on the other hand, you could do it on thursday or friday after super tuesday. it just adds fuel to the fire that this is somehow a political job. that argument is making headway unfortunately, i think it is wrong. but i do concede the politics of it playing out in ways that one would not have imagined. that donald trump would have survived four different cases. he is probably going to go down. but it is going to be a fight. madeleine: you think you will actually see the inside of a prison cell?

mr. gergen: i think the chances are less 50-50, but i think they are more than 25. madeleine: should he be convicted, and sentenced, and joe is reelected, for the sake of the country, should joe biden pardon him? mr. gergen: well, i impartial, i was in the ford white house when this question arose. nixon had just left, the first president in america to be forced to resign because of a scandal. what ford found is he could not -- when he was trying to govern as a new president, he had to keep reverting and spending time worried about nixon.

instead of looking ahead, he was looking over his shoulder. and he decided he could not govern the country that way. out of the blue, he pardoned nixon. that caused a storm. i think he could have handled it a bit better in terms of public perception. but ford lost reelection over that issue. we are in a heavy duty place here. it is very important and how these things are handled. i would much prefer that the president not be put in jail. it would leave a stain, the polarization in our politics, it could take a generation to recover. my hope is we will have fair trials, everyone will come away

feeling it was fair, no matter how it comes out. and if he is found to be guilty and a felon, that is when you take a hard look. it may well be that you may want to get the hell out of dodge so you can go ahead with governing. we are losing. we are in a race for time, the environment, are losing the race because we are invested in the past. what happened yesterday and not enough concern about tomorrow. we should not be having these storms that we see, we should not be having fires we see. we should have been better prepared for that. you go back and look at 9/11. i happened to be living in boston during this. the people in boston knew there might be a strike and practiced

and practiced. they were looking forward. when all hell broke loose because of the bombs that went off, it was a striking thing. if you are in a crowd and were hit by something, at 911, if you could make it alive to the ambulance which was nearby, every single person who made it to the ambulance live. -- lived. it was because they had practice, and that is what leadership was about. what we are lacking is leadership. serious leadership, leadership of compassion. it helps us to reunite as a people, coming out of these dark times, strange years. we need to find each other in a new way, to redefine who we are and our roles. in particular, it is time to

pass the torch to a new generation. to a younger generation who are not as scarred by all of this, not as poisoned by all of this. and let them get a fresh start and put this country back together. madeleine: what are you saying, i will try to parse it when it comes to joe biden. are you saying that he is not doing the right thing when it comes to climate change? he is not doing the right thing -- he should not run for reelection he should step aside and let someone else younger run? mr. gergen: i think it is better for the country for biden and trump to step aside. and i think what we have seen since then is a large majority of this country not want to see them as the only people on the ticket. they are looking for fresh faces. there is a hunger for moving on

with fresh people. i admire joe biden. i am a biden fan and fundamentally because i think he responded to the death of his young children and his son in the war. i think he had admirably handled it and is going through rough times right now with hunter. hunter biden is in headlines and has become the hunted. one understands that given the fact's. he was convicted. people deserve more leeway. we are using hunter biden as something we can beat up on to make political points. there was a general understanding among presidents that you did not go after each other's kids.

you made a habit of trying to stay off of things like that. madeleine: that's gone. mr. gergen: it is gone. madeleine: i don't know about hunter biden, there is an argument to be made that the mainstream news media ignored this story and to let it fester in the right on fox news news and elsewhere. and it became bigger for that reason. one of the reasons it became so big. had the mainstream media, the new york times, washington post, npr, had they been really looked into this and talked about it instead of brushing it aside, maybe it wouldn't be as big a deal now? who knows. mr. gergen: that is a worthy question, i do not know the answer to that. there are probably points on both sides but after all there

was a council and special counsel that has been put in place. madeleine: now. mr. gergen: you can't necessarily get things done, it is the dynamics of our system. sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get these things up a month that is why fox has been successful, up to a point. because it takes these things so seriously. you're right it would have been better, but i do not think that is the issue we are dealing with. the issue is how much responsibility do you take as president, if your son has become an addict, has a disease? joe biden could have walked away from his son, been angry with his son, and instead he is taking the heat, stood up for him. and you have to say, he has a

humanity about him which i admire. it is just he is also adding age and condition which makes it difficult to govern with as much knowledge and fortitude. especially with -- being president is a hard job. something more is expected of the president of the u.s. then we expected 20, 30, 40 years ago. it is not that simple. what worked in the past can work again, have coalitions, bring in to bo neil. one of the -- bring in to pony on -- tip o'neil. in today's word -- 20 years ago,

