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- [00:00]
Charlie Gibson
I can say to my new Samsung.
- [00:02]
Kate
Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto.
- [00:04]
Charlie Gibson
Friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a.
- [00:09]
Jeffrey Toobin
Finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can.
- [00:12]
Charlie Gibson
1, 2, 3. Will that be cash or credit?
- [00:17]
Kate
Credit. 4 Galaxy S25 Ultra. The AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get yours@samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. So this is the program that makes the case for books, all kinds of books. It's the Bookcase with Kate and Charlie, a two generation two gender podcast. And you don't get that just anywhere, folks. I mean, that's, that's a pretty rare thing to get. Anyway, I'm the Charlie Gibson part and.
- [00:52]
Jeffrey Toobin
I'm the Kate part and I'm really excited that you are here. And just so that we can work in all of our catchphrases, I will add one more. We are wherever free podcasts are.
- [01:03]
Kate
Yes, that's.
- [01:04]
Jeffrey Toobin
Yes, exactly.
- [01:05]
Kate
Sometimes people laugh about that and sometimes I say that and they look at me like, huh. At some point we can.
- [01:12]
Jeffrey Toobin
We know. So. So we know the irony. We're just saying to you at home, we do understand the irony of what we just said. It was meant to be ironical, right? Ironically, not ironical.
- [01:21]
Kate
We have sometimes had the pleasure of talking to people that I have known in a past life. And this week it's Jeffrey Toobin, who for many years was the legal analyst and correspondent for Good Morning America, went on to many years at cnn. And Jeffrey has written a whole series of books over the years. This new one that is just out is called the Pardon. And the pardon that he's writing about is the pardon that Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon in 1974. And Nixon was able to walk away from Watergate without any kind of recriminations. Is it timely today? You betcha. And is it really interesting history? If you're a Watergate bug or a history bug, this is really the book for you.
- [02:07]
Jeffrey Toobin
Yeah, I love books like this. I mean, we made a decision early in the podcast. I think our listeners are aware of this. We don't have any desire to debate political issues through nonfiction. That's not the nonfiction we do. But I really enjoyed this book almost in the same way I enjoyed the Situation Room by George Stephanopoulos last year. Because these books offer a fascinating and oblique way of looking at presidential politics. It's a different way of studying presidential history and how we got to where we are right now. And the pardon is a brilliant book to analyze that. I really didn't understand the history of the presidential pardon. So this book was very useful.
- [02:51]
Kate
It goes all the way back to the time of the Founding Fathers. They did not want a king to lead the executive branch of the government. They wanted restrictive powers on the executive, with one exception. And that, as Jeffrey points out when we talked to him, was a result of Alexander Hamilton's insistence that the President have an unchecked pardon power, that he can pardon anybody he wants from any crime. You can't be pardoned for crimes that you're going to commit in the future, but anything that you've committed in the past, President, can pardon you. And Jeffrey will say it right off the bat in our conversation. How the President uses the pardon power is a reflection of the soul of that particular President.
- [03:35]
Jeffrey Toobin
And I think, you know, pardons can be thought of as a necessary out for a President in extreme situations of injustice. Or you could look at it as a loophole so big that you could drive a train through it, which is, I think, what people maybe think of it more as. Now, Jeffrey Toobin's done a wonderful job, I think, of examining the pardon all the way back to the Founding Fathers. But you're right, he focuses largely on the pardon of Richard Nixon by Jerry Ford and how that landed us in the position that we are in today. And I loved this conversation. Just on a personal note, I don't know if the word war horse is a bad word, but I felt like I was just sort of sitting there having a cup of coffee, listening to two war room journalists sort of talk about old times and talk about their opinion of what's going on today, which is endlessly fascinating to me.
