ye her, knowing what you

know now, would you have done this differently, would you have stepped back? i said i imagine you might have. she actually said, i would have. it is important to me to seek a solution i am a policy it meant me stepping back, i would have done that. hindsight is 20/20 and who knows , you do not get the to do things like that over again, but her point was very much seeming to be come from somebody who has learned the hard way that americans did not

want that from a first lady. peter: you write that laura bush benefited from hillary rodham clinton. how so? katie: one clinton advisor said hillary clinton could nev it was a huge problem in the media, it was dissect did within an inch of its life if did. laura bush wearing pantsnton advisors see that as something that was smoothed for the lady. i know that seems superficial on itsac is not, but also laura the benefit of coming after somebody who had been really by the media, by her opponents during the impeachment. also the fact that

laura bush became a wartime firstly so it is not all related to hillary clinton but laura bush was able take over the presidential radio address during the war and there is a no way hillary clinton woul speak for her husband in any formal capacity, especially here is laura bush from november 17, 2001. >> only the terrorists and taliban for education of women. only they threaten to pull ouen for wearing nailisn and children in afghanistan is a matter of out by those who seek to intimidate and control. civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror not only because our hearts break for the women and children in afghanistan, butuse in afghanistan we see would like to impose on the rest of us. peter: katie rogers time.

katie: it wasn't aou look at it in the context of what laura bush was doing versus what hillary clinton had attempted to do, it is a big deal, a huge deal that she could of the administration on foreign policy, of all things. i think in the moment it was truly, if you think back to that time, it was collectively traumatic for the american people. the bushes did not see it coming. she had to step up into this rolehad not expected to take, a wartime, the presidentcommander-in-chief but that first lady does share some of that responsibility. so i think it was seen as what was needed all hands on de the context of what came immediately before, it is a big deal. peter: some of the adjectives

you use in your book to describe ura burestless independent covert not overt communicator. at? katie: i am getting at la had aty talking with experts to analyze each modern first lady speeches, laura bush communicating that was very, it cameoss as invested to her administration, but not political. it was more through the lens ofmother and wife and supporter of her husband who cared about these issues, not as a senior advisor, somebody with her own extensive tracunderstanding the political implicatioher approach was very much

through the lens of a swhich does not make it any less effective, but it is a different approach. peter: a more traditional approach, yes? katie:os press conferences and schedule husband's, but she ver much, even she would say that is my husband's domain when asked politics or foreign policy. at laura bush kind of adopted that traditional than that. peter: here is laura bush in 2005 at the white house correspondents association dinner. >> not that old joke. not again. i have been attending these dinners for years. [laughter] d just quietly sitting there. i

say. george always says he is delighted to come to these press dinners. baloney. [laughter] [applause] he is usually in bed by now. i'm t kidding. [laughter] i said to him the other day, george, if you really want to security in the world, you are going to have to stay up later -- and security -- tyranny in the world, you are going to have to stay up later. peter: taking over her husband's speech was a big hit in washingte: a big hit because laura bush is actually smart and very funny and very quick andof everything else, her public persona was very is my husband's domain and that is mine. to haveis very dry, pragmatic, texan sense of humor, i also write in the

book that bush advisors would te me she was there to remind george bush of who he was and where he came and you can hear and see that in the speech. peter: c-span did a series called first ladies and we sat down interview. here is what she had to say about how she viewed her role as first lady. >> w had for a number of years in the united states, since the very beginning, very active and involved first ladies who both support their husbands and their policies the husbands are working on, but also in many cases have their own initiative. a lot of times to help womenwhat we want,is that they can also do that. there is a role for first ladies to have. to talk about especially women's issues and issues that have to do with children. peter: katie rogersespondent, is it

important ors agenda is? katie: of course they do. i have only covered the trump and biden white houses but and writing in the book there are questions at the outset of every turn, what is the first lady's portfolio, agenda, what is she will she have multiple issues? is it a mistake to have multiple instead of one like what we saw with a jill biden right now, the fact that she does not sort of have a tentpole issue has been a constant question about if it is the right thing to do. people ied in the potential of the first lady to sortaura bush's point about being an advocate for women and children but i there is an underlying curiosity from the american people, and it is a