30 years ago, when reagan was president, they worked together. i worked in that white house, they developed bonds of respect, they did not agree with each other on all things. eventually they had bonds of affection. if you would permit a story. when reagan was president, tip was speaker of the house. it was her birthday coming up, it was the 65th, a significant one. reagan started a birthday party in the white house and invited her and her friends for lunch. after lunch, he got up. he said, tip, if i got my ticket

back, -- and went to hell with you. that was the humor of the time. we played tricks on the chief of staff, it was so much fun. madeleine: it does not seem very fun right now. i wonder why anyone would want to be president at this time. mr. gergen: we are slogging through. it sure ain't fun. madeleine: it is hard to imagine the same thing happening when you see kevin mccarthy voted against certifying the election. mr. gergen: yep. i think -- my fear is that, and the next few years, we will not find the leadership we need. there is too much poison, it is

too much kevin mccarthy, too much cowardice about not standing up against trump. if you cannot stand up against him for the fourth indictment, there is something seriously amiss in the republican party. that is not the republican party i knew 20, 30, 40 years ago which was the party that believed in law and order, that you pay attention and abide by the law. now it is the party to overthrow the law. a lot of changes have taken place, it will take time to work through them. but the critical thing is to get moving on making sure we have generations coming up who are going to be strong, resilient, courageous. we need that kind of leadership again. we are not seeing it. we are seeing young people -- drug addiction, a corner of the

young people in the country who wanted to go into the military, they cannot pass the test. they cannot past the physical test, all of these tests and they cannot make it. that is a remarkable drop. it is true that young's -- the younger generation does not trust institutions and do not trust the leaders. when i was growing up, we looked up at the world war ii leaders and thought, thank god we had people like roosevelt and churchill. to help save the western world. my friend in los angeles, he was asked a question. how is it that when in the early

days of the republic, he had 3 million people who lived in our republic, and among them, we were able to find six world-class leaders? washington, jefferson, adams, franklin, madison, and -- leslie. today we have 330 million people living in this country. we cannot seem to find one world-class leader read we need that. we have to have strong, firm, inspiring leaders. madeleine: you do not see anyone waiting in the wings. mr. gergen: i do. madeleine: it seems like there is a group waiting for this.

and one of them would be the governor of this state, gavin newsom. mr. gergen: gavin newsom and someone on the east coast with many of the same qualities, the new governor of maryland. maryland was governed by a republican who stepped down. there was an election and a young man on the election, he is 44. his name is wes moore, keep your eye on him, he is a hot commodity in politics right now. he is a young man, black, grew up on the wrong side of the track. he wound up in handcuffs. police were after him all the time. in order to save his life, his mother put him in the military

academy in philadelphia. he turned around because of the care he was getting, the leadership training he was getting. wound up going to johns hopkins university, wound up as a rhodes scholar, wound up running the robin hood foundation which was the largest antipoverty organization in new york city. and ran for office, and one -- and won. he had never run for office before. he is charismatic. and another thing that democrats don't usually do, he volunteered for military service and was a paratrooper. this is a young man, everyone who meets him says, this man has possibilities. i do not think he is the only one. the governor of north dakota,

and unknown, is a compelling governor. and it deserves being the leading part of the pack. he is good on economics. the governor of michigan, she is another person could bring a lot to the table. there are people waiting. madeleine: but they are not going to go against biden. mr. gergen: yeah, they will be there -- i do not think biden will go for a second term. that is out of the question. i do think the question is, whether they will stay the course for the first term? he need somewhere else in there to win the election. we will have to wait and see. there are people are willing and