- [04:26]
Kate
So I really enjoy. I covered Jerry Ford when he was President. That shows you how old I am. And the. Yeah, well, war horse applies. It was 50 years ago, but it was an incredible political story, and a lot of people believe that it cost Jerry Ford the White House in 1976, that he would not have lost to Jimmy Carter had he not pardoned Richard Nixon. You can debate that. But Jeffrey comes to the conclusion, I think. Well, two conclusions that you'll hear. Both of them really interesting because there's a lot of history, even though I covered Ford, a lot of history in this, I did not know. And he has really done a wonderful job of recounting how all of this transpired. But he makes the point A, that Ford really was sort of naive going into this. B, that he did a terrible job of prepping the public for what was to come. And C. He didn't need to do it. That's the most amazing thing. He didn't need to issue the pardon. The pardon that may have cost him the presidency of the United States. That's a fascinating conclusion that he reaches. This is a good book. This is a good book and Jeffrey writes good books. But I'm prejudiced. And I picked up this book thinking, you know, maybe we shouldn't do it because as Kate says, we're trying to keep this thing non political and, and secondly, do I just want to do it because Jeffrey's Jeffrey and I loved working with him, but Jeffrey's Jeffrey because he writes really good books. And this is.
- [05:54]
Jeffrey Toobin
Yeah, here it is, our conversation with the great Jeffrey Toobin.
- [06:02]
Kate
It is a delight to welcome Jeffrey Toobin into our bookcase. Jeffrey and I worked together for years and years at Good Morning America. It was my privilege to do so. Jeff, the Pardon. The pardon is your title referencing the forward pardon of Richard Nixon. Why write this book now about something that happened 50 years ago?
- [06:23]
Charlie Gibson
Because pardons are X rays into the souls of presidents. And as we have seen recently, pardons are now going to be so central to our recollections of the first Trump term, that the Joe Biden term and now the second Trump term. I think you can learn a tremendous amount about presidents and about our system by examining how presidents exercise the pardon power. In addition, as you suggest, much of the book is about Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon and the long buildup to that. And that is just an incredible story that I was only vaguely aware of. And as it turned out, as I dug into it, and as I hope readers will find, it's a really great Washington story. And that's why I wanted to tell it.
- [07:15]
Kate
You quote the Founding Fathers that they were intent on not giving the president king like powers. But you quote James Madison from the Federalist Papers the power of the pardon, as he wrote, there is no check or balance on the President's power to pardon. No check or balance. It is the provision of the Constitution most directly descended from the authority of kings of England. So Jeff, why did they give the President that power?
- [07:41]
Charlie Gibson
Well, you know, it is an anomaly, as you suggest. You know, the Constitution is built around the idea of checks and balances and the pardon is an exception. And when the Articles of Confederation came in after America declared independence from Britain, there was no president and there was no pardon power. But Alexander Hamilton, who was, you know, one of the main framers of the Constitution after the Articles of Confederation, wanted there to be a president and wanted there to be a pardon power. And he understood that it was both an instrument of mercy, which is, so, I think, how most people understand the pardon power. But he also understood that it was a way of the president maintaining his authority. He was particularly concerned about what would happen if there were rebellions in the country. And there was a rebellion, a small one, called the Whiskey Rebellion, when George Washington was president, and Washington used the pardon to say, okay, that was a bad moment in our history, but we are going to allow people to return to normal life. And that tension between pardons as an instrument of mercy and as an instrument of the president's political power has been a constant ever since it became part of the Constitution in 1787.
- [09:09]
Jeffrey Toobin
You ask a couple of times in the book, what is the purpose of the presidential pardon? And does the presidential pardon more greatly benefit the person to whom it is granted, or does it more greatly benefit the person who is granting it having that ultimate power to grant that clemency or not? Now, having written the book, do you have an opinion on those questions?
- [09:32]
Charlie Gibson
Well, if I'm gonna be a weaselly lawyer, I'll just answer both. But that tension between what the purpose of the pardon power is goes back to England and the power of the king, because parliament was always concerned about whether the king was actually using the pardon power for mercy or whether he was using it to reward his friends and extend his own power. And as we've seen, you know, just in the past year, how can you describe the pardon of Hunter Biden or the pardon of the January 6th rioters as one or the other? They are obviously both. They are exercises of presidents rewarding their friends and family, but they are also exercises of mercy. And I think, you know, much of the tension in how we feel about pardons comes from the tension between those two objectives.