totally reasonable much influence does she have with her husband? can she affect change through her husband? like privately between the two of them? that is sort of an interesting subtext of all of that interest. and you really see that from the clinton white house and forward which is what this book is about. peter: laura bush invited historians to the white house late in their administration to discuss legacy. katie: that's right. i talked with several people who were invited for relayed to me that for as much as she did during the bu presidency, she was curious about how history would perceive her and what she could do or how she should think about framing herself, framing her legacy after she was done. that was sort of the question

r: how do you think she is perceived today? katie: teally good question. i think, as you know, i think exited washington in a time of a of criticism around the choices president bush made attacks. i think now almost 23 years on, laura bush is seen as almostsomeone who brought his domestic policyt lady lengths to put a softer focus on some of th choices like no children left behind. it is not to americans to decide if that was the right thing to

doi think looking back at her, she has this ability to reframe some really hard questions americans were asking peter: katie rogers, you report biden invited historians already to the white house early in their administration. was not to help -- was that to help clarify her r another great question. i don'tnk based on, i upwards o and this is not my opinion, it is just she had herriories, which is central to that was supporting her husband but just right next to that priority was maintaining her own identity as a she is somebody who married into the biden family when joe biden was already a senator. she was a teacher.

she viewed teaching as a way to stabilize her own identity in a very defiant family. the goal, the north star, has been joe biden and his political mission and her interest in was a huge driver. so i think when she met with those historians, it was almost a gut check to assess whether or not having a few different initiatives that w smaller supporting military families cancer research, free coitllege, whether that was enough. and it was a debate about whether or not it was. so i do not know if it helped her define her legacy, i think whatever happened after that meeting, it is pretty clear that she has kept teaching and also another thing is that she is she

is a very popular and effecve campaigner for her husband. more than anytngpolicy, it has been teaching and raisg y and roshe was only doine outside americans. the suggestion that she was undertaking these causes because she was personally attracted to them was not something she was used to hearing. katie: that is true. theres a historianher in that her the feedback americans see you was research, and that is of she had friends who died of breast cancer early in her life, but also beau biden died in 2016 of brain cancer so the feedback froms was light, it is great that you are interested in that and community college but people see u.s. personally tied was kind of bruising for her to hear afterwards in terms

of what she was discussing with feedback. so i think that was something she was proud of, she was proud of her effort, is proud of her effort in the arenas of research and community education and to hear that it was perhaps not for most americans was a hard thing to hear. peter: she still teaches english on tuesdays at nova community college in northern virginia. and you wrote that she said make it happen. katie: not publicly known that my book details is the degree sort of fight to be able to teach without her husband or his advisor wondering out loud how she would be paid, how it would not run afoul of ethics. president biden was concerned it

would be too much for her and with the help of her age she had to push to donvince everyone it was ok to do. work behind the scenes to make that happen. it was not a given that she would teach, even though she had publicly said she plans to. peter: and no reporters allowed. katie: that is a serious church and state division.i think reporter who would ask the college gets routed immediately to the east wing prerogative. but as a reporter, it is such a huge part of her identity and life story, it is interesting to me that they do not people see that, especially because it is such a huge peter: but you did check o her

rate to professor reviews. katie: yes. they think she is a tough grader. on trips i have taken with her i have seen her sort pouring over the papers and she is very invested in getting feedback to her students. peter: katie rogers, from your extended interviews with jill biden, what are your impressions? katie: my impressions? a short question with a long answer, i think. husband. and i think she is very practiced at allowing glimpses of her personal life that have already been vetted and workshop and approved over a lot of

years. she much differentis in public and in private, and thatng thing to say. i guess that's a way of saying she has learned to guard herself over many years in the public eye. she is conversational, curious she often answers a question with a question, which is i think an interesting tactici think she is hard to get to know, but then again, shhas given so much of herself to the already, that i think i can understand how that would be very important to protect. peter: we are going to show video of her in that campaign trail in 2020 in los a-- on the campaign

trail in 2020 in los angeles. peter: katie rogers you describe her as the family mother. shep on that stage. katie: i feel like i have watched that video probably 30 times. i think it says a lot about her instincts in that moment. to sort of get between her husband and anyone trying to hurt him. protective of the president in general, and has been for a long time, but she sort up his core of wanting to she is there is part of

the philadelphia girl persona that is very true, it is who sh was she willing to talk about her role as mother to beau hunter, ashley, and uently the age issue being discussed in p kati sheon himobviously amelia died in 1972 along with bowen hunter's infant sister. but they call amelia and they refer to the first lady as mom. she wants to check in with hunter regularly to let him k and is thinking about him. ashley, asl. wel though -- beau, it is very apparent, also in light of the special counsel reporthat came out last week, how upsetting the loss of beauy still