ready to stand up and want to save the country. and they are tough enough to do it, and some of them have enough money to get started. but they will have to appeal to people's sense of fairness and duty. and a sense of -- we must get -- deal with the question of race, in the sense that we need people of all races, all backgrounds, all vendors, -- genders, to put aside conversations that do not matter. and so we can have things that matter and get back together again. madeleine: kamala harris, you do not think is viable? mr. gergen: i am not the best judge on kamala harris. i will tell you this. i think she has a tough set of

cards in the beginning, she was asked to be charge of immigration. there has been nobody in washington to solve this problem in the last 15-20 years. i would anyone think the vice president, no formal authority, may be able to succeed? unfortunately, kamala has gotten off to a rough start. it just did not seem to click in the beginning. there were a lot of strategists who came to the conclusion, white and black, we need somebody else. i will tell you. kamala harris, during these recent times, on the question of violence and the lawsuit, they have been doing a better job. i think biden wants to keep her.

he may face a terrible dilemma, you're up at 53%, but kamala harris hasn't cracked 40. we may lose the election over this. joe biden will not make that change. he will probably go down with the ship. but if he does not stand behind kamala harris, there will be people in the black community who will say, wait a minute, he stood by you when you were in trouble and put you in the white house. and you owe us, and if you take her, we are splitting. madeleine: where would we go? not to be too cynical, they are not going to vote -- mr. gergen: they would look for someone, they would prefer a

black woman. some people think there are a couple in southern california who are good candidates. young black women. madeleine: the mayor of l.a.. getting back to the republicans, i mentioned larry hogan. he declined to run for president. but when he was governor was one of the most popular governors in the u.s.. he seems like a reasonable republican, someone who would be a republican star in any other era. what does it say to you that he is not running, there are several other moderate republicans, asa hutchinson, that this party cannot accommodate anyone like that on the national stage? mr. gergen: if the republican party cannot turn around and

deal seriously with adult like effort to deal with these indictments, and the message we will be sending to young people, if you get indicted for times, it does not matter. we don't care. if that is our view, the republican party is going to be finished over time. if our view is let's put this back together, let's try it, we will see. i do think it depends on public opinion. we tend to get the presidents we deserve. if we have a shoddy expectations for the president, we have shoddy presidents. this is a moment when the republican party, i do not recognize it. but i do believe that the party

as recently as george w. bush and ronald regan was a better party. we are not that many years removed. both he and reagan look better now than they have in a long time because he seems so sensible. there were people, when i was growing up, he was seen as terrible. he has come a long way. the republican party can recover. but how it handles the next few months is going to determine whether it is in for the long haul or whether it will self-destruct as a party. madeleine: doesn't seem like anybody is going to -- this does not move the needle at all, this fourth indictment. mr. gergen: i think the issue becomes, the best way to change our politics as the losing party is to beat the third part --

beat the losing party third times in a row. when bill clinton ran for president, he called me the day he announced. and he said, i could have gotten in four years ago, but we have a better situation now. the country has tried three different liberals to be the nominee of the party. why don't we try somebody like reagan? why don't we start looking to somebody who is different? different kind of person. the opportunities are there if the will is there. madeleine: what about the fact that joe biden has accomplished so much during this presidency so far? huge bills he has gotten

through. this particularly angry congress. and these are things that perhaps he should be shouting from the rooftops. telling the voters, this is what we have done for you. every night, hold some kind of event where he is trumpeting his achievements. why are they so unwilling, the biden administration, to brag about significant achievements? mr. gergen: they got your message. they had biden on the trail talking about his achievements in the last couple of months. they have changed their strategy on, love, -- on kamala and i think they have change their strategy on biden. these are not easy calls. i think that joe biden has all of the credentials one needs to be a good president. he is not great, he is not great

with words. he is not a great communicator. that has become a more important ingredient for leadership these days than what we had 30-40 years ago. donald trump, a demagogue can build up a sizable glory base. whereas a person like biden, who gets the work done, but is not charismatic, does not get get the points he deserves. he has had a hard time cracking 40% approval. he has to get that number up. he has to get to 45. it would help if it were a more united democratic party. that would come together to. the democratic party leaves things to be desired as a party.