- [10:30]
Kate
But the fact that it is absolute, the pardon power. You know, as I was reading your book, I was wondering, could the president walk into the most notorious federal prison and say, everyone here is pardoned. Is that true?
- [10:43]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah, absolutely.
- [10:44]
Jeffrey Toobin
I want to go back to Ford's pardon of Nixon for a minute. And one of the points that you make was that he did this very privately. I'm interested as to what your opinion is to why Ford didn't thoroughly vet the decision to pardon Nixon with other staff members and members of Congress.
- [11:03]
Charlie Gibson
Well, in the best lawyerly tradition, I am going to both answer that question and answer it with A question, because I want to ask Charlie Gibson about that, since he covered the Ford White House. Ford, as I think people may remember, was a terrific football player at the University of Michigan. And he was valued being a team player a great deal. And during the brief time he was vice president only eight months, he did not want to be seen as scheming against Richard Nixon, trying to edge his way into the presidency. And one way he did that was by keeping a great distance from. From the whole subject of Watergate. He didn't learn, you know, the underlying facts. He didn't follow the investigation very carefully. He didn't examine the issues that the President had to deal with. So when he became president on August 9, 1974, he didn't know a lot about what was going on with Watergate, including one very hot issue at the time, which was Nixon's demand that he keep the Watergate tapes and all the papers and records of his presidency. Nixon used that as leverage to try to get a pardon. But Ford just didn't know the law and wanted to just get the whole issue behind him. And Nixon played on that in order to get a pardon. But, Charlie, as someone who was there, I mean, what were your impressions of Ford's attitude when he took office?
- [12:35]
Kate
Well, I bought his theory that the country would be really disrupted and would be torn apart if Richard Nixon was sitting in a courtroom being tried. Now, having felt that at the time, and I think that's sort of the conventional wisdom now, what I think is so valuable about this book is that you point out that we were all shocked on that Sunday when he pardoned Nixon. I was. I think you quote Carl Bernstein in the book as calling Woodward. Is that right? And telling him about the pardon and saying, that son of a bitch just pardoned that son of a bitch.
- [13:13]
Charlie Gibson
That's exactly right. And one of the reasons I took up this whole subject is your view of the conventional wisdom is exactly right. The way it has shifted. In 1974, Gerald Ford's popularity went down 40% in one week because of the pardon. In 2001, Ted Kennedy at the Kennedy Library in Boston gave the Profile and Courage Award to Gerald Ford, saying, I criticized the pardon in 1974. You were right and I was wrong. Bob Woodward has made a similar about face on this. And in the oral argument of the Trump vs United States case, when there was some discussion of pardons, Brett Kavanaugh said, well, I think everybody now agrees that the pardon was the right thing to do. I go back to the original view. I do not think the pardon, the Ford's pardon of Nixon was the right thing to do. But, you know, the evolution of a historical judgment and conventional wisdom is, I think, really, really interesting. And the shift is a real one, as you say.
- [14:18]
Kate
But to come back to that, there was a lot of thought that this is going to cost him, Ford, the 1976 election. Indeed. You quote Tip O'Neill, one of the people that I had the honor to cover for a long time, saying, well, you're not asking for my advice, Mr. President, but it's gonna cost you the election. And I. That surprised me that it was a reaction at the time. But in 1976, when I was out on the campaign trail talking to voters, it came up over and over and over again. And I thought, you know, two years later, this is sticking in the craw of the American public. Jerry Ford did not make enough of a case for why he was doing this to satisfy the public. And as a result, I do think it was a. I don't know if it was the reason he lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, but it certainly was a major factor. And that surprised me.
- [15:08]
Charlie Gibson
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I went back and looked at, you know, Carter didn't mention it all that often on the campaign troll. He didn't mention it when he gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. Ford and Carter had three debates and it only came up in passing once in the debate. So it wasn't a day to day subject. It was a big negative for Ford. And again, one of the fun things about going back in the history is, you know, if Ford had taken a little more time, he would have learned that Leon Jaworski, the Watergate special prosecutor who was, you know, in charge of the decision whether to indict Nixon, didn't want to indict Nixon. And so in that respect, the pardon was probably just unnecessary. But, you know, Ford wanted to get this issue off his plate. And that's why he, including doing it on this weird Sunday morning speech where, you know, took everyone completely by surprise, which I think contributed to the negative reaction that he had not laid the groundwork at all.