feel that loss. peter: here is jill biden at the 2020 democratic convention. >> there are those who want our country is hopelessly divided, our fferences are irreconcilable. but that is not what i have seen over the last few months. we are coming together and holding onto each other. we are finding mercy and grace in the moments we might have taken for granted once. we are and our similarities infinite. we have shown that the heart of this nation still beats with kindness and courage. peter: katie r? katie: i have a reaction to it in the sense that that wasromise of the bidens in 2020, they would be the uniter's and to mend the country back together after four years of donald trump and a hugely

traumatic national experience that was the coronavirus pandemic. myeato that is that the tone is year. there is i think an acknowledgment said than done. peter: do chance to see jill biden around the white houseob? katie: no. when i am there, i am ing or briefing room or having interactionssident mostly. i do not see her unless i at an event that the east w or traveling with her. she is not somebody who is walking around the west wing having informal meetings with for her husband. are protecting him and doing the right thing for him and working

effectively for him without her having to sort of micromanage that. how big is the new york times staff at the white house? how many reporters? katie: i think we have six now. it changes, depending on whether somebody is traveling abroad or filling in for reporters abroad or have six right now. peter: what was task for the new york times? katie: i was from indiana and started at my hometown paper in 2007. that was when the great recession happened. i'm only going back this far a weird path compared to a lot of my colleagues. i to graduate school at northwestern because the economy was terrible and i really wanted a reporting job so i thought maybe if i got a degree in journalism i could go somewhere bigger and

work in digital media, i was always really interestedblogging, i had done it as through social media, fighting people on facebook and twitter and back ew and just a whole other world of reporting that was unlocked. it came naturally to me, so i made my way to washington. i worked on social media at the washington post and transitioned to local reporting and did a lot of the same work at the guardian commit band reporting that way. and then i got a job at the times working o18an app and was hired on the overnight shift 10 years ago to sort of run a news app and weirdly enough, that was during that time oats in would report

overnight and feed breaking newsneeded it. and i came up through that of breaking news and general assignment rewrites. and i paired that wit it brought me to the washington bureau the first weekend of the trump -- trump presidency. i covered features and it was supposed to be for three months and i am still herend i have been on the white house team since 2018 so i have a lot of a different background than a lot of the reporters had at the paper. a lot of them who older, a lot of them started their time as copy clerksok a completely different route media. peter: katie rogers first book is called "american woman: the first lady, from hilary clinton to jill biden." do you think jill biden's second

yearsd second lady have helped over the role? katie: she understood the bubble, the degrf protection that goes into the everyday life of those principles. she had a lot more freedom to move without scrutiny than she does now, but i think it was instctive and she works with michelle obama on the military families initiative that she has carried forward through her time as first lady so there is that connection. i think it did and also being able to teach as second lady she was able to say, i made this ha i will make this happen now. what it took when the bidens

were already in the administration. peter: was michelle obama a tough act to follow? katie: i did ask of the current first lady this, but according to her aides and finding aids going backin because the expectations sding michelle obama and what she would do with the platform and how she would use it and how -- what she would say on what she would wear there was so much interest in and michelle obama really leaned into a lot of it. person said she made washington cool. celebrities wanted to be at the obama white house. they wanted to know what she was wearing, what and then there was the whole black first lady element of it, the racial scrutiny around her was

enormous and she navigated tha by all accounts with grace and a pragmatic understanding of what was expected from her. so in that sense, following that , and also we haddyavof reset theto zero when you had a first lady who did very little with her platform. so if jill biden had followed michel obama, that probably would have been much moretion. but there was that period things were unraveled and reset. peter: here is michelle obama from the 2008 democratic national convention. >> you work hard from what you want at life, that your word is your bond, you do what youyou are going to do, that you treat people with dignity do not know

them, and even if you do not agree with them. [applause] and ba i set out lives guided by these values and to pass them onto the next generation, because we want our children and all children in the nation to know that the only limits to the height of your acevf your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them. peter: katie rogers, you describe michelle iconic, straightforward speaking style wit, little patience for politics but did not want to live with the alternative version of that story if she did not say yes to barack obama's run. katie: right. and that is in her own words that shential so much that she put her own interests aside professionally and personally to help him win, to campaign