but it is still a viable party. still a set of beliefs that give it a sense of unity. whereas the republicans are all over the place. the republicans used to be the governing party. the democrats are the race health party. and they got that done through the progressive you're in the 1960's and 1970's. they got a lot done. the fdr days were superb. what each party calls out for, it does suggest that we gave up the smoke-filled rooms years ago. our presidents used to be selected by their peers. and to the smoke-filled room, that was where people got approved. then we decided, let's throw that out, let's hold primaries and elections.

i think we got better candidates and nominees the smoke-filled rooms then we did in the primary system. madeleine: really? how many people were excluded from the smoke-filled rooms? mr. gergen: a lot of people. madeleine: like the colored people. mr. gergen: yeah. but i'm telling you, that is spreading fumes. look at tim scott as a republican. he is running a good campaign and make it on the ticket. as a vice presidential candidate. madeleine: he is a trump defender, he has not come out -- mr. gergen: yeah. but you will not find many people who are 100% for or against him. madeleine: coming out against these indictments? mr. gergen: biden should not say a word about the indictments. it let the prosecutors do that. he should say he supports the

judiciary. just like wheat make your votes count. -- we make your votes count. we could do this better. i think, it comes back -- we look at our leaders and say it is up to them. but it is up to us. madeleine: it is up to a small portion of us, because we are entrenched in our camps. mr. gergen: i'm not so -- trump has worked his magic on his party. he is a man of cowardice on the part of the party.

people need to stand up against him and sent out for justice. -- stand up for justice. those of us who are older need to take responsibility here. madeleine: we are at the push and -- portion where we go to questions. let me begin with frank. mr. gergen: your questions are tough. [laughter] madeleine: we will have more of mind to. frank asks, will trump supporters ever perceive that a trial of him is fair? what is the future hold? mr. gergen: i do not understand -- madeleine: will he get a fair trial? mr. gergen: i think the losers, especially in the trial, the

chances of donald trump being found guilty at least one count, probably significantly more him a are very high. the people will be yelling fouled -- yelling foul on the republican side. but they have had their day trying to push phony arguments. and it didn't work. at some point, when you get to four different trials. you have to feel sorry for him in some ways, the guy has to be -- being in a courtroom and being on the stump. you will go a little nuts. i would not be shocked if he decides to step down. madeleine: really? mr. gergen: i would not be shocked. if he decides he cannot win, and he will be humiliated, i think it is possible.

i think for the first time, it is possible. i think joe biden will step down, i think it is possible. i think it is more likely joe biden will step down then trump. madeleine: what would make joe biden step down? mr. gergen: if you felt the country had gone mad and it was going to be in the hands of trump in four years -- for four years. he may decide, maybe we need to find a younger candidate. i think he has it in him, where trump does not. biden has it in him to put the country first. and to do what he things will serve the country well. i think that is who he is. where as we can see clearly, that is not where trump is. madeleine: what do you think of

a third-party effort, like no labels? wouldn't that help trump? mr. gergen: yes, it would help trump. please know that for some years, i have been a fan of no labels. and of a third party. anything to jolt us out of this situation. where we are now, given the fact that trump could actually win the election, even though he is in jail, he could still win. where he is now, -- i do not worry about it in the same way other people do. madeleine: ok. but wouldn't they pull from the democratic side? mr. gergen: yeah, the likelihood is that, if you are in the middle, and undecided, who have

already looked at trump, and already decided he is not my guy. and you become an independent. and the numbers, the trend of independent close to republicans , the trendline is that independents are becoming more serious about whether trump can win the election and are getting pessimistic. so they may try to push him out. madeleine: larry asks, you are an authority on leadership, what are we missing today? mr. gergen: churchill was asked, what is the most important quality of a leader? he said, courage, without that you cannot get anything else done.