- [16:12]
Kate
Yeah. And that's one of the things most interesting that I learned from your book, which was that they were so intent on keeping this close and only discussed among his closest advisors. They didn't talk to Jaworski. He was special prosecutor, as you say, he didn't want to prosecute Nixon, therefore the pardon was unnecessary.
- [16:35]
Charlie Gibson
Absolutely. And also, you know, to talk to your Republican allies in Congress and, you know, say, you know, we're considering this. What do you think? Will you come out in support of it if I. If I do it? You know, that's sort of basic politics 101, and Ford didn't do that, and he really paid a price for it.
- [16:53]
Jeffrey Toobin
I feel like I've grown up with executive privilege being discussed and debated and discussed and debated and discussed and debated and tried in the courts. And I was shocked to learn from your book that executive privilege only entered conversations of legality around the time of Jerry Ford's pardon of Nixon. So I wonder if you wouldn't mind talking about how executive privilege became a part of the conversation and how it became so central to discussions of the role of the presidency in general.
- [17:21]
Charlie Gibson
Well, you know, it came up specifically in the context of the White House tapes. And first Archibald Cox, the prosecutor, and then Leon Jaworski, his successor, issued subpoenas to the White House to get the tapes. And Nixon's lawyers cited executive privilege, which is, you know, a broad rubric that says certain executive functions should be free from scrutiny from others, from the other branches of government. But to me, a related issue is the most interesting, which is everyone involved in this pardon discussion in 1974 operated on the assumption that once Nixon was out of office, he could be prosecuted when he was in office. It's a constitutionally difficult question. Can you indict a sitting president? But everyone, Congress, Nixon's lawyers, the Ford lawyers, the Watergate special prosecutors, they all assumed that Nixon could be prosecuted. Then came last year, the decision in Trump v. United States, where Chief Justice Roberts opinion for the court says no president can be prosecuted for anything he does in his official capacity. And if you try to fit that decision into Watergate, that certainly suggests to me that Nixon could not have been prosecuted for any of these things. But it's just an example of how much the law has shifted since 1974, that the accountability that everyone assumed Nixon faced in 1974, in 2024, and now 2025, it doesn't exist anymore. So the President is unaccountable under the criminal law today, and that's a big change.
- [19:10]
Kate
Jeffrey, we're going to take a pause. We'll come back. One of the interesting things, there's of people who believed that there was a deal that Nixon said to Jerry Ford, I'll give you the presidency if you'll give me a pardon. That was a theory very much alive in the land. Does Jeffrey buy it? We'll get to that when the bookcase continues Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com now streaming on Hulu. It's a serial killer case. He's the Dahmer you've never heard of.
- [20:09]
Jeffrey Toobin
I definitely felt the presence of evil.
- [20:11]
Charlie Gibson
But did he act alone? Now, finally, not many people live to tell about their involvement with the serial killer.
- [20:17]
Kate
The one man who helped break the case.
- [20:19]
Charlie Gibson
Never before a face to face interview with the camera. Why?
- [20:22]
Jeffrey Toobin
Now?
- [20:22]
Kate
Let me ask you, what do you think? Am I the evil culprit, the accomplice?
- [20:27]
Charlie Gibson
I'd like to know how the audience views me. The Fox Hollow murders, playground of a serial killer.
- [20:33]
Kate
Now streaming on Hulu.
- [20:41]
Jeffrey Toobin
Now. Since Jerry Ford part Nixon President Joe Biden pardoned his son, we're looking at a slew of Trump pardons. Roger Stone, Manafort. I guess my question is, have we crossed some sort of line of cynicism with the presidential pardon? Can we ever go back to what the presidential pardon was originally created for? Or as at this point it is as pointless as the paper on which it is printed?
- [21:09]
Charlie Gibson
Well, it's hard to know. I mean, the negative reaction to the Ford pardon of Nixon was such that as the subsequent presidents, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, they did very few pardons. There was such a negative reaction to that pardon that the presidents were very wary about issuing pardons. That started to change with Trump's first term. I mean, he pardoned all of the people prosecuted by Robert Mueller. Donald Trump has a very transactional view of his power and he's like, this is something I can do for my friends. This is for something I can do to punish my enemies like Robert Mueller. And I'm gonna do it. Joe Biden didn't issue a lot of pardons until the very end. But I think the Hunter Biden pardon really, I think further degraded the process because whatever you think about Hunter Biden, he was guilty of a number felonies and Joe Biden gave him a pass. And the only reason he gave him a pass is because he was his son. And then you get to the current Trump term and the pardon of 1500 people, including many violent criminals, because Donald Trump thought they were doing the right thing in trying to overturn the election. We're at a moment where the pardon power is being used in a vastly expanded way. And I don't, and I think not a good way. The shame of it is I think there is a place for the pardon power. There are 150,000 people in federal prison in the United States. Not all of them should be there. Some of them are old. Some of them were convicted of crimes that were relatively minor. But that's not how it's being used. Barack Obama actually did use it that way.
- [22:58]
Jeffrey Toobin
I was going to ask about the Presidential Clemency Project, and if he felt that that worked.
- [23:03]
Charlie Gibson
I thought it was a very good project and I thought it should have been bigger than it was. But he did wind up issuing commutations, not pardons, to about 1500 people, but that's the way. And none of them were political insiders. He didn't know any of them personally. It was an arm's length process. That, to me, was a much better use of the pardon power than what we've seen since.
- [23:24]
Kate
Let me ask a basic question as to whether you came away after writing this book from feeling any way that Ford was tricked into pardoning Nixon. Nixon always maintained that he didn't necessarily want the pardon. Was he lying? Because you certainly would indicate that back behind the scenes he was campaigning for it. And since every story needs a bad guy, you seem to point to Alexander Haig in the Ford White House as being a sort of double agent campaigning for Nixon. And then there's the question of whether Ford did this on humanitarian grounds, thinking that Nixon was so troubled by Watergate that he might die and Nixon was. When Ford people met with him, Nixon was looking very, very downtrodden and very wan and whatever. And then as soon as he got the pardon, boy, he went on to a rather full life after that. So in any way, it's a long way of getting around the question, did Ford get tricked in any way?
- [24:23]
Charlie Gibson
Did Nixon lie? Yes. Was Alexander Haig a double agent? Yes. Was Ford tricked? Basically, the answer to that is yes. You know, one of the great historical debates that I address in this book is, was there a deal? A lot of people were suspicious of the pardon because they thought there was a deal, that Nixon agreed to resign in return for a promise from Poured for a pardon. It's like, I'll give you the presidency, but you have to give me A pardon. I believe there was no deal, that this was not a corrupt bargain in that way. And I think one of the important points to remember about Gerry Ford in this whole story is I think he was operating honestly and he was honest about the pardon throughout. That doesn't mean it was the right decision. I think it was the wrong decision, but it was not a crooked decision by Ford. There was no secret deal in the works, though Haig tried to suggested such a deal would be a good idea. But just to go to your question of was Ford tricked, I think he did not educate himself fully about the whole circumstances. And Nixon and Haig, who knew of the. More of the circumstances, presented the facts in such a way that the pardon was a more likely outcome than it should have been. So, yeah, I do think fundamentally, Ford was tricked.
- [25:52]
Kate
You contend that the Ford people used, to a large extent, based their thoughts on a 1915 Supreme Court decision, the Burdick case, that basically maintained that Nixon would be confessing to wrongdoing by simply accepting the pardon, that it was no free ride. But I never heard of that belief. It was certainly lost on the public. If it was in the backs of Ford's mind, why didn't Ford call attention to it? Why didn't he say publicly that? I believe, given Supreme Court decisions in the past, that Nixon is admitting wrongdoing by accepting the pardon, something that Nixon never did.
- [26:33]
Jeffrey Toobin
He seemed very confident in it, as did his staff, as did Becker.
- [26:37]
Charlie Gibson
This just shows why the process of the pardon was such a mess, including the public discussion of it. Because it is true that Ford cared deeply about the Burdick case, and I'm told, carried an excerpt of it in his wallet for the rest of his life. But at the time, he didn't talk about it. And to this day, that case is a very obscure case. And I'm pretty knowledgeable about Supreme Court cases. I'd never heard of it until I started researching this book. And I think it was a limit of, you know, lawyers sometimes think law cases are more important than they are. Jerry Ford was a lawyer. He was surrounded by lawyers in the White House, and they had this Supreme Court case that said, you know, acceptance of a pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt. No one believes that. Does anyone believe that the 1600 people who were pardoned now acknowledge that what they did was wrong? Hell, no. They think what they did was great. And President Trump thought, you know, what they did was great. That Burdick case, I think, just turned into this ridiculous distraction for Ford and his allies, and they didn't even use it properly at the time, as. As you point out, and it just led them completely astray.
- [28:02]
Jeffrey Toobin
The last question I wanted to ask is American law seems to be based. And you say this a lot in the book, a lot of American law seems to be based on the fact that there is no citizen who is above. Given the use of the presidential pardon and the cynical use of the presidential pardon in the last few decades, is that still true?
- [28:21]
Charlie Gibson
Well, that's a hard question, Ms. Gibson. I think particularly the Trump v. United States case has created a scenario where the President of the United States is effectively above the law. There will never be any sort of criminal accountability for the president. Now, as long as that case stays on the books. And the risk of giving president the pardon power is that they can reward their friends in a way where there is no check or balance on it. I mean, I think it was really wrong that Joe Biden was able to reward his son in the way he did and his other family members with a pardon. So I think the answer is yes. There are, unfortunately, too many opportunities for people to be above the law. I still wouldn't get rid of the pardon power altogether because I do think the opportunity for actual exercises of mercy, which have been done on occasion are a good thing. But, alas, that's not been the major way it's been used in recent years.
- [29:27]
Kate
Well, but you present a paradox there in that you say it's being misused now, but I wouldn't get rid of it. And so I guess. But there has been a lot of talk in recent days about the pardon power after the president pardoned all those rioters at the Capitol and after President Biden pardoned his family. And people are saying, well, don't complain about this. Those presidents had the power to do this. This was perfectly within their purview. So if you don't like it, change it. Well, that's not realistic, really, is it? I mean, aren't we stuck with this?
- [29:56]
Charlie Gibson
No, it's. We're not gonna, you know, they're not. No one's gonna amend the Constitution to get rid of it. My answer is don't get rid of the pardon. Just issue better pardon. There are a lot of people out there who should be pardoned. But.
- [30:09]
Kate
Yeah, but you're not chief of staff at the White House, Jeffrey. You're not.
- [30:13]
Charlie Gibson
You're.
- [30:13]
Kate
You're not one of the.
- [30:16]
Charlie Gibson
Charles, that is one of the great understatements of all time that I am not chief of staff at The White House. I am very far from chief staff of the White House, but, you know, I still have an opinion about how pardon should be used. And, you know, I think, I think they should use it better.
- [30:31]
Kate
God bless you, Jeffrey. You come away with the conclusion that morality should prevail. That's a very quaint notion in this day and age.
- [30:39]
Charlie Gibson
I know. How about that, huh?
- [30:41]
Kate
Jeffrey Toobin, it is such a great pleasure to talk with you. I wanted to go to law school when I was in college, and the law school recruiter said to me, with all due respect, Mr. Gibson, looking at your grades, I would save your application fee. So I didn't go to law school, but I had advantage as hosting Good Morning America of talking to Arthur Miller and then Jeffrey Toobin. And I feel like I got a good law school education from the two of them. My thanks to you, sir.
- [31:07]
Charlie Gibson
Well, well, thanks, pal. Thanks. And thanks, Katie.