extensively for him, to take the hits which sheid when she stepped or misspoke. it is as simple as that and that is actually traditional first lady habit where these women do not want to take on the added scrutiny and do not want to raise thr chil under these lights and it is that choice she made out of belief in her husband. peter: can you talk speaking? february 2008 in wisconsin, she was criticized for this remark. >> what have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. it is making a comeback, and let me tell you something else. for the first time in my adult lifetime, i am really proud of my country. and not because barack has

done well, but because i think people are hungry for change. and desperate to see our country moving in that and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. peter: katie rogers? katie: the context oft, if we were not far down the road from the september 11 attacks and there was so much anger over how it was handled, but there was a huge swath of the american public who had given their brothers their friends to this so some of the criticism was rooted in that and some of it was rooted in the fact that this is according to people who time, the belief that this was racial animus, having a womanack woman married to a black presidential candidate saying proud of their country, so the root of

the black experience in america as well that was scrutinized and questioned. there were all of these different tentacles behind the criticism of her the one that stuck to her throughout the rest of the campaign and that she was cognizant aboutha that was a moment for her where she learned very early that something at felt emphatic, hope is returning, my husband represents this, there a fine line between that and criticizing or saying something that would be as criticism by a huge swath of the country. peter: here she is late in their adnistration from tuskegee in 2015. >> at the end of the day, by staying true to the me i have always known i found that this journey has been incredibly because no matter what happens, i had the peace of knowing

name-calling doubting, was just me. it did not change who iit most importantly could not hold me back. i have learned that as long as i hold fast to my beliefs and values and follow my own moral compass, the only expectations i need to live up to our my own. peter:. katie:ent voices you hear from the spouse of a candidate to a tried and tested first lady eight years on? that is my first instinct, hearing those speeches so close together. and think about all of the personally this goes back to the trump's as well, donald trump and melania trump questioning president obama's citizenship and that is something that went on for a long time and it is something

michelle obama said she will never forgive the trump's for doing. sothin family, they had two young girls in the white is the sort of scar tissue that develops row like this when politics become dangerous. so you have a first lady at the end of her time saying all that matters is i know wh now the way she operates on the world stage, is somebody who learned those lessons and is applyingost politics life. peter: did michelle obama or melania trump sit down with you? katie: neither did. melania trump engaged through a spokesperson. michelle obama didle other. donald trump motivated by said is largelyiv the fact that she could to stay with him, she hass a testament to her strength. katie: yes. they have been very, they were

more forthcoming about the exchange they were making in gave several interviews saying i could not -- if i could not offer her money and security, what am i good for?and back then, she would essentially say s an exchange. so i think that over time talking to people who know them their bondsnderstanding of each other is different than any of these other relationships i wrote about in my book. but iti think by many accounts she cares about him and believes in him, she would not have supported him during the birth or conspiracy if she did not to some degree share a lot of the same instincts. she would not have supported him through the access hollywood

tape if she was not convinced to some degree that he was goaded into saying it. whether or not that is what happened is sort of irrelevant, but she was willing to defend him. she was angry over the stormy daniels payments but froreporting, it was more about being embarrassed by the headlines. it was about having infidelity in her marriage. they have an interesting dynamic that is about t peter: hillary rodham clinton, laura bush, michelle obama melaniathe first five ladies -- five first ladies of the 21st ce katie: in the sense of what could come after? peter:/rá what are you seeing? do you see a trend with them? is it different than it was 50

years ago? katie: of course. that is the crux of the book i think,:r that outside of the role, et world is changing so muchs in politics technology have really provided women to of boundaries and be scrutinized for it, yes &c but once a change is made, it is done and that is what i was saying a little earlier about melania trump really highlighted for americans the fact that you do not have to do anything for this role if you don't wantthere have been first lady ladies throughout history who did very little compared to hillary clinton or eleanor roosevelt or these the fact that melania trump was doing it our time is almost radical. so when you have somebody that comes in and illuminates the

unwrittenrdless of how you feel about them,ext person in the world to say i still want to be first lady but i and it becomes almost a radical idea when you have peopl are pushing the boundaries so in the public eye. lom's time in officehave f with the platform she has been given and of course how far she might go. the book ision of the modern first lady, from hilary clinton to jill biden." the author, new york times correspondent katie rogers>> all q&a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on our c-span now up. --