in the times we are in right now, courage remains at the top. john f. kennedy wrote the book 70 years ago, profiles in courage. one of the most popular books about congress. and people in congress, mostly senators, kennedy was in the hospital, it look like you might die. -- like he might die. he wrote this book and it turned out well. i have been reading books about churchill. the capacity to take the heat, when the german planes were flying over, he would be up on the rooftop. he insisted that is where the

action was. madeleine: is it true there is courage everywhere you look, not necessarily in government, but other places? i am thinking of young kids who filed a lawsuit against montana and one. mr. gergen: i am so glad you raise that. the people who showed courage these days and purpose tend to be black, people of color, and they tend to be women. black women are on the high moral ground. they have shown a lot of courage. you look at rosa parks, a long tradition coming down from that. people doing really gutsy things. the interesting thing is we are beginning to see with women making their way in the world.

it is much better than it was. women have been working hard at success. whereas young men have gone the opposite. there are a variety of industries, what is happening to the epidemic of loneliness. in drugs and that sort of thing. it is also true, the statistic that blew my mind, we grew up in different times. but during most of that time, young men were the dominant number, the dominant force in college. men were going, young women were taking jobs. that has changed. in the last year or so, of the -- degrees awarded by universities, for every 100 -- 74 went to women.

think of that. that is a wonderful number. it gives me hope as we go forward. madeleine: what is going on with the men? what is happening with them? mr. gergen: they do not know what the rules are anymore. it is not obvious. it is easy to be -- to lose your way in this adulation. -- in this situation. one of the most important things we can do, and would be very helpful, gavin newsom and wes moore are the two proponents of this. national service. an expectation that every young percent between the ages of 18-24 will have an opportunity

to, if they wish, serve the country in some fashion. not in the military, in civilian clothes. replicating the civilian conservation corps in the 1930's. it was started by -- early in his presidency. fdr announced a program, the ccc program. we want young men to volunteer to work in the parks and forests. and we will pay you for it. by that summer, the u.s. had 250,000 young men in the parks. it was the most popular program in the new deal, it gave young men a job, showing up for work, they belonged to something bigger than themselves.

that is the kind of thing we should be building. madeleine: i agree. but that idea has been floated so often in the past. it is a bipartisan idea. why cannot -- why can't we get that? mr. gergen: every time i go into a community and raise it, i get a lot of steam. i have asked the same question. why in the world can we not get this done? it is so obvious. i do not know the answer. what i do know is, wes moore had two ideas he proposed. he wanted to address child poverty and national service. he made the point we should start small, that is what gavin

newsom did in california. they started very small to get proof of concept. then they were able to raise money. now they have 10,000 people come through. on the service side. i think it can be done, but it will not just happen overnight. it takes work. it takes perseverance. it takes patience. these things take a long time. look how long we have been working on the environment. and the progress we have made in terms of our commitment. madeleine: i could argue we have not been working hard enough on it. mr. gergen: exactly. it's shocking. you're right, we should not be talking about all of this stuff, we should be talking about how

we are going to save the planet. madeleine: that is the existential question. it is all about our survival. mr. gergen: i totally agree. i think you can get young people to be part of the conservation corps. madeleine: i will ask the final question from ted. how do you view the media today? it seems the economy is doing well but the media focuses on the slightest wrinkle that isn't positive. [laughter] well. [laughter] mr. gergen: i miss walter cronkite and ted koppel. so many others have come through. i worked with many of these people, when all of us were young. the world war ii generation. when brokaw called it the best

generation. i think we could have another best generation if we work at it read -- work at it. your -- i am a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. madeleine: in terms of the media? mr. gergen: in terms of the u.s.. i think the media is not oblivious to the fact -- let's take a trump. the president of cnn said, we and able to much, we gave him too much coverage. it squeezed everybody else out. eight changed the dynamic, trump emerged from and stronger because the media displayed a guy who was charismatic but he

was also strong. he encourages people to look tough. that is part of his authoritarian streak that has helped him. i think the media is going to do a better job this time, it will be more careful. more cautious about coming down in one way or the other. fox news is not what it once was. it is still conservative but it is not erratically conservative. i think there are self corrections going on in the press. but do we have enough ted koppel's? jim lehrers? we could use some more. they were dear people who cared about each other. there were a lot of women -- they became media figures.