- [31:11]
Jeffrey Toobin
Thank you. Conversation with the great Jeffrey Toobin. I had so much fun reading this book and having this conversation with the two of you about the pardon, but I got the sense that you just had plain old fun talking to Jeffrey Toobin. And if we've been discussing, you know, head lice or bedbugs, yay or nay, you still would have had fun.
- [31:31]
Kate
I'm delighted to talk to him about the phone book, although he wouldn't write a phone book because that would be boring. But his books are really interesting. He's a, I think, a very good commentator on the Supreme Court and on legal issues. He admits when he's wrong, which happens on occasion. I don't think he's wrong in this case. He's tough on Ford, that Ford got manipulated into this, tricked if you want, that Ford wasn't paying enough attention to the need to set the public up to anticipate this and that. It. I keep saying this. It was so surprising to me, Jeffrey's contention that the pardon wasn't necessary in the first place. You know, it's. When I picked this book up, I thought, this is a 50 year old case and are people going to be interested? But it's, it reads really, really well. If you have any knowledge of what happened around Watergate, this will increase your knowledge. It will give you a good read and it'll teach you, even if you're a student of it. And I'm talking about you, my roommate from college, Gus Maffrey. If you're a student of Watergate, I think you will learn something new.
- [32:35]
Jeffrey Toobin
Yeah, absolutely. And you may notice for this conversation that we did not Include Rapid Fire. That's how fun the conversation was. The two of them were going to talk forever if I let them. So we actually didn't include the rapid fire. But I'm excited to announce that we're sort of. We're increasing our social media presence. And we posted some questions from the Rapid Fire with Jeffrey Toobin, which actually really is very interesting. We talked to him about his favorite Supreme Court justice. We talked to him about which president he thinks was the most significant. So we posed some really great questions. Do check us out on social media. Not only do we put some stuff that's in the show and some extra tidbits for stuff that doesn't appear in the show, but we also, you know, we like to give you something that you can forward to your friends. We're looking for as many people to get addicted to the bookcase as possible.
- [33:23]
Kate
And we do have.
- [33:23]
Jeffrey Toobin
Do check us out.
- [33:24]
Kate
We do have some commercials at the top of the show and in the middle of the show. And I know there's a lot of commercials around, but they're really important to us because they make this podcast possible. And I'm going to do an advertisement for us. Go tell your friends about this. We have had extraordinarily generous, kind and thoughtful reactions from people who do listen week in and week out. And there are a lot of people who are very devoted to listening, even every Thursday. And don't wait 24 or 48 hours to listen. We really would like each of you to become to proselytize for the show to get your friends ambassadors. If you people who are listening, we. We have a pretty good sense are real. As Kate likes to say, book nerds. And book nerds know book nerds. And if you corral your friends to listen a little bit, we find that once people do give us a sample, they stick with us. Enough. Enough of a commercial.
- [34:20]
Jeffrey Toobin
We're just that good. We're just that good.
- [34:22]
Kate
Oh, well, yes, I feel uncomfortable doing that, but I. We really need more people listening.
- [34:27]
Jeffrey Toobin
Thank you.
- [34:27]
Kate
We do. Well, I'm gonna let you do it next time, kiddo. So let's tell them about the individuals who work on the podcast. And then a coda from Jeffrey Toobin.
- [34:37]
Jeffrey Toobin
The Bookcase with Kate and Charlie Gibson is a production of ABC Audio and Good Morning America. It is edited by Tom Butler of TKO Productions. Our executive producers are Laura Mayer and Simone Swink. We want to make mention of Taylor Rhodes, Amanda McMaster and Sarah Russell at Good Morning America. And Josh Cohen, Asal Asanapour, Meg Fierro and Amira Williams at ABC Audio.
- [34:58]
Charlie Gibson
When my father died back in 1984, a long time ago, I found among his possessions a little leather book in which he wrote down every book that he read as he read it. And ever since I found that, which was in about 1987, I have written down every book I have read since 1987. And it is the greatest physical possession that I have, other than the living things in our apartment. It is the thing I would take out first in the event of a fire. And it just underlines for me how much I love books and reading. And everybody should keep a book of books like that, because it's a kind of autobiography that I really treasure.