we have repeated evidence that if you put -- if you have more people of color and more women on courts, they will have greater success in the marketplace. madeleine: i don't know if you can talk out of school about cnn. they did air the kaitlan collins trump interview. mr. gergen: i think in retrospect, you have to say, she is a gutsy woman. madeleine: she is. mr. gergen: she tried to stand up to him, but he is just overpowering. it was an impossible task for her. i was glad she survived. i give her a major position. madeleine: that raises the question, do you put trump on the air for a live one-on-one interview? mr. gergen: i think trump -- i

don't think trump ought to be given a free ride. i think he ought to be held up. he has to be held up to the standard of responding to questions from the press. madeleine: he will just lie or obfuscate. mr. gergen: he has to be called on it. you have to post things so people know. there is a such -- such a thing as free speech. i am not saying we should shut him down. what would we be more comfortable if he wasn't around? yes, but i think madeline: we are at the end of our program that went by so fast you have any final words? mr. gergen: i appreciate that

you come back and put me on the air, you stick to it. you are at 171, 172. go faster than these trials. madeline: ok great. thank you so much it was great talking with you thank you. and thank you so much for watching this, tune in next week , wednesday i will be back with mary ziegler and we are going to talk all about abortion and what is happening. lots of news. that will be a really timely and interesting conversation. >> this week c-span brings you campaign 2024 coverage from the iowa state fair hosted by iowa governor kim reynolds.

tonight, former south carolina governor in u.s. ambassador the u.n. nikki haley. on friday night florida governor ron desantis. chats with republican presidential candidate from the iowa state fair. this week at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, and online at c-span.org. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 6:00 p.m. eastern, librarian of congress hosts a conversation marking president truman's executive order, 9981, prohibiting discrimination in the u.s. military. also, president biden time-outs the former president's executive order and its accomplishes for minorities in the military at the truman civil rights symposium. and at 9:30 p.m. eastern, on the presidency, historian looked at

gerald ford in the context of the 1970's, when he served as house minority leader, vice president and then president. exploring the american story. watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch o any time at c-span.org/history. >> sunday night on q&a, in his book, university of richmond journalism professor looks at the 1977 siege of three buildings in washington, d.c., by a group of muslims and their leader. hostages were taken at all three locations. >> it's amazing how this story has receded into the background and we don't talk about it as much. this is the first time anybody's told this story. it's never been assembled by

anybody in 50 years. or 40-plus years. so a lot of it was lost and nobody has thought. about this. some of the federal records were retained but the local court records were lost, including the transcript. but i've been able to find, uncover that transcript and it's thousands of pages and it was every word spoken by every witness during the trial, which really helped me, on top of all the other f.b.i. records and everything else that i found, thousands of pages. but that record really helped me piece together the sequence of events in washington those two days. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> this fall, watch c-span's new

series, books that shaped america. joins us as we embark on a captivating journey with the library of congress that first created a books that changed america list, exploring key literature in american history. it has provoked thought, won awards, led to significant societal changes and are still talked about today. hear from featured renowned experts who will shed light on the profound impact of these iconic works and virtual journeys to significant locations across the country intricately tied to these celebrated authors and their unforgettable books. among our featured books, "common sense," huckleberry fin," their eyes were watching god," and "free to choose." watch our 10-part series, books that shaped america, starting monday, september 18 at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org.

>> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> this syndrome is extremely rare. >> hi. >> but friends don't have to be. >> this is joe. >> when they're connected, you're not alone. >> cox supports c-span as a public service, along wi these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> up nex south carolina senator tim scott eaks to voters in iowa about his 2024 presidential campaign, including why he decided to run. following his remarks, the auence asked him questions about the economy, ucation and u.s. involvement with ukraine. nator scott's appearance was part of the